Saturday, March 14, 2020

Responding to COVID-19

I know some of you are aware that many of our campuses have extended spring break by a week and are moving all instruction to online-learning for the rest of the semester in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The situation is still developing, but I know many of my ministry partners already have questions about what this means for FOCUS. Here's a letter we sent to our students detailing where we are right now. Please be praying for us and that we can take full advantage of this very different season of campus ministry.

March 13, 2020

To the FOCUS Community:

I want to update you on how FOCUS is responding to COVID-19, especially in light of so many of our campuses extending spring break and moving to online instruction only afterward. As a community, we need to be praying diligently for our world during this concerning time. We don’t need to panic, because we know our hope is secure in Christ, but we do need to take action in order to love our neighbors well. Those actions may be personally inconvenient, uncomfortable, and/or expensive. The situation is evolving daily, and spring break has disrupted our normal schedules and access to one another, so we will hopefully have more definite plans in the coming 2 weeks, but here are the actions we are currently taking/considering:
·      The 3 SSI trips from Washington State that were scheduled to arrive on March 22 are cancelled.
·      Pizza Theology will not happen in its normal format on March 29, but we are considering our options for livestreaming a special teaching time, so stay tuned!
·      After tonight, we are cancelling our weekly large group fellowships (TNF, TNT, FNF) on our various campuses. We will be following the various policies on each campus to determine how long that will be in effect. We are also considering livestreamed weekly services to replace these.
·      One-on-ones and FOJ studies will continue as planned, moving to phone or video calls depending on the health and comfort levels of the students and pastors involved.
·      For cores and other small groups, we are working with student life offices to determine what policies may affect those. We will not stop small groups of adults from gathering together, but we are also working on developing a video conferencing option. We will certainly encourage all sick or exposed students to stay away from others.
·      Leader development meetings on Monday nights will move to small groups led by a pastor, whether in-person or virtual.
·      We are waiting to make a final determination on SICM plans. We haven’t spent any money yet and it’s not urgent for a few more weeks. We will continue to monitor the situation for now.
Thanks for being gracious and flexible. We as a team of pastors are committed to providing pastoral care to the students in our community and beyond.

For the kingdom,
Brandon Worsham

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