Dear St. Andreans,

It is sometimes surreal to think that it has been more than two years that we have been living through a global pandemic, with various rounds of restrictions and many unknowns. It has been hard on all of us and called upon our faith in ways we may never have imagined we would have needed.

Today, while we are still living with COVID-19, we are experiencing, municipally and provincially, a shift towards removing many of the restrictions and mandates that we have been living with for the last two years. In many of the places we frequent in our daily lives the choice to adopt practices such as masking and maintaining personal distance has now become the personal choice of individuals as well as businesses. Each of us will have our own views and level of comfort when it comes to being close to others, being out in public and wearing a mask. At St. Andrew’s we believe we need to respect this and find ways forward that acknowledge, navigate and respect each others’ views, comforts and choices.

While the practices established for worship have not been changed they will be reviewed by the Kirk Session at its meeting on Tuesday April 5th. This means that the requirement to mask and maintain a physical distance of 6 feet between households is still in place for worship during March. We have dropped contact tracing simply because Ottawa Public Health does not do this anymore but we do ask that those attending worship be double vaccinated where possible.

A brief survey was sent out on March 22nd so that congregants could provide the COVID advisory committee of the Kirk Session some information with regards to how you are feeling with the changing restrictions and to take a current pulse of what St. Andreans are thinking at this moment in time when it comes to participating in in person worship. Responses will be kept confidential but will inform the KS and its committees in the decisions they make in the coming weeks.

The COVID advisor committee to the Kirk Session and its Commitees is made up of

Colleen Ferris

Heather Pilkey

Jeanie Hicks

Peter Lamont

Karen Dimock, Minister