Dear W family,

I am looking forward to joining you at our annual global ministries conference this weekend! It will be a great time to be inspired to bring the good news of Jesus to those both near and far.

Many of you may be aware that CDC recently changed how they measure community transmission levels and how its impact on mask wearing. Here’s a link if you want to know more: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.html

This week, the COVID team discussed our next steps in light of this recent change. After looking at the Texas Medical Center data and weighing whether to keep our current plan or change it to align with CDC, the COVID team decided to keep our current plan for the following reasons:

• We are one week away from the TMC data to meet our level 1 triggers, which means being mask optional at church and removing the QR code check-in for contact tracing as soon as 3/13. Please being preparing your ministries about this upcoming change. I will send out another email next week confirming what level we are in after the TMC data is updated on Monday, 3/7. 
• We have been changing our levels almost every week according to our plan and the data so changing the way we calculate the numbers now may cause some to stumble, especially when we are only one week away from getting there;
• We have a lot of events happening this weekend with the Global Ministries conference so keeping it for one more week may allow more people to participate;
• Our ministries, especially Children’s Ministry, will need to time to prepare and inform their families about the potential upcoming level 1.

As a reminder, in level 1:

• Mask wearing is optional; and
• Check-in for contact tracing is no longer required.

After we enter in level 1, the COVID team will meet to evaluate our current plan and its triggers to align more closely with the latest CDC guidance. 

Please continue to pray for COVID to decrease in our city, for our community to have understanding with these decisions, and for the team as we navigate out of this pandemic as it is also new territory for all of us. Thank you!

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Nathan