A Note from Dean Nathan
Friends, for the past several months, we’ve invited you to join in-person worship at Trinity Cathedral on a limited reservation basis as we’ve implemented a variety of measures to ensure the safety of every member of our community.
Moving forward, as Multnomah County moves to “low risk” status and more of us experience life on the other side of the COVID vaccine, we are ready to make further changes that will allow us to begin to return to Trinity in greater numbers and with a greater degree of normalcy.
Beginning Sunday, June 6th, you will see the following changes to Sunday morning services:
Reservations will no longer be required to attend Cathedral services. We will discontinue temperature checks and sign-ins.
There will be a dedicated area in the Cathedral for continued social distancing, so that families with children under twelve or those who have not been vaccinated can be assured of their safety. The remainder of the Cathedral will not be socially distanced; congregants may sit wherever they choose but should remain masked throughout the service for the time being.
Services will continue to be livestreamed to our website, Facebook, and YouTube.
Congregational singing is encouraged, and the exchange of the peace can happen with appropriate touch!
The Trinity Nursery will be open once again for children age 4 and younger.
Beginning Monday, June 7th, the Cathedral campus will once again be open to the public. Masks will be required in all indoor public spaces.
The main office will operate under summer hours (Monday-Friday, 10:00 am-3:00 pm)
Cathedral spaces will be available for in-person meetings and gatherings from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm daily.
Groups using the Cathedral buildings for gatherings should continue to observe social distance protocols and room limits for the time being.
Please contact Jilli Bronson to schedule meetings or other events by using our online event request form found at trinity-episcopal.org/events
Friends, we are beginning to return to life as we knew it – and at the same time, we know there is no going back. We can only move forward, and reopening the Cathedral is part of how we will move forward together. It has been wonderful to see familiar faces as well as many new faces over the past several months as we have experimented with limited in-person worship.
This summer will be an opportunity to “practice” what it means to be a radically welcoming community once again – after more than a year of shut-downs, we are going to have to learn once again what it means to engage our bodies in worship, to greet old friends with a hug and learn the names and stories of the many new members who have joined us since pandemic began (wearing your name tag is a good start!).
Many of us continue to carry the trauma and the scars of this past year – and we know that “returning to normal” won’t happen overnight. It will take us time to learn, once again, how to be a community. Let’s practice welcoming one another home, gently and with compassion. I can’t wait to sing with you once again!
-Nathan