Table Rock COVID-19 Update
See our original COVID-19 Response plan and statement here.
March 17, 2020
Dear Table Rock Family,
In a letter titled “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague,” written during a plague in Wittenberg and surrounding areas in 1527, Martin Luther famously turned the question on its head when he said:
This I well know, that if it were Christ or his mother who were laid low by illness, everybody would be so solicitous and would gladly become a servant or helper. Everyone would want to be bold and fearless; nobody would flee but everyone would come running….
If you wish to serve Christ and to wait on him, very well, you have your sick neighbor close at hand. Go to him and serve him, and you will surely find Christ in him, not outwardly but in his word.
(Martin Luther, "Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague")
Luther was not proposing that all people must run into the difficulty of the plague but was reminding them of the heart of Christ that they should be running toward. In Matthew 22:37–40 Jesus reminds his disciples that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love neighbor as ourselves. He also says in Matthew 25:40:
"And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" (Mathew 25:40 ESV)
As the situation regarding COVID-19 continues to progress in our state, we continue to pray for the same heart that considers our neighbor as we would consider and love God and ourselves and to trust in our all-powerful Lord and Savior.
As of yesterday evening, both the Boise School District and the West Ada School District have closed their schools through at least March 27, 2020. Our desire as Christians is to support our community—especially now when many are scared and do not have the hope of Jesus Christ. To that end, we are choosing to suspend Table Rock Sunday services, youth Wednesdays, and our Life Groups through the end of March. This will also include our TR101 class on March 22 and our Member's Meeting on March 29. We will continue to assess, along with our community, if we will extend this closure past those dates as additional information and recommendations become available.
During this time that we are closed we will not be streaming services online. Let us instead take this exceptional time as a moment to reflect on our lives, our salvation, and our God. To pray for our community, pray for medical professionals and first responders, pray for neighbors and friends, to offer help where we can, and to rest.
Additionally, in temporary times of disruption like this (as many generations before us have endured through war, persecution, and personal difficulties) we believe a necessary and often missed component is fellowship with others. Like much of social media, streamed content can create a semblance of fellowship without the real connection. Regardless of how long this situation lasts a great need will be for Christian encouragement face-to-face.
We pray you realize you have been equipped to do this well through your time in our Ephesian’s curriculum with your Life Group and your Open Life groups. We encourage our members and attenders to continue on through Ephesians 4:1–6 and 4:7–12 over these next two weeks utilizing our study guides. We will each have moments when we would have been in a Table Rock event (like a Life Group or Sunday Gathering) where it will be natural to think about how you can reach out to someone you know. For most of you, this type of fellowship in this season will happen either with small friend groups or with your family.
Small Friend Groups
Reach out to a small group of friends (likely less than 10) who you believe are not sick nor at a high risk for infection. Consider even your friends who are believers who attend another church and not-yet believers in your neighborhood. Use one of the three methods we encourage in the study guide to look at each section of Scripture with your group. Find time to pray for one another and for our community.
Family
Whether it is Sunday morning or a weekday, find time to go through Ephesians 4:1–6 and then 4:7–12 with your family. Utilize one of the study methods in the Ephesians guide to help your family think through Ephesians together. Help younger kids think through the same questions but at an age-appropriate level.
To help you in these smaller groups and your family, we will be sending out additional links to PDF copies of the Ephesians curriculum, videos to help you think about each section, curriculum links for our children’s curriculum to help with the youngest children, and even worship song lists via Spotify for you to worship to with your groups. Be watching for this information in the next day or two. As always, you can find past Table Rock sermons on our site (more information here) if you are interested in catching something you missed or listening to a sermon again (like a Table Rock priority sermon).
Our staff and elders are available as we normally would be to help you in any way we can. If this season of changes in our culture brings about specific hardships, please reach out and discuss your situation with us so we can help where we can and as is appropriate. We plan to continue to reach out to you individually over these next weeks to see how we can help your families. Our elders will continue to hold each of you up in prayer as we are apart.
Blessings,
The Table Rock Elders