OK Update for Churches 4/17/2020

Oklahoma City, OK: Governor Stitt held a Zoom press conference at 10:00 a.m. to talk to church leaders about the latest COVID-19 statistics and how that affects worship. Below is a summary of that meeting.

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Oklahoma Statistics

Stats for Oklahoma are encouraging.

• Oklahoma has had 2357 known cases; 895 are active; 136 deaths.
  
• An estimated 60-80 thousand people are already over the virus having developed immunities. Most may not have known it was Coronavirus related.
  
• March 30 marked the state's hospital peak with 882 hospitalized.
  
• Trending curves continue to flatten.
  
• Oklahoma is the 28th state with the most populated cases.
  
• Unemployment peaked last week with 60 thousand requiring benefits. 634 people are manning the call center with abandoned calls dropping to less than 1%.
  
• Forty percent of deaths in the state are in nursing homes.
  

Resources Available to the Public

• coronavirus.health.ok.gov: Most state related information including stats, symptoms, and lists of testing sites.
  
• 211 or 877-215-8336: Hotlines available for questions related to COVID-19
  
• oesc.ok.gov: For questions, concerns, and applications of unemployment benefits.
  

What About Church?

• Continue to shelter at home throughout April.
  
• Assuming the data trends as expected, the governor is thinking that May 3 should be the first Sunday people assemble at church for worship. He expects to have some "safe practice" guidelines that he can share recommended by various congregations to make the gathering as safe as possible (seating, sanitation, etc.).

Given that Wilmont's membership includes a large percentage of seniors that prove to remain a higher risk, we will be extra conservative about timing and practices related to classroom and congregational gathering. Your staff is working with health professionals and government leaders to best understand how to move forward. Best practices for our congregation may involve postponing worship gathering past state openings, limiting small group meetings, modified seating arrangements, worship time changes, or other inconveniences. We would ask that you understand both our desire to meet with the church as well as our interest in providing the safest environment for those meetings.

We love you in the Lord and look forward to gathering with you again in worship.
Because of Him,
Shawn Nichols, Sr. Pastor

About Wilmont Place Baptist Church: Wilmont Place Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist church of 150 active members on the south side of Oklahoma City. Text-driven expository preaching, Bible-teaching, personal growth, and community evangelism define the culture and direct the activities and events of the congregation. The church is working through a formal revitalization strategy in which members become family and the community becomes ministry.

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