The Episcopal Church has posted two educational resources online, "What is Swine Flu?" and "Planning for Pandemic Influenza." Bishop George Wayne Smith, leader of 14,000 members of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, said he expected church leaders "to use pastoral sense," and had not contacted them with any directives about what to do, or not to do, this weekend.
"If the situation worsens and this threatens us locally, I will be in direct contact with our congregations," Smith said.
Sherry Habben, director of connectional ministries for the the United Methodist Church's Missouri Conference, said leaders will leave it up to the state's 850 churches to decide what precautions to take.
"We have not officially put an alert out there," Habben said. "We would have to confer with some of our health personnel and health wards, and if anything it would be more of a suggestion at that point, rather than something we'd force them to do."
The Rev. Linda Harris, senior pastor of University United Methodist Church in University City, said she had no plans to worship differently this weekend. "At this point, it will be a normal Sunday," she said. "Obviously if there's an outbreak in St. Louis, we'd be thinking differently about what precautions to take. But we're not there yet and we don't want to worry people."
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