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How are Churches in the Pandemic?
Churches in the Pandemic:
Could Even Covid, Have a Little Silver Lining?
By Sandra Olmsted
Spring has finally arrived and Easter is upon us. Though it’s been a year since most in-person church masses have been held, most people are hoping to be back in the pews by June. Is there a silver lining to anything about Covid? That’s precisely the kind of complex question that religious leaders are often required to answer. While the three I interviewed, over the phone, of course, are saddened by the loss of life and the destruction of families caused by Covid, they do bring the optimism and hope that we so sorely need right now.
While Pastor Martin Dressler at Salem Lutheran Church, Rev. Carol DeVaughan at John Knox Presbyterian Church, and Pastor Monica Jefferson at St Andrew United Methodist are all looking forward to when their churches can reopen, their congregations reappear, and the communion togetherness can resume, they all have found unique yet tried and true wisdom to get them through these challenging times.
According to Paster Dressler, knowing that “Christ has been raised from the dead and that puts everything in a new light of hope and joy in the midst of everything else” has gotten Salem Lutheran Church through Covid. While they do live-stream their services, he looks forward to the “formation that can only happen in person” when Salem Lutheran can open their buildings again. Still, the grant they got in October to upgrade their live-streaming and staying connected through Zoom and streaming service has been a blessing. Virtual connections remain a means of staying connected although not the best way. Pastor Dressler looks forward to the regularly-scheduled, in-person worship services because lives should be ordered around God and not God around people’s lives and worship is the place where “God comes in Word and Sacrament to reassure us of his promise of forgiveness.”
Rev. DeVaughan, an interim pastor, has only been at John Knox Presbyterian for Church for six months, and John Knox is following the guidelines of the Presbyterian leadership. Therefore, all services will be virtual and the buildings closed; however, there’s a glimmer of hope they the buildings might open in late May. John Knox’s services will go virtual sometime after Easter, and they are hoping for fair weather and outdoor worship services and events so that the congregation can have fellowship time together. Communion is another sacrament that churchgoers are missing during the pandemic. Presbyterian church leaders gave permission for the ritual blessing to be done via virtual service and for people can use their own juice and bread to partake when invited during the virtual services.
At St. Andrew United Methodist, Pastor Monica Jefferson is very thankful for her very resilient congregation. She works hard to adapt to keep providing what people want, such as worship and music, and even drive-thru communion once a month. The congregation stays centered on what they can do and not what they can’t do. They are also very thankful that they had decided to begin using GoToMeeting and Streaming of their services about a year before Covid started. In the meantime, they have continued their local mission projects to provide food to pantries for teens, use their Stephan Ministers to check on individuals, and hold virtual classes and “small” groups because it is all about building and maintaining connections. .Pastor Monica’s “goal has been to keep people connected to people, and people connected with the community, and the people and the community connected with Christ.”
These religious leaders are representative of all those leading their congregations through the pandemic with fortitude, compassion, ingenuity, and a healthy dose of technology. Next week, Part 2: A Wink of God will provide more on the churches’ response to their congregations and our North County community.
