Home Christian News At Second Easter Under Pandemic Rules, Christians Glimpse Church’s Future

At Second Easter Under Pandemic Rules, Christians Glimpse Church’s Future

“There is hope in all this, and the Lord has a plan for everything,” he added.

So, it seems, do many ministers. If nothing else, the dislocations of COVID-19 have prompted creative liturgical and logistical solutions, from squirt-gun distribution of holy water to Lenten ashes imposed with cotton swabs onto hands stuck out of car windows. This Easter gives churches a chance to put on display all they’ve learned in the past 12 months and more.

At gospel singer Deitrick Haddon’s 5-year-old nondenominational Hill City Church in Los Angeles, the 300 weekly attendees haven’t met in person for a year. But its “Resurrection Sunday” outdoor service will be a model of socially distanced worship.

Haddon, who has a Pentecostal background, plans for his predominantly Black church to meet outdoors in the courtyard of a theater near Azusa Street, the site of an early 20th-century revival that was instrumental to the birth of Pentecostalism.

The ushers have been renamed for the occasion. “We call them our social distance warriors,” he said. “They’ll be there to help keep the distance and keep people in compliance with that.”

Along with “sanitation stations,” where people can use hand sanitizers or running water to clean their hands, “there will be posters and things to inform people how we’re operating at that event. We’re going to do the best we can to keep people informed and keep it a safe environment for worshippers.”

The LA congregation is taking additional steps to address COVID-19 that day. Working with Los Angeles County’s public health officials, it plans to offer 200 doses of the Moderna vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis for those in eligible groups.

At the Washington National Cathedral, the stage for national prayer services and four presidential funerals, Communion has not been offered for a year.

“We’ve been using a prayer for Spiritual Communion instead,” said Kevin Eckstrom, the cathedral’s chief communications officer. “The elements are consecrated each week as part of the Sunday Eucharist but are not consumed.”

But come Sunday afternoon, clergy will be positioned on both sides of the drive that snakes around the cathedral’s property to distribute Communion wafers. “There’s a lot of pent-up desire for access to Communion, so we invited the Cathedral family to receive it on Easter Sunday,” he said. “Communion will be distributed by clergy, wearing masks and gloves, to people who drive up.”

The cathedral has invited members of its congregation and volunteers as well as the more than 6,000 people who regularly watch its Sunday services online.

Eventually, with enough vaccines and warm weather, scenes like this will become odd memories of a sad time. Americans of whatever faith will return to being, if not elbow to elbow, then comfortable sharing pews and prayer halls and will become accustomed again to sharing meals, coffee and even hugs after services.

At St. Anthony Catholic Church, in the Southern Californian city of San Gabriel, the Rev. Austin Doran said his parish, made up of Spanish-speaking and working-class Latinos who were hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic, is not quite ready yet to hold indoor worship. A number of outdoor services will be held.

On Palm Sunday, Doran said he saw more older parishioners, who had been vaccinated, as well as more parents with their children attend outdoor worship. Doran figured that with more children back in school, parents feel more comfortable taking their kids out.

But if there are signs of hopefulness, “there’s still a lot of sadness out there,” Doran said. “I think there’s humility. We’ve realized, ‘hey we’re frail. We’re human,’” Doran said. “There’s a greater sense of solidarity.”

The pandemic, he said, has taught some painful lessons. “People in the parish have shown they’re thinking not just about themselves, but about each other. Helping people with food, to pay their bills,” Doran said, “that’s all blossomed.”

But Doran is ready to move forward into whatever comes next. Thinking back to last year’s Holy Week, when the church’s services were being streamed from an empty parish, “it was absolutely creepy,” said the priest.

At least there’s a congregation now, Doran said. “When you say a prayer, you get a response,” Doran said. “That’s a big difference.”

This article originally appeared here.