Scholar studies ‘ awakening’ in churches during COVID
For all the constraints that COVID- 19 has laid on people of faith, houses of worship across southwest Connecticut are undergoing an awakening that is changing how congregations connect with each other and expanding how they reach out to neighbors.
“This has been a great exercise in looking past our own faith community to come together to meet the needs of the people of our city,” said the Rev. Carl McCluster, the longtime pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Bridgeport. “People don’t need ceremony – they need the love of God itself, and maybe we’re being forced now to make good on that.”
The spiritual leader of a Stamford synagogue agrees that the urgency of the COVID emergency has given his congregation a renewed appreciation for “the fragility of life and being more active in preserving it.”
“It has been a transformational year,” said Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, where bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals are now streaming online along with weekly services. “We have always prided ourselves as being a congregation without walls, and this year we have had to prove it.”
Clergy and lay leaders in Hamden, Norwalk, Greenwich and Danbury tell similar stories about how the coronavirus crisis has “leveled the playing field” and inspired their congregations to do more to help the hungry, the homeless and the poor.
The stories of innovation and inspiration are so prevalent, in fact, that a leading researcher in Hartford believes they amount to more than a collection of pandemic anecdotes, but a seminal moment in American history.
Researcher Scott Thumma, who is embarking on a national multimillion- dollar study about the subject, believes something is happening at the “deep interpersonal and spiritual level” that “may signal a new reality for American congregational life.”
“The tremendous amount of change that congregations have put into effect in an incredibly short amount of time is frankly shocking to me,” said Thumma, a professor of Sociology of Religion at Hartford Seminary, and the director of the Hartford Institute for Religious Research. “It’s taken a crisis for congregations to risk making these sacrifices.”
Thumma has just been awarded a $ 300,000 planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to design a five- year study that explores the “changing patterns of engagement and attitudes about religious life,” and “what will happen to these entities once the virus is a distant memory.”
The spiritual leader of a Hamden mosque said he’s encouraging members of his community to use their extended time at home while the mosque is closed to get closer to God in prayer and study, and to cherish their time alone with their families.
In doing so, they’ll be better Muslims than those who are forever at the mosque, Imam Saladin Hasan said.
“We try to encourage everybody to bring themselves as close to God as they can bring themselves as individuals,” said Hasan, the spiritual leader of the Abdul- Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center in Hamden, where services, meetings and religious classes are held online. “Then when God open these doors, we will come together better.”
The pastor of a Catholic Church in Norwalk says he has already seen a remarkable transformation in his parish, despite the grief of losing loved ones to COVID, and the restrictions on face- to- face gatherings.
“It’s really been an amazing experience – we’ve seen the real power of the community coming together to take up collections of food and clothing and money for the poor,” said the Rev. Rojin Karickal, pastor of St. Jerome Church in Norwalk. “As the pastor I find that very powerful.”
Thumma’s study, Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations: Innovation Amidst and Beyond COVID- 19, comes as the oneyear anniversary of the pandemic approaches in March, and at a time when the subject is getting more attention on the national stage.
Late last month, for example, a study by Pew Research Center found Americans were more likely than people from other countries to say the pandemic has strengthened their religious faith.
In Danbury, the president of the Association of Religious Communities said that despite COVID’s restrictions, the crisis has “brought congregations together.”
“The generosity of these communities both with financial donations and the donations of food has just been out of this world,” said Joe Walkovich, president of ARC and a parishioner at St. James Episcopal Church in downtown Danbury. “I would never have believed in a pandemic that you would get that kind of a response.”
Building closed, church open
It’s too soon to say whether the spirit of innovation that has seen houses of worship utilize Zoom and Facebook will endure beyond the pandemic. It is also not clear whether faith communities that have become more comfortable identifying church outside the walls of the worship building will revert to traditional ways of relating to the world once vaccines make group gatherings safe, the scholar Summa said.
One thing is clear: no one will be shy about returning to their home churches once it’s safe, said Sam Deibler of the First United Methodist Church of Greenwich.
“One of the things we Methodists like to do is get in small groups for fellowship and frankly, to have something to eat,” said Deibler, a co- lay leader of the parish. “Even though we are doing Zoom meetings, there is an element of fellowship that is missing which is an important part of our lives.”
The pastor of a small church in Bridgeport agrees.
“It is really challenging because we want to be inclusive and invite people who can Zoom to do so, but not everybody has a computer,” said the Rev. Lisa Eleck, pastor of Olivet Congregational Church.
The solution at Olivet is to keep looking for creative ways to keep people engaged while the church is closed – such as mailing the readings for the Sunday service to parishioners, so they can join the Zoom call by phone and follow along.
“The building is closed but the church is open, because the people are the church, not the building,” Eleck said. “You have to maintain that connection with whatever adaptation you can.”