COVID-19 Opens New Pathways to Worship during Holy Week

A gem has many facets, each one revealing something of the stone’s quality when held up to the light or under a microscope for observation. Faith and faith traditions can also reveal insights when viewed from a different perspective.

The community of First Congregational Church of Greenwich (FCCOG) looked at their worship traditions through a new lens this past year during trying times. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic “forced us to adapt,” said Senior Pastor Reverend Patrick Collins. They resorted to live-streamed services and engaged in “old-school” outreach – making telephone calls and writing letters to congregants who are “technologically averse,” he said.

They learned the “church building is not as important as we think it is. It’s the community,” Collins said, although, he added, they’re grateful services can once again be held in their Meetinghouse across from Binney Park in Old Greenwich. “Easter will look different but we will have people back in the Meetinghouse after a year of preaching into a camera,” Collins said.

“We’re experiencing a resurrection this year,” said Rev. Cydney Van Dyke, the new Associate Pastor.

Even as some coronavirus restrictions are lifted FCCOG is embracing creative expressions of faith and worship during Holy Week leading to the celebration of Easter Sunday.

“There isn’t one way to worship … We found “creative ways to create meaningful, faithful experiences for our people,” Van Dyke said.

“Behold, I make all things new,” Van Dyke said, quoting Revelations (21:5).

Collins said this year’s Holy Week activities are an interesting mix of long-held traditions and adaptations done with safety protocols including masks and social distancing. The decadeslong tradition of the Cross Walk, which was interrupted last year, resumes this Good Friday with a twist. Instead of the usual emphasis on young congregants, this year’s Cross Walk is open to all ages. “We start from our parking lot and go down Sound Beach Avenue to Tod’s Point Beach,” Collins said.

A Walk through Holy Week on Holy Saturday invites people to visit stations throughout the church grounds to learn about Jesus’ journey from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, with things to learn, things to experience, and things to take with them at each station.

Although hope is on the horizon, people are still grieving, Collins said. The loss of life and a way of life left people unable to grieve in traditional and comforting ways in the last year. For that reason FCCOG is incorporating its flag memorial into Holy Week. Flags are planted on the church campus in memory of the lives lost to COVID-19; a reminder that “it’s ok to grieve, to mourn, to be sad. Grief is built into our faith. There’s a designated space and time to grieve. That’s what Good Friday is,” Van Dyke said.

All activities and services are open to “all who would like to join us on their journey of faith.” FCCOG is “a place of love and acceptance … embracing Jesus’ embodiment of radical welcome. In Jesus’ life and ministry he welcomed all to his table, including sinners and the marginalized,” Collins said.

“We see ourselves as a community church invested in the care and wellbeing of everyone who lives here,” Van Dyke said.