Church services return, online lessons learnt
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Local churches are excited to move away from technology as they prepare for the first services in their chapels in nine weeks.
From noon yesterday churches could resume services and have up to 100 people attend with correct distancing and cleaning procedures.
Catholic Parish Wha¯nganui was wasting no time opening its doors, with parish priest Father Vaughn Leslie saying it planned a service at 5.30pm yesterday. “This is a huge thing for us.”
Leslie said more than 900 people usually attend their services on Sundays, so the church has come up with a system to spread the numbers.
Catholic Parish Wha¯nganui will hold two masses every day from today, one at 9.30am and another at 5.30pm.
All services will be held at St Mary’s Church, as the other churches are too small to house 100 people under the current level 2 rules.
Leslie recommends people choose a day and time that suits them best and attend that service each week.
While they received great feedback from people during the lockdown about livestreaming services, Leslie said the church would stop streaming their services from yesterday.
“I’m exhausted. We have been doing the services from my lounge for the last two months.”
Faith City Church pastor Ben Hoyle said it was looking into continuing to livestream services, even after all gathering restrictions are lifted.
“It’s amazing the kind of reach you can get online.”
Hoyle said the congregation had numerous “tech savvy” members who helped it run smoothly from home over the past nine weeks.
Faith City Church will run three services on Sundays, with each dedicated to a group of suburbs.
The floor plan has been changed to allow for safe distancing, and there will be thorough cleaning of all surfaces between services.
Hoyle isn’t expecting the same number of people to attend services for the next few weeks, as elderly and at-risk people may opt to stay away and remain cautious.
“There are still a lot of limitations involved but it will be great to be reunited with the community.
“It’s a different kind of approach to providing a safe place for Christians to come to worship and connect.”
Caleb Rower, priest in charge at Christ Church, said livestreaming services during the lockdown helped them grow as a group.
“We had a great lockdown in the sense that, in some cases, we got more connected than we have done before.”
Rowe said half of the church members are over 70, and the community rallied together during the lockdown.
“Everyone was checking in with each other, helping shop for the vulnerable. That was really good to be helping and serving one another.”
All Anglican services will take place at Christ Church, as the other churches are too small to allow for social distancing.
“In some ways, that is quite special because then we can be together.”
Rowe livestream services were a huge success, drawing in thousands of viewers across the internet as well as Freeview and Shine TV.
“That was an exciting endeavour and quite encouraging to see all those people join in that way. We picked up a lot of people who don’t normally go to church.”
Rowe said some people reconnected with their churches and religion during the lockdown.
“I think when people slow down, their souls appear. They start asking deeper questions.
“Some of those questions are about community, about God and our life purpose and because we are in a global pandemic people start asking questions about what life is about and what’s the value of life.”
Rowe hopes some of the lessons learnt during this time will continue in the move back to normality.
“One of the silver linings is people have taken stock of life and the hope we have is people don’t return to the crazy carnage we had beforehand.”
Leslie said people reconnected with religion because it gave certainty in an uncertain time.
“A certainty no matter what happens in the world today,” Leslie said.
“I do believe the lockdown has helped people ask themselves what actually is important, how they are living and what they consider significant in their lives.” said
"It’s amazing the kind of reach you can get online."