WORSHIP DURING COVID
Hot Springs church takes ‘middle of the road’ approach
While COVID-19 still limits many activities, including congregating in places of worship, one local pastor said his church is taking a “middle of the road” approach when it comes to leading worship during a pandemic.
“We know we have some churches that are meeting and everyone is saying, ‘Hey, we have a constitutional right to meet and we kind of dare anybody to tell us what to do,’ and do what they want. Then we have some that are not meeting at all,” said Senior Pastor Manley Beasley. “We began meeting about a month after the governor indicated that, under limitations and guidelines, churches were on the list to reopen.
“We just watched, observed, and saw what we thought other churches did well. We saw some things we liked and some things that we (did not).”
Early in the pandemic, Beasley said about five staff members tested positive for the virus. Immediately, the entire church staff went into quarantine. Since then, the senior pastor said the entire congregation has been very diligent moving forward.
“What I try to do is say, ‘Hey, whatever
views you hold, our job is still the same.’ That is, we’re here to be good citizens, good models, good examples, and also to share our faith with people. Let them know that in difficult times, our faith is sufficient to get us through these things,” he said.
Currently, Beasley says the church maintains somewhere between a third and a fourth of their congregation on Sunday mornings. While they have a large sanctuary with two floors, social distancing measures have limited the number of people allowed inside on Sunday mornings.
“Our normal congregation size was about 700 in attendance (before the pandemic). We are averaging around 200 (people). Probably the most we have had is about 230, maybe 240 (people). If there continues to be an increase in attendance, we’ll offer an additional service in order to keep our social distance but right now, we only need one,” he said.
Limiting the congregation’s size and supplementing digitally were just two small pieces of the puzzle for one of the larger churches in the area. In addition to that, the church has ramped up how frequently the building is cleaned, set up hand sanitization stations, and even made their annual vacation bible school completely virtual.
“Our original plan was to do an in-person VBS back in June. We had thought about it and just didn’t feel comfortable with that, so we decided to push it back to Aug. 3 through 6, thinking everything should be getting back into gear by then. … Well, we kept a close eye on everything and just looking at all the cases that have come up recently, we just didn’t feel comfortable putting our families in that situation where the would have to choose,” said vacation bible school director Alisa Staton.
She noted the church did have a virtual option on standby all the while but would have rather met in-person. However, she said the safety of families and volunteers took priority in their decision. With help from the parent Southern Baptist Convention, leaders in the church put together a virtual VBS.
The virtual vacation bible school includes everything children know and love, from daily devotionals to themed snack time. Staton and her team worked to record “high-energy” videos that would guide families through the virtual program together. While they did lose the communal aspect of it, Staton said it was important they proceed with a virtual option.
“We have the potential to reach more people than we ever could doing it in-person. This opens up a lot of new opportunities for kids that really don’t have anything else to do this summer,” she said.
For the church as a whole, Beasley said he is looking at long-term options to keep his congregation safe, such as disinfectant foggers and making sure to check in on high-risk members of his congregation. With no real idea of when a vaccine will be available, Hot Springs Baptist Church continues to hold services both in-person and online.