Residents of Valley West apartments, from left, Hazel Howell, Hariett Snyder and Don Armour take communion as they listen to a church service.
It’s Sunday morning, just before 11 a.m., and residents of Valley West apartments in Masury have set up four chairs in the first-floor hallway, an appropriate distance away from each other.
Harriett Snyder hands out packets with a communion host and a small amount of communion wine, and calls up the service from Hermitage Church of Christ on YouTube on her phone.
Each of the four participants listens to the service, taking communion at the appropriate time.
“It’s working out well,” said Snyder, who runs up to the church to collect more communion packets when she runs low. “If we have to be this way and not be able to attend church, this is second best. You can listen to it any part of the day. If you want to listen to it again, there it is. It suffices for the time being.”
Many church services are online now as most congregations are not holding public, in-person services.
Raella Baker has been a member of Brookfield Christian Church for about 70 years, and misses personally what she calls “the little white church” on the green in Brookfield Center.
“Everybody’s so friendly and the pastor gives a good message,” said Baker, of Brookfield. “It’s just a closeness there. It’s always been there.”
Pastor Dan Hockenberry has not taken to the cybersphere to deliver his message, but he offered something special on Easter: handing out communion and hard copies of a sermon as parishioners drove past.
“I don’t like to cancel church services but when the president, the coronavirus task force and the governor ask/mandate that we stay at home, I believe it is the prudent thing to do,” Hockenberry said in his sermon. “As we go through this, and we are all going through it together, keep in mind that God is still God and that he is still in charge.”
Living Waters Church in Brookfield is one of the few churches that continues to hold in-person services.
“I don’t see any sense in not holding them,” said Pastor Gary Jones. “Always go back to see what God says. If I can believe God for my salvation, then why can’t I believe him for everything else?”
Many parishioners have stopped coming, so attendance is down to 20 to 25 people on a Sunday, said Jones. The church is large enough that people can sit away from each other.
“If this place was full of 100 people, 150 people we’d have to do something different,” Jones said. “I don’t want anyone uncomfortable. I wouldn’t embarrass anybody.”
The response to their online services and programs has been surprising, said Pastor Jared Woodward of Six-Fourteen Church, Masury, and Pastor Dick Smith of Brookfield United Methodist Church.
“We have a lot of people that maybe would not have normally come to church who have kind of reached out to us and been engaged online,” said Woodward, whose services and messages are available on the church’s Facebook page. “There’s people, they’ve never stepped foot in our doors, but they’ve asked how they can help and how they can be involved and they’re looking forward to kinda jumping in when things get back to whatever the new normal’s gonna look like.”
“I don’t think it replaces in-person worship because there’s definitely an importance to the church and who we are as a community, but it definitely has extended our reach to reach people who may not normally come to church but I think they’re scoping it out, at least,” Woodward said.
Smith said he is also is attracting more people than he expected to his Facebook live church services.
“Each service, there’s been more people,” Smith said. “I’ve got people that used to come here down in Florida, they’re tuning in for service. We have online donations and that giving’s going up because people out of town, they’re sending us donations. It’s been good, especially for people who can’t get out, who are shut in.”
Smith added he broadcasts a Wednesday prayer service from his home on Facebook live, and a bible study on Zoom.
“Church is gathering, but we’re finding ways to keep the connection,” he said.
Woodward said the pandemic has forced him and others at the church to “put energy” into the church’s online presence, and he plans to continue that even after the doors reopen to in-person worship.
“We’ll have to rethink how we do in-person worship,” he said. “We’re processing that and what it looks like. Our main concern is that people are safe and that they feel safe and are healthy.”
