How Middle Georgia churches are preparing to celebrate Easter Sunday during the coronavirus pandemic

For more than a 150 years, Christians have gathered in one of the now hundreds of churches across Middle Georgia to celebrate Easter Sunday.

But the new coronavirus, and subsequent shelter in place orders from first Bibb County and then Gov. Brian Kemp, make in-person Easter services impossible. So thousands of people across Middle Georgia are planning to worship remotely, live streaming sermons on social media platforms or church websites and assembling communion elements.

Restrictions related to COVID-19 have also impacted the celebration of Passover, which began the evening of April 8 and ends April 15, and Holy Week, which immediately precedes Easter.

The Telegraph spoke with several local church leaders about what remote Easter services mean for them and their congregations:

Mulberry Street UMC

For more than 100 years, the sunrise service at Coleman Hill has started Easter Sunday for many families in Middle Georgia, but Mulberry Street United Methodist Church had to cancel the event due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Creede Hinshaw, the interim senior pastor at Mulberry Street UMC, said the nondenominational gathering has hundreds of people every year witnessing the beautiful sunrise over Macon from Coleman Hill Park.

“It has been a family tradition for many, many families of various faith traditions for a 100 years,” he said. “There may be some families who will gather at Coleman Hill to view the sunrise on Easter anyway even though there’s not going to be a service.”

Although churches cannot gather in their sanctuaries for Easter Sunday services, Hinshaw said this Easter will be more like the first Easter. When Jesus was resurrected, there were only a few women, an empty tomb, some guards who had fainted and Jesus, Hinshaw said.

“The point is the very first Easter didn’t have hallelujah choruses. It didn’t have brass or symphonies or chairs in the aisle. There were just a few people there,” he said. “We’re going to have a chance to reflect upon and celebrate in our own households what it means to really encounter Easter as it would have been encountered for the first year and probably for the first few years.”

Mulberry Street UMC will have two Easter services posted online for people to watch on their Facebook page or website.

Community Church of God

Jason McClendon, senior pastor of Community Church of God, said his church will hold an Easter Sunday service live on their Facebook page, and people participating in communion are encouraged to take photos.

“It’s kind of a paradox to where now there’s going to be a celebration of the empty tomb and also through the experience of an empty church,” he said. “When it’s over, there’s going to be a great need for fresh spiritual direction, and I believe that people are going to be craving for it.”

McClendon believes not being able to gather will create a greater appreciation for fellowship and for the church when they are able to meet again, he said.

“Especially in the African American context, the church has always been our safe haven. When everything else was going wrong in the world, the church was our place to come and gather and to be safe and secure because we knew not only was the love there for our brothers and sisters as we were going through hard times in the world, but by our faith in God, we knew that God would get us over,” he said. “I’m looking for our church to come back stronger, more sincere and also to be more faithful.”

The Assembly

While most Middle Georgia churches are live streaming Easter services on their Facebook page, website and YouTube channels, one Warner Robins church stands out.

The Assembly is hosting a drive-in communion service on Good Friday and two services Easter Sunday in addition to live streaming.

At the Good Friday service, worshipers are encouraged to bring their own elements. They may also receive a factory sealed packet of elements.

At all the services, worshipers can honk “amens!” as they listen in on their radios tuned to a FM frequency and watch the service on large LED screens set up in the parking lot.

Lead Pastor Darrell Yarbrough and his ministry team also comes outside to interact with the congregation while carefully practicing social distancing rules and hygiene/sanitization guidelines.

“I think people need community. I think they need others to provide hope. You have some that don’t have any family. Some are sheltering in place and they’re all alone,” Yarbrough said. “If they can stay in their car and come and at least wave at someone or see someone interacting with them from a distance, checking on them, I think it provides the hope and encouragement they need.

The church takes multiple measures to ensure the safety of its staff and congregation including spacing the vehicles throughout the parking lot, only allowing one or two people to the restroom at a time, having hand sanitizer and wipes on hand, routinely cleaning and disinfecting the church and equipment used in the worship services, Yarbrough said. The church also has an off-duty law enforcement officer who is paid by the church on site.

Kingdom Life Church

Dominique Johnson, the pastor Kingdom Life Church in east Macon, said there is no substitute for in-person worship. Especially on Easter.

But he and his 100-plus-strong congregation plan to make do. Johnson has in recent weeks live-streamed his sermons on YouTube and Facebook.

Having to resort to internet services and not having traditional gatherings in the nondenominational church’s Shurling Drive sanctuary has been “impactful emotionally for some people,” he said.

“For older congregants,” Johnson went, “it can be kind of tough for them to shift. ... They are just so used to meeting (in person), and now they’re not able to be around others and hug and say, ‘How are you doing?’”

Missing the in-person fellowship this Sunday will be difficult.

“This is literally the first Easter that people can’t congregate,” Johnson said. “If people don’t go to church no other time, they at least are gonna go on Mother’s Day and Easter.”

He still plans to offer communion to churchgoers on Sunday by packaging grape juice and sealed wafers that can be picked up at the church ahead of time.

“This will be our first communion via live-stream,” Johnson said.

St. Joseph Catholic Church

St. Joseph Catholic Church has streamed its daily Mass on Facebook Live and on its website, and church leaders are trying to maintain some normalcy by streaming traditional activities for Holy Week.

Parishioners can watch the Stations of the Cross and the Veneration of the Cross on Friday, the Easter Vigil on Saturday and Mass on Sunday.

Although the church is streaming the events, the Rev. Scott Winchel of St. Joseph Catholic Church said it’s not the same as participating in them. During the Veneration of the Cross, for example, Winchel said parishioners would usually kiss a crucifix as a sign of their thankfulness for Jesus dying on the cross.

“I think it’s hard for everybody to be able to worship God and to reflect and meditate upon the great gift of Christ’s death and resurrection. There’s something tangible about it that people like to experience physically,” he said. “Being able to touch those things, to be able to smell the incense that we have during the ceremonies, just being able to be in the presence of our church is something that’s very comforting and very normal for us as Catholic Christians, and this year, it’s not going to be available.”

People are blessed in the United States to be able to go to church every Sunday, Winchel said, and people can sometimes take that for granted.

“Sometimes when we are tested or pushed or we go without for a while, sometimes it can build the hunger. Sometimes we can appreciate it more, knowing that it could easily be gone,” he said. “I hope that it can inspire people to come back to church and to see that I do need God and I want to be there.”

Staying safe while worshiping

While the North Central Health District cannot tell churches to halt drive-in services, the district is encouraging all faith-based communities to move to an online and live-stream model, said spokesman Michael Hokanson.

Even if vehicles are parked away from each other, people confined in their cars in a small space is “risky” when it’s now known that people don’t display symptoms for the first 48 hours of infection, Hokanson said.

“Anecdotally we’ve heard of people at these drive-in churches leaving their cars, getting in close proximity of each other - hugging, handshakes, kisses, things like that - that are highly, highly discouraged during this time when we have community spread of COVID-19 throughout the state of Georgia.”

And even if congregation members stay within their vehicles, interaction among those conducting the worship services such as handling of microphones is also risky, Hokanson said.