By Justin Horey
In Manhattan, Kansas—“The Little Apple”—a church of about 1,000 regular attendees has resumed in-person worship with no serious complications. Though the average Sunday attendance is lower than its pre-COVID-19 norm, Crestview Christian Church has found reopening to be a blessing.
Elsewhere, three other churches found that resuming in-person worship wasn’t so simple. One church reopened successfully but the state forced it to “reclose,” another church opened partially, and the other reopened but then closed again after a church employee tested positive for the virus.
These are their stories.
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Reopened and Staying Open: Crestview Christian Church (Manhattan, Kansas)
After a 12-week shutdown, Crestview Christian Church resumed in-person worship on June 14. The congregation plans to keep offering on-site services of some type no matter how infection rates or government regulations in Kansas might change.Lead pastor Devin Wendt said,“I don’t see us ever closing again. Our goal is to stay open, even if we have to limit size.”
Wendt’s attitude is not one of defiance. Rather, he said Crestview has sought to “honor and respect the local government authorities” since the beginning of the pandemic. The church is still committed to doing so, but Wendt believes Crestview will continue to offer live services of some kind—even if that means reducing capacity in the building and adding services.
Like most other churches in the country, Crestview stopped offering in-person services in March. Wendt said he and the other leaders in the congregation felt it was “the safest thing to do at the time.” But as the Riley County Health Department began easing restrictions for public gatherings, Crestview was able to communicate directly with county health officials about its plans to reopen. Together, the church and local officials agreed on a plan for Crestview to resume services with limited capacity.
Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Wendt was already part of a large, interdenominational group of Manhattan church leaders who met regularly for prayer. The roughly 20 churches in that group discussed their reopening plans with one another and worked out similar—but not identical—strategies and methods for in-person gatherings. As of this writing, all but one of the churches in the group have reopened without interruption. (One large church in the area reverted to online-only worship for two weeks but has since resumed in-person Sunday services.)
Crestview is strongly encouraging people to wear face coverings when they enter the building and when they walk around the facility, but not when they’re seated. Wendt estimated that 95 percent of the attendees are complying. Of course, some on both sides of the mask debate are displeased with the church’s policy, but, Wendt said—now more than ever—“we have to live in the tension of truth and grace.”
Attendance at Crestview is down from prior summers—averaging about 40 percent of typical summer attendance most weeks—but the church is still offering a livestream for attendees who prefer to stay home. On-site, Wendt noted that the church is welcoming a surprising number of visitors. Roughly 10 percent of the worshippers on the first week after the shutdown were first-timers.
Crestview has not been immune to complications. A minor COVID-19 outbreak around the Fourth of July holiday significantly reduced attendance, and the pandemic also forced the church to suspend work on the construction of its new worship center for three months. Sunday attendance has rebounded since Independence Day, and the building project is underway again—though the grand opening is now tentatively slated for early 2021.
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Ordered to Close: Oak Park Christian Church (Grover Beach, California)
Grover Beach is a popular tourist destination on California’s central coast. Though the city has had very few cases of COVID-19, Oak Park Christian Church switched its Sunday services online in March. On Easter and Mother’s Day, the church offered drive-in services. With local case counts still low, and after conducting Gloo’s “Returning to Church” survey with the congregation, Oak Park’s leaders decided to reopen on Sunday, June 5.
Some seniors in the church said they needed more time to feel safe before returning, but a substantial majority—roughly 60 percent of the congregation—returned for worship after the shutdown. Senior pastor Mike Gunderson said the church took several measures to protect attendees on Sundays: only one quarter of the usual seating capacity was available, all handouts (including Communion) were placed at each seat prior to each service, and the church encouraged (but did not require) face coverings.
What’s more, Gunderson reported the church was welcoming a larger-than-normal number of visitors when it reopened. At Oak Park, most visitors historically have been one-time guests coming to worship while on vacation. After the shutdown, Gunderson noticed that most visitors were locals.
Oak Park Christian wasn’t the only church in the area to reopen. Almost all of the smaller churches in the county resumed in-person worship, though a few congregations of 1,000 or more remained limited to online services.
Then, on July 19, all churches in the county were ordered to stop gathering by the governor’s office.
The reopening at Oak Park had gone smoothly, but California’s positive cases increased significantly during July. Even before the state announcement that churches in counties on the “watch list” had to stop gathering, Gunderson had said, “I think this is going to be a drawn-out thing.” He was correct. As of this writing, Oak Park is planning to offer online worship exclusively through the end of August. Beyond that, neither Gunderson nor the church have announced any plans.
Thankfully for the people of Oak Park, the church is working to equip everyone in the congregation “to feed themselves spiritually and lead their families” with resources, videos, and even old-fashioned phone campaigns to keep people connected.
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Partially Reopened: Central Christian Church (Beloit, Wisconsin)
Central Christian Church had been working on what executive pastor Erik Henry called “a better online experience” for months before the coronavirus pandemic began. The church planned to launch its new and improved online experience for Easter 2020, but COVID-19 accelerated those plans.
Henry said the church created “a makeshift online service” in March when the shutdown began, but quickly changed the format of its Sunday worship to more actively engage the online congregation. It was well-received by the church, but only briefly.
After Easter, leaders began noticing a steady decline in online attendance, and some in the congregation were eager to meet in person again, so Central offered an outdoor “unity service”—one at each of the church’s three campuses. The largest of these services drew approximately 40 percent of the pre-COVID average. The other campuses attracted just 35 percent and 25 percent of the normal attendees.
Henry has observed a similar trend with other churches.
“The smaller the congregation, the better the regathering will be because there’s a larger relational draw,” Henry said.
Still, despite average attendance numbers less than half of the usual, Central decided to continue with outdoor worship. After one month, attendance at the main campus had dropped to just 10 percent of the usual number.
“We’re still figuring this out,” Henry admitted.
Rather than continuing with the same style of Sunday service at all three campuses, Central decided to offer an outdoor service at its main campus just once a month. The other two campuses planned to keep meeting weekly—but still outdoors.
Government leaders in Wisconsin expect schools to reopen in September. If that happens, Henry said, Central may plan to resume indoor worship as well. Even so, he said the church will expect to see smaller-than-normal crowds on Sundays. Henry also expects that Central’s plans for Sunday gatherings will be subject to change for the foreseeable future.
“One thing we did wrong,” he mused, “was to tell our people ‘this is what we’re doing from now on.’ We should have said, ‘We’re going to try this.’”
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Infected: Journey Christian Church (Apopka, Florida)
Journey Christian Church was one of the first megachurches in Central Florida to resume on-campus Sunday services. After the initial shutdown, Journey offered in-person worship on May 30 and 31.
Senior pastor John Hampton said, “We looked at the best information available to us at the time”—both from local health officials and a congregational survey that showed overwhelming support for the decision.
Initial attendance numbers at Journey’s two campuses were much smaller than the survey results had indicated. Just 30 percent of the congregation returned for in-person worship that first weekend. By week three, the number had dropped significantly.
After three weeks of in-person worship, a staff member at Journey tested positive for coronavirus.
“As soon as the state pulled back the restrictions and stay-at-home requirements, cases in Florida went crazy,” Hampton said.
Indeed, the outbreak in Florida became national news. At Journey, there was no outbreak—just a single reported case—because the church immediately “re-suspended” its in-person worship. Hampton said the church is not aware of anyone being infected by the church staffer who contracted the virus. (That individual is young and was recovering at the time of this writing.)
Having lived through a shutdown and a temporary reopening, Hampton said he and Journey’s leaders have learned a lot.
“I’m really grateful for both experiences,” he said.
Back in May, Hampton recalled, church leaders expected cases to continue dropping. They hoped to use the summer months to “establish a new rhythm” of Sunday services so the congregation could adjust to changes like face coverings and required physical distancing before school resumed in the fall.
Now Hampton is reluctant to offer specific plans for the future. At Journey Christian, the uncertainty about in-person worship hasn’t gone away. The staff and congregation are looking forward to the day when they can worship together, face-to-face, but church leaders have not committed to a particular date. In fact, Hampton admitted in midsummer, “It feels as uncertain now as it did in mid-May.”
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Uncertainty and Understanding
While churches all want to meet in person, many are facing significant challenges as they move toward “normal” Sunday services. Most are reporting attendance far below their pre-COVID-19 averages—some as low as 10 percent. Still, many congregations are committed to meeting together even if those meetings are different or less frequent than they have been in the past.
As the pandemic enters the summer and fall months, church leaders and members alike are learning to live with uncertainty and extend grace when plans change with little notice. As is often the case in times of crisis, they are seeking to do as Jesus taught: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).
Justin Horey is a writer, musician, and the founder of Livingstone Marketing. He lives in Southern California.
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