As restrictions put forth by the state related to the COVID-19 pandemic begin to dial back, churches around Macon County are starting to resume their in-person services, albeit with far more precautions than they observed in March.
Even with precautions in place, there is an inherent risk. Macon County Public Health recently identified a cluster of cases – defined as at least five – at Franklin Church of God, which had also resumed indoor services.
The state is currently operating under Gov. Roy Cooper’s Phase 3 protocols that limits indoor gatherings to 25 people indoors and 50 people outdoors.
At First United Methodist Church, the staff has gone all out to make sure that their one weekly in-person service, held at 8:30 a.m. as per the results of a survey of the congregation, is as safe for parishioners as possible.
Based on input from several church members who work in the medical field, the church is screening every service attendee’s temperature outside, restricting access to many walkways and stairwells, and even removing singing from worship services to reduce the number of droplets in the air, all in addition to observing basic instructions from the state like wearing masks and observing six feet of social distance.
Pastor David Beam said the church has been preparing a comeback strategy practically all year, and that they are being strict to ensure that services don’t get canceled again.
“The guidelines are all built around common sense,” Beam said. “It’s been at least six months of purposeful, intentional calculations. … We’re not above cancelling services again if there’s a rise in cases, especially at the local level.”
Furthermore, these early in-person services are staying small. Over the first three weeks, only about a third of church members were attending in person, with most declining to return as long as the pandemic is still at its current levels.
Associate pastor Vicki Lawrence said the church doesn’t mind maintaining its online options for those who are still concerned about the dangers (or for those who don’t want to wear a mask for the whole service). In fact, online options have been a big success for the church, allowing them to extend their weekly reach well beyond Franklin.
“We have a lot of seasonal people in Florida, Georgia and Alabama,” Lawrence said. “Now they get to stay with us all year long.”
While holding face-to-face gatherings is still a bit of a hassle, it hasn’t slowed down the church family. More than 40 members jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for positions like greeting, checking temperatures, shuttling people from their cars and more.
Volunteer Karen Sheehan said everyone is committed to putting together the necessary infrastructure to allow church services to start getting back to normal.
“We started in the first week of October, and we had practice sessions for several weeks before that,” Sheehan said. “We’ve got a good system going. No one is getting in without a mask.”
For those who are coming back to the sanctuary, the last few months have been a spiritually trying time. Many of them are older and have found themselves cut off from most of the world by quarantine protocols, including their friends and family. Ellynne Stonebraker said she’s had precious little in-person contact with her family since the pandemic began and that even if things at church aren’t exactly like they were before, it’s worth it to feel close to people who are important to her again.
“When the church family is the only family that some people have, all of this can be devastating,” she said. “This feels like coming home.”
Mike Lutgen agreed with her, saying that going to church online would never be quite the same as the real thing.
“I worked in front of computers for so many years,” he said. “I decided that it’s better to be in front of people.”