With the Alberta government now allowing places of worship to meet in-person, churches in Airdrie are taking a variety of approaches to reopening.
Churches were included in Stage 2 of the Alberta government’s relaunch strategy and were allowed to welcome back congregants on June 12, but many are following slower timelines. Tim Callaway, lead pastor of DayBreak community church, said it isn’t as simple as churches just opening their doors.
“I don’t know how many church people other than pastors or leadership have actually taken the time to read all of the guidelines, but they are pretty intense,” he said. “The logistics are very significant. It’s not just a matter of saying, ‘OK, we’ve got the go-ahead, let’s do it.’”
Kyle Toner, discipleship pastor at Living Springs Christian Fellowship, said the government’s announcement came as a surprise for his church, which didn’t anticipate reopening its building until the fall.
“It did come without a lot of runway,” he said. “Some other businesses don’t have as many hoops to jump and things to prepare for, so are able to open really quickly. For us, we’ve given ourselves a bit of extra runway to make decisions on how we’re going to adjust to Phase 2.”
Churches are now balancing their desire to welcome back members with the need to protect their health. Toner acknowledged churches are at risk of becoming a transmission site, and said Living Springs has kept that in mind while deciding what steps to take to reopen.
“We don’t want to rush into anything and make a decision that we would regret later,” Toner said.
Both DayBreak and Living Springs will be slow to welcome back congregants. Following a church council meeting June 15, DayBreak has implemented a “cautious incremental reopening,” Callaway said, with one of the church’s ministries resuming per week. The church also established a relaunch team comprising representatives from its leadership and congregation.
Toner, meanwhile, said he didn’t anticipate Living Spring’s building would be reopened to the public for some time. He said leadership was examining some options for holding services outdoors, but due to space constraints, would not be able to welcome back its congregation inside the building.
“Within Phase 1, there was an allotment for churches to have up to 50 people already allowed,” he said. “We made a decision not to take advantage of that, because our building can only, while maintaining social distancing, house about 35 to 40 people.”
Toner also said a number of elements typically included in a church service – specifically, singing worship songs and participating in the act of communion by essentially sharing food – remain restricted or discouraged.
“Between the smaller size of people and the completely different expression of what that service will look like, I don’t think we’re planning on doing a massive reopen – at least not in our building,” Toner said.
Mary Olinyk, executive of operations with Kingdom City, said congregant safety remains the number one priority.
“We were so excited with [the] update from our government regarding the relaxing of capacity restrictions for places of worship,” she said “This was a very welcome announcement. There are still, however, other government restrictions and guidelines to be worked through, so we’re not meeting in our building at this time.”
To that end, Kingdom City invited its congregation to complete an online survey, asking questions about the conditions they would feel comfortable returning to the church under. Olinyk said those responses will be used to determine the church’s plan going forward.
Other churches have already resumed services. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary, which includes St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Airdrie, reintroduced the public celebration of Mass June 1, when the province was still in Stage 1 of the relaunch strategy. A 25-page document outlined guidelines churches in the Diocese were required to abide by, including a limit on attendance and new procedures for distributing communion.
Grace Baptist Church, according to Lead Pastor Dr. John Harrison, was already putting protocols in place to reopen before Stage 2 was announced. Harrison said the church wanted to be proactive in implementing guidelines to have people return to the building.
While attendance caps were still in place, Grace Baptist Church held a trial service, inviting any of its members with last names starting with A or B to attend. In total, 43 people attended.
Once restrictions relaxed, Harrison said his church resumed services with several safety measures in place. Congregants are required to maintain two metres of distance and anyone who attends the church must register for a service ahead of time.
“This helps us manage how many would be here on a Sunday morning,” Harrison said.
People who register to attend the services must also indicate they’ve read and agree to follow the church’s rules during the service.
“We have the sanctuary set up to handle up to 90 people,” Harrison said.
According to Harrison, Grace Baptist Church had and will continue to have a band playing worship music, but congregants have been told not to sing along, and instead use the time to reflect and pray.
“People seem to follow that,” Harrison said. “I had some comment afterward that people enjoyed being there, hearing the music and being able to absorb the music.”
Within the congregation, Harrison said, some people are excited to return to the church, while others are making the decision to stay home on Sunday morning due to concerns associated with the virus.
Callaway noted that “there is no one Christian view of reopening churches after COVID-19,” and within congregations, there are many strongly-held views on how churches should proceed.
“Christians are humans too,” he said. “We all have our political leanings, we all have our economic feelings, our sociological feelings. There are so many factors that come into play on this question.”
Ben Sherick, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @BenSherick
