Too Soon to Begin In-Person Worship Services Again

By Robin G. Jordan

Readers may wonder why I have not posted any links to articles about Christians’ yearning to gather once more in person for worship services and other church activities. Or about churches that have continued to hold worship services despite the recommendations of state and local authorities against such gatherings and what they have done to safeguard the attendees of those gatherings from infection.

First, I don’t believe going on about how much we miss the “good old days” and how much we are looking forward to the return to normalcy serves any good purpose. Rather it weakens our resolve to adapt to our present circumstances and to explore new ways of spreading the gospel and reaching all people groups with its life-transforming message. It encourages the attitude that we can put the church’s mission on hold until things get back to normal.

Second, I believe that such articles make pastors, elders, and church members already restive from being confined to their homes more susceptible to prematurely beginning worship service and other church activities again in which people come into close personal contact with each other. People have all kinds of ways of rationalizing bad decisions. While people who are prone to making bad decisions most likely will make these decisions, we are not excused from doing what we can to discourage them from making such decisions. We are not showing the love of neighbor to which our Lord calls us if we chose to do nothing when churches make decisions that harm not only themselves but also others. While we may not be able to extinguish the fire, we can avoid adding fuel to it and fanning the flames.

As for churches that continue to hold in-person worship services despite recommendations to the contrary in the time of a national health emergency, I believe that their church leaders are acting irresponsibly. Even if they implement social distancing and other safeguards against infection, their churches are a health threat to the community—to its older and more vulnerable members. Maintaining that they are standing up for their right to freely worship under the US Constitution is, to my mind, a rationalization for what amounts to poor judgment on their part. A pastor who believes that he must fill the sanctuary with people and look down on row after row of faces in order to preach is gratifying his own ego.

Now I realize that some churches do not have the resources to livestream their worship services and are located in parts of the country which are sparsely populated and where few people have access to internet, much less broadband service. TV reception is poor if not non-existent. Cell phone towers are few and far between and cell phone “dead zones” are not uncommon. These churches may feel that they have no option but to continue their Sunday worship service.

While the more remote or isolated areas may have no reported cases of the coronavirus as the disease spreads across the United States and Canada, these churches will eventually become points of contagion. COVID-19 is a very infectious disease. Wherever people gather, whether in small or large numbers, the virus spreads. People do not need to display symptoms of the disease in order to infect others.

The first reported case of the coronavirus in the county in which I live was an out-of-town visitor to a relative who lived in the county and who worked at the county hospital. From what I gather the visitor had been diagnosed with the virus before he visited the relative. Rather than self-isolate, he not only traveled to another community from one in which he lived but he also attended the relative’s church while visiting the relative. The relative was the second reported coronavirus case in the county. The county health authorities have no idea of how many other people he infected during his visit. The members of the church were warned that they had been exposed to the virus.

As of today, the number of reported coronavirus cases in the county is twenty-eight with one death--a five case increase from what it was earlier in the week. Twenty-eight reported cases and one death may not sound like a large number of cases and deaths compared to the number of reported cases and deaths in highly-populated areas like New York and Washington but they represent the tip of an iceberg. A number of milder or asymptomatic cases will go unreported. Coronavirus anti-body studies where they have been done indicate that the number of infected individuals is much higher than the number of the reported cases. One of the implications of these studies is that while the number of reported cases and deaths may go down, a community will continue to have a sizable population of infected individuals who can transmit the disease to others.

Whether this one out-of-town visitor was responsible for the twenty-one other reported cases, it is difficult to say. The community in which I live is home to a state university. While the university urged students to stay home during the summer break and not to travel, a number of the students who live in the community may have traveled to Florida where large numbers of college students gathered during the summer break. The community is an hour’s drive from Paducah, the region’s largest metropolitan area. It is also linked by Interstate to Louisville and Nashville. Residents of the community often travel to these cities for business, pleasure, and health services.

In a scientific brief that was made public today, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.” This comes as no surprise since there have been reports from China and South Korea that COVID-19 patients who tested negative tested positive when retested. Being infected with the disease does not appear to confer lasting immunity or even immunity for short periods of time. It has not been established whether these individuals are still infectious.

While politicians and protesters may be urging the reopening of businesses and churches and a number of Southern states have decided to roll back the public health measures mitigating the spread of the coronavirus in those states, I believe that churches need to take a far more cautious approach. While they may experience pressure to resume in-person gatherings, they really need to wait until widespread testing and contact-tracing has been implemented not only in their state but also across the nation. Even then they should continue to implement the public health measures that have helped to reduce the number of reported cases and deaths.

COVID-19 looks like it will be with us for a good while. The development of an effective vaccine and a mass immunization program may significantly reduce the spread of the disease but if the resurgence of measle cases in the United States is anything to go by, there will always be those who oppose vaccination. We have had flu shots for a number of years and they have reduced the number of flu cases in the United States. But a segment of the population refuses to receive the shots every year. This means that there will continue to be outbreaks of the coronavirus in the United States and churches must quickly learn to adapt to the “new normal.” The old normal is not going to return.