Is a Fourth of July Weekend a Good Time to Resume Public Worship?

By Robin G. Jordan

A number of churches in the Commonwealth of Kentucky will be resuming public worship on this coming Sunday as the state has relaxed its restrictions on June 29, 2020 and is permitting gatherings of up to 50 people. The state is also allowing the reopening of restaurants and bars. However, I must wonder at the wisdom of resuming public worship on a Fourth of July weekend. If the Fourth of July weekend is like the Memorial Day weekend, a number of people are going to ignore recommended precautionary measures. Some of the same people will show up at church on Sunday morning.

Over the last four months I have learned not to expect people to act rationally or responsibly. When the date was set for resuming public worship, it may have looked like it would be a safe thing to do. The number of COVID-19 cases reported in the state had been stable for several days. While the number of cases reported in the county where I live were slowly creeping higher, they were relatively low compared to what was happening in other states and other counties. The state was scheduled to lift its restriction on gatherings of more than 10 people in July. The first Sunday of the month just happened to fall on the day after the Fourth of July.

My own inclination would have been to wait for fourteen days after the Fourth of July before resuming public worship. Why? Fourteen days is the length of time for the COVID-19 virus to incubate. Anyone who contracted the virus over the Fourth of July weekend would be beginning to exhibit symptoms. When a pandemic is raging unchecked in the United States and people are ignoring recommended precautionary measures, a public holiday weekend is not a good time to resume public worship. The Fourth of July weekend is a particularly bad time as people are accustomed to gathering in large groups. They also drink alcoholic beverages to the point where the alcohol may impair their judgement.

The leadership teams of Kentucky churches that do resume public worship on the Fifth of July will be on tender hooks for the next fourteen days to see if their church is going to be the epicenter of a cluster of new COVID-19 cases. I do not envy the senior or lead pastor of those churches which resume public worship on that Sunday. Waiting to the middle of the month would have been safer. By then the leadership team would have a better idea of whether Kentucky and the county were going to follow the national trend and see a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases.

Leadership teams need to be watching what is happening not only in their county but also in their region, the state, and neighboring states. The last four months has also shown that people ignore travel advisories asking them to not to make any unnecessary trips and to quarantine themselves for 14 days if they travel to Kentucky from another state. Families that live in different counties or different states often get together on the Fourth of July weekend. Some families may postpone such get-togethers due to the pandemic; others will not. A segment of the population, not only in Kentucky but also in other states does not take the pandemic with the seriousness that it warrants. They dismiss the need for precautionary measures such as wearing face masks and social distancing.

The more scientists are studying the COVID-19 virus, the more they are discovering how the virus is transmitted. They are just beginning to understand the role “super-spreaders” play in the transmission of the virus. A body of “super-spreader” produces a tremendous amount of the virus. “Super-spreaders” have been compared to the chimney or exhaust stack of a factory—in their case, a virus factory. At the same time the “super-spreader” may experience negligible symptoms. One “super-spreader” can turn a church into the epicenter of a COVID-19 hotspot.

I personally believe that it would be better for Kentucky churches to resume public worship on a quieter weekend on which there is less likely to be the kind of activities that have been implicated in the spread of the COVID-19 virus. However, I do not have to deal with the pressures that senior and lead pastors are dealing with—church members who do not believe that public worship should have been suspended in the first place or who are otherwise eager to resume public worship; church treasurers and finance committee members who are concerned about a drop in giving; church leadership team members who are anxious about losing church members; other churches that are located in the community or judicatory and its subdivisions and which are resuming public worship on that Sunday; and a host of other pressures with which pastors must cope. Once a decision has been made to resume public worship, pastors may also not be in a position where they can backtrack from that decision.

In the midst of a pandemic, however, pastors need the flexibility to suddenly change to reverse gear when circumstances indicate that it may not be a good time to resume public worship or to continue public worship once it is resumed. As we have seen this week, the number of COVID-19 cases in a county or state can suddenly go up. As the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control has drawn to the attention of the public, for every reported COVID-19 case, there is at least 10 unreported cases. The process of resuming public worship should not be like a juggernaut which, once it begins rolling, crushes everything in its way. One thing that the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching churches is the importance of being nimble. Those making decisions should be able to make them quickly, based on the latest information and without needless delays and endless wrangling. This may require the streamlining of the church’s decision-making process.

Churches need to prepare church members and regular attendees for the possibility that a resumption of public worship may be temporary and may be suspended on a moment’s notice. They also need to disabuse church members and regular attendees of any notion that the resumption of public worship is a return to pre-COVID-19 normalcy. Because the state is permitting gatherings of up to 50 people does not mean that the virus has gone away. This is something that Governor Andy Beshear has repeatedly drawn to the attention of Kentuckians in his public statements, urging them to wear face masking and observe social distancing and other precautionary measures.

I am requesting prayers for Kentucky churches and any other churches that will be resuming public worship this Fourth of July weekend. Please pray that none of them of them will become the nexus of a cluster of new COVID-19 cases. Please pray that God will direct and guide the decision-making of their church leaders so that they make wise decisions to keep those attending their services safe from all harm.