SUNDRE — Some, but not all, of the local church services have resumed.
“The over lining theme of everything was that we all need to open at our own pace, because every church is a different organization and has a different need,” said Pastor Kent Janz of McDougal Chapel, who is also the chairman of the Sundre and Area Ministerial Association.
“Everyone is just moving at their own pace,” said Janz. “There’s no right or wrong.”
Some of the smaller churches were able to reopen right away, he said.
“It’s just super easy for them. Churches like ourselves and Bergen, it’s a little more difficult, a little more complicated," he said.
Health guidelines recommended by the provincial government to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19 are the same at all of the churches regardless of size. But preparing plans comes down to a matter of scale, he said.
While indoor social gatherings remain restricted to 50 people and outdoor events limited to 100, those regulations do not apply to churches.
“For places of worship, they’ve lifted those restriction,” he said. “That gives us a lot of freedom. But we do have to adhere to guidelines of social distancing. So, that restricts us to a certain extent, because when you space everyone out, you obviously can’t get as many people in your group.”
The provincial government provided a detailed document outlining recommendations, and it’s up to individual churches to decide how to proceed, he said.
Although clergy do not have to wear masks, sanitization stations are required. Additionally, while speaking is considered safe, singing is — although not banned — strongly discouraged since particles could potentially spread further, he said.
“(Government officials) have no problem with speaking. It’s the singing that they want to limit,” he said.
“To be honest, that’s probably one of the biggest things that people are discouraged about, because people come to worship. You don’t come to gain favour with God, you come to worship God,” he said, adding some people do so through song.
“So, I see that — in our congregation anyway — as a big deterrent, is not being able to sing like they used to.”
Services at McDougal Chapel technically resumed in a limited format during Stage 1 of the relaunch strategy.
“We were allowed 50 people into the place with distancing,” he said. “So we moved into a scenario where we went into two small services.”
That approach involved recording services on an evening when there was no church anyway, and then inviting people to come in to watch the video as a group.
“We probably had about 30 to 35 people every week who would come out to McDougal Chapel” during Stage 1, he said, adding numbers increased over the first weekend following the launch of Stage 2 on June 12.
“We had probably right around 50 people show up on Sunday morning (June 14) without an announcement,” he said, adding that service also featured a recording.
But with the reopening, he added plans were in place to conduct a full service this past weekend. The services will continue to be recorded live and made available to anyone still concerned about physically coming in person, he said.
“We’re ready to go for the people that want to be here.”
In the U.S., where some states have reopened faster than Alberta, the trend in churches seems to be about 30 per cent of congregations are expected to show up at first, slowly increasing afterwards, he said.
“It’s going to be an extremely slow return to normal,” he said. “There are people that are cautious, some people that are excited.”
One way or another, church leaders respect and support people’s decisions, he said, adding everyone has their own individual risk assessment to make, especially people who are close to somebody who is more vulnerable to the risk of COVID-19.
While Sundre's United Church, which has a more elderly congregation, does not plan to reopen until after the summer, Janz said Main Avenue Fellowship had reopened. People are encouraged to call their churches if they’re uncertain what the plans are.
However, for the time being, children’s programs remain on hiatus, most likely until the fall at this point. But there would usually be a summer break anyway, he said.
