Five years ago this week I started my Rector’s Rambling with this statement. “This has been the worst Lent for me, ever. Every year I look forward to Lent; the disciplines, classes, and extra worship opportunities are things I love!”
The reason for my proclamation is that the week before we were informed by the bishops of the 4 Episcopal Dioceses in Michigan that in order to “flatten the curve” (which later became “stop the spread”) we were not permitted to have public worship or gatherings at St. John’s.
“In addition to continuing to forgo all public, in-person worship services, we direct you to cease all other Sunday, Saturday and weekday in-person gatherings, including weddings, funerals, memorial services, bible studies, prayer meetings, and non-emergency baptisms, and place all of the groups that gather at your congregation on hiatus for the CDC’s recommended eight weeks, or until May 10th, including both Holy Week and Easter.”
In a few weeks that was extended to the building being closed completely and that we weren’t even allowed to livestream Masses or worship from an empty building. The closure was extended to July 1st, when other denominations returned in May, and here in the city of Detroit we were the ONLY parish of the diocese to open and have public worship for a full year, and did so with no spread or outbreak.
At first we were all acting out of an abundance of caution. Masses continued livestreamed from here and then from my house. I started the Daily Morning Mediation series to stay in contact with parishioners and are still making them daily, over 1,750 days later. Some of us started new hobbies or fitness routines (I started rowing again, eating keto).
After we reopened we had to navigate various precautions and rules set down for us like social distancing and only receiving Communion in one kind in the Host but not the chalice. And at one point the parishes were restricted back to “9 people plus the priests” at services (in our 800 seat church) so we had 10 Saturday and Sunday Services every week for 4 over months.
One of the positive results of the shutdowns was the expansion of livestreaming, which we had started experimenting with a few months beforehand. This has expanded the reach of St. John’s Church via the internet, and I received emails and phone messages from people around the United States and in England, thanking us for our broadcasts.
One of the negative results of the shut-downs is also partially to blame on livestreaming. People fell out of the habit of weekly worship. Those joining via livestream weren’t single-focused participating in the worship online, and of course not able to receive the Blessed Sacrament. Some people never came back.
A few weeks ago I identified that only a small number of people in the pews at 8 AM and 10 AM were here when I arrived 24 years ago. People have moved or passed away over the years, many more have joined us. Another interesting survey would be to see how many people have joined here since covid.
One family started attending because we had sensible rules and were actually open for worship. Another came from another parish in the city because they didn’t reopen for another year after we did. And many others have discovered us since then.
Some people stayed for a few months because we were open, and I remember that first Sunday we were allowed to have coffee hour again I was shocked to see that one of the newcomers had a moustache! I had never seen him with his mask off. Up until then I was delivering the Sacrament to people in the pews (coming up to the rail violated the 6 foot separation rule) and he never put down his mask until I moved on to the next person.
So many twists and turns, and unknowns, confronted us while trying to figure out the ‘New Normal’. Re-constituting the choir was a task, even with them singing with masks. Convincing people it was safe, and VITAL that they come back to public worship was a chore! When Coffee Hour was shut down again for a period of time, but restaurants were open, we moved our Valentine’s Day Coffee hour to a friend of mine’s bar down the street! And thankfully we still had no outbreaks in or from the congregation.
What started out as an ‘abundance of caution’ to keep people safe from infection morphed into a struggle to find common sense and real science. Things we are told was settled truth changed, or was discarded, over time.
I am convinced that the devil took the best of our intentions and twisted it into an irrational fear in order to keep people out of church, away from the Blessed Sacrament, and to draw them away from Jesus. Church attendance around the city, state and country, is still down from pre-covid numbers in most places. Several already struggling parishes in the diocese closed as a result.
5 years was a long time ago, and yet seems in some ways like just yesterday. We still livestream and have a great deal of connection with people beyond Metro Detroit because of it. New people continue to join the parish and didn’t have any experience of the shifting rules and regulation imposed for us to stay open for worship. And I am so grateful for the many members of the parish who pivoted as necessary, were flexible through the changes, and have continued faithful to our Lord in his parish on this corner of Woodward Avenue and I-75
May we never in our lifetimes have such a virus affect us. We have learned much in hindsight from the experience. May we never again be tempted to think that withholding the Sacrament or public worship is the solution.
