The bustle is gone from church buildings across Hancock County, with thousands of area worshipers watching from home as churches post songs and sermons online.
While remaining at home, people can still find ways to nurture their spiritual life, local clergy say.
Yes, they hope people will tune in to services posted online on church Facebook pages, websites and/or YouTube. But they urge people to not stop there.
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Pick up the phone, they say. Check in. Stay connected.
“Especially if you’re single, it’s easy to feel like, ‘Man, I’m all alone,” said Mark Wright, senior pastor of Brandywine Community Church in Greenfield. “And it doesn’t have to be, with our telephones.”
The Rev. Marianne Nichols, pastor of Charlottesville United Methodist Church, has sought to call each member of her congregation to check in and pray with them. Her church is not having services at this time, but she has encouraged parishioners to be intentional about worship, finding it on television or online and also “encouraging each other to be intentional about devotions and being in the Word” (the Bible).
Similarly, the Rev. Markus Dennis of Riley Friends Church in Greenfield has been calling a few people from his congregation each day. They also come together online at 5 p.m. Saturdays, their usual time for worship. Today (March 28) Jim Peters of the Salvation Army and Hancock County COAD will be a guest on the livestream.
“I think we’re leaning in to needing each other” more than previously, Dennis said. “The personal touch is the difference, and always has been.”
Wright said in addition to Brandywine’s streamed services on Sunday mornings, people can continue to grow spiritually by taking classes or meeting in smaller groups of people online. Bible study groups at Brandywine that once met in homes are catching up with each other online through the Zoom app.
The Wellspring Center housed in the church is also using Zoom for its groups. Thursday’s Celebrate Recovery meetings are also online. (Dennis said the local recovery group Brianna’s Hope also is connecting online.) Griefshare at Brandywine is also meeting via Zoom. In a time when funerals are postponed or limited in attendance, “You don’t have to wait to be with others who are grieving,” Wright said.
He also points to the Bible’s book of Psalms and said those discouraged or depressed in these times can find voice given to those emotions by ancient Israel’s King David, who is credited with writing many of the psalms.
“There were times when David was in depression,” Wright said. “There were times when he was fearful and had great concern, and it birthed those psalms.”
Dennis suggests anyone new to reading the Bible could start with the Gospel of John, the fourth book in the Bible’s New Testament. “It’s a microcosm of the Good Book,” he said. “It’s the big-picture Gospel.”
In addition to Bible reading, pastors can recommend books for those spending extra hours at home. Wright suggests Clarence Hall’s “Samuel Logan Brengle — Portrait of a Prophet” about a Salvation Army officer of the late 1800s and early 1900s. He also likes “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence and J.I. Packer’s “Knowing God.”
Nichols recommends “Workin’ Our Way Home” by Ron Hall. “It is a journey between a homeless black man and a widowed white millionaire. A true story of faith …,” she wrote in an email to the Daily Reporter.
Echoing his earlier comments about community and personal touches, Dennis suggests the book “We Really Do Need Each Other: A Call to Community in the Church” by Reuben Welch.
“I don’t think there are any ‘country churches’ or ‘megachurches’ anymore,” Dennis said. “There is just the Church.”
