Observations from our very first Sunday back from COVID-19
This past Sunday, June 14 2020, was our first Sunday since March 8th in which the church could attend a worship service in person. We are treating these first three weeks as a soft opening. July 5th will be our grand opening. Below are my observations from this past Sunday.
About 25% of previous worship attendance returned: We intentionally did not count the morning attendance but I eyeballed it. We run just over 600 these days and I’d say we had around 150ish. However, with the social distancing in place the worship center felt full.
No elderly attended: Unless I missed someone I didn’t see any of our oldest members. While that is certainly reasonable I sure miss them all. This group is the most disconnected during this time as they aren’t all online and their families are limiting their interaction with other people. Most of them have said they will return on July 5th, which is our grand opening.
Very few children attended: This was a surprise. We normally have 100-125 kids on a Sunday morning. On the first Sunday back we had maybe 10. I guess I expected them to be the first crowd back. But we had no nursery or kids ministry so I am sure that played into their decisions to wait.
The largest group attending were in the 50-70 age group: This group is raring to go.
Online viewership dropped was still very strong: We saw about a 33% drop but still had over 4000 views. In the past three months our online viewership has skyrocketed. We’ve had as many as 11,000 views of worship service. We plan to continue to leverage that going forward.
Digital Bulletin: Our new virtual bulletin was a huge hit. Wanna see it? Just text the word EZBulletin to 484848. I am not planning to return to a printed bulletin.
New Guest Services: This new system worked beautifully.
Singing: Worship was fantastic! After not being able to sing and worship for 3 months everyone there was full throttle. Let’s keep that up.
Multi-Cultural: Our church has become increasingly multicultural in the past couple years but I noticed only whites in the room (unless I missed someone). I’m not sure if it’s politically correct to note that. I hope recent societal upheaval isn’t influencing that.
The biggest surprise: Almost everyone who attended was there early. That was sweet! I dream of this happening every week. Perhaps this can be the new norm.
Lots of touch: I did see a few facemasks and there were several who kept their distance for a variety of reasons. But by-in-large there was lots of handshaking. I don’t think anyone was carried away with this. There is a couple I want to pray over and anoint but thought it best to wait a few weeks before laying hands on them.
Preaching: Having people in the room to react and engage with was awesome. I did find myself preaching to the camera at least 90% of the time though. Seems like I have been retrained.
Offering: I gotta admit I liked not passing the plates. And we still had a strong offering. We did have a moment to let people know how to give. We may continue this pattern.
Weird Things:
No coffee bar
No volunteers
There was a slight sense of distance between people a first…not sure how to interact with each other
