We are closely monitoring the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak and how it affects the health and well-being of the churches in our diocese, as well as our communities. Below are suggestions we’ve compiled for how you can help keep your church and city safe. We update this page as new information becomes available.

Churches Reopening

The Church and Casualty Insurance Agency has prepared helpful resources for safely reopening churches.

The Humanitarian Disaster Institute provides a guide to reopening churches.

Bill Gaultiere of Soul Shepherding suggests 5 steps to reopen church.

Christianity Today asks a global health expert to suggest a phased plan for congregations gathering again.

Anglican Compass provides a webinar on with Ed Stetzer on what leaders and congregations should consider as they reopen.

Bishop Todd gives guidance on discerning the best way and time to reopen in the future.

Ed Stetzer discusses the government’s “gating criteria” for churches to reopen safely.

The White House releases a series of guidelines for opening up America again.

The CDC issues guidelines for reopening childcare, an issue relevant for all churches.

The Gulf Atlantic Diocese shares a working document that describes sample phases for reentry.

Preparing for a New Future

Fresh Expressions US offers a “Resilient Church Academy” to help leaders learn skills and strategies for quarantine and post-quarantine congregations.

Andy Crouch and his Praxis Labs partners provide a roadmap for redemptive leaders trying to survive the winter.

Andy Crouch and his Praxis Labs partners why Coronavirus is not a blizzard to “get through” — but a mini ice-age.

In The Gospel Coalition, Collin Hansen makes 5 predictions about the aftermath of COVID-19.

In the New Churches podcast, Josh Gagnon ponders how COVID-19 might impact church planting.

Experts examine how COVID-19 might radically alter urban life.

Mike Frost gives his opinion on what the spike in online attendance will mean for the Church.

 

Resources to Help Churches Adapt to COVID-19

Podcasts

  • On the Telos Collective’s Intersection Podcast, two practitioners discuss how they are adapting to the realities of COVID-19 in their churches.

Articles

  • Psychology Today shares how to beat Zoom fatigue.
  • In The Atlantic, Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, speaks about the coronavirus, his faith, and what’s next.
  • In Christianity Today, W. David O. Taylor writes 8 tips for stewarding church technology in a time of social distancing.
  • In the Praxis Journal, Andy Crouch writes a practical guide for Christian leaders, Love in the Time of Coronavirus.
  • In The New York Times, our Canon Theologian Esau McCaulley writes about a Christian response to the Coronavirus.

Manuals and Guides

  • Wheaton College has made available this step-by-step, research-informed and faith-based planning manual to help prepare your church to respond to the Coronavirus.
  • Coronavirus and the Church is a collaborative effort of the Peace Plan and the Billy Graham Center to assist churches and ministry leaders as they prepare for and respond to the effects of the Coronavirus in their congregations and communities.
  • Wheaton has also created several other resources for churches, including a planning template and webinar series.

Do you have a resource you have found helpful? Let us know. 

Suggestions for Alternative Ways to Meet and Serve

At this time, based on governmental recommendations and a provincial directive, Bishop Todd has recommended that C4SO churches immediately stop gathering on Sundays and find alternative ways to meet and serve their community. He urges churches to continue paying attention to their governors, local school districts, mayors and other community leaders, and to do their best to cooperate with daily updates from local officials. Read Bishop Todd’s full message.

“If you cease gathering for a period of weeks, you have not stopped being the church; you are ever more poignantly the church, serving others by denying yourself,” Bishop Todd says. “Love (2 Cor 5:14) and service for the most vulnerable (Romans 15:1) are the reasons we are changing our behavior, not pressure or fear.”

Think: What are we presently doing? How can we continue to do that creatively, or using the powerful technologies available to us?

Ideas for Gathering and Serving

  • Develop a Crisis Care Team to do errands and grocery shopping for elderly people who are afraid to go out.
  • Try to serve children from local elementary schools who are missing meals due to school closures.
  • Encourage Spirit-led creativity in your congregation, urging people to take their place as chaplains, healers and caregivers to those “no one else will touch.”
  • Host a house church in your home.
  • Hold Live Stream prayer meetings.
  • Hold Live Stream small groups.
  • Find ways for Sunday School teachers and youth leaders to stay in contact with kids. Consider creating an online curriculum for families, including a daily devotional and activities for kids to stay connected.
  • Start a prayer team.
  • Be available pastorally to your church by phone, email or video chat.
  • Create a phone tree to check on people, especially more vulnerable members.

Resources for Live Streaming Church Services

The Rev. Jed Roseberry helps churches learn to develop sacred space through online streaming.

Do you have ideas for alternative ways to gather and serve? Let us know. 

Liturgical Resources

Prayers for a Time of Suffering from the Rev. W. David O. Taylor

A Litany in Times of the Coronavirus

Spiritual Communion Insert to an Online Holy Communion Service

Options for Holy Communion During Times of Pestilence

  • Many people are now familiarizing themselves with the “Sacrament of Desire.” There are many “Communion of the Sick” services in the BCP that have a rubric referring to this “Sacrament of Desire.” This rubric reminds those providentially unable to receive Holy Communion—or if a minister is not able to offer the Eucharist for some reason—that anyone who “truly repents and steadfastly believes that Jesus Christ has suffered death upon the cross for him . . . remembers the benefits [of the cross] . . . gives thanks . . . doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Savior . . . even though he does not receive the Sacrament with his mouth” (1928 BCP, p. 323). In the ancient church, the Sacrament of Desire was applied to martyrs (especially those who could not be baptized), as well as soldiers on the battlefield. In our current situation where services are temporarily canceled and it may not be possible to take the Eucharist, consider using the following rubric from the 1951 Episcopal BCP Armed Services Spiritual Communion rite. It attempts to put the “Sacrament of Desire” into a short service a person could use to express his/her heart. You may also find this service in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, p. 242.
  • Additional options for Holy Communion during times of pestilence. Download here.
  • Prayer for practicing Spiritual Communion from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 677:
    Dear Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Holy Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to possess you within my soul. And since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, I beseech you to come spiritually into my heart. I unite myself to you, together with all your faithful people gathered around every altar of your Church, and I embrace you with all the affections of my soul. Never permit me to be separated from you. Amen. 
  • A resource from Anglican Compass for understanding Spiritual Communion during a pandemic.

Ideas for Staying Connected with the Next Generation

From C4SO’s NextGen Leadership Team, here are some practical ways to pastor the Next Generation in this season of social distancing.

Aaron Buttery, C4SO’s NextGen Leader, offers 9 tips for safeguarding the NextGen during #Coronavirus.

Ryder Mills of C4SO’s NextGen Leadership Team shares suggestions about pastoring college students during the pandemic.

Leading Your Children

In this instructional video, the Rev. Michael Thorne Jarrett helps families learn to pray at home with their children.

Cross Formed Kids offers resources to equip families to disciple their children.

A Chaplain’s Tips for Ministry in a Pandemic

Experienced Chaplain the Rev. Randy Demary provides guidance for essential ministry in a pandemic.

The Rev. Randy Demary explores how the church can embrace its historic medical mission.

Tips for Making Pastoral Visits

with special thanks to Chaplain Fred Grewe

  • Call the hospital first about visiting restrictions. They may not allow clergy or any non-essential (even family) visitors into the hospitals in an effort to control the spread of the virus.
  • Instead of visiting in person, explore the options of phone, email, or FaceTime. Handwritten cards and letters may be meaningful as well.
  • During a visit, offer connection. Being alone and afraid can be overwhelming for many. There is great therapeutic power in simply letting people know they are loved and connected with God and others. Anything you can do to help strengthen relationships with family and friends is wonderful.
  • Remember the hardest lesson any chaplain must learn: I can’t fix anything! What you can offer is honest, kind, loving acceptance, and that is powerful.
  • Simply sitting in silence with another can be a wonderful tool for connecting.
  • Be fully present. Don’t think about where you might pick up some toilet paper on the way home, or a great point for a future sermon. Really be fully present with the one to whom you are ministering.
  • Acts of kindness are magnified in importance at times like this. Bringing flowers, some prepackaged cookies or even unused rolls of toilet paper can speak volumes and touch deeply.
  • Share your own faith—deep, doubt-filled, honest as it can be. Frightened people often find comfort not in their own faith, but by simply being with someone who really does believe in a loving God, the wonder of Jesus, and the active presence of the Holy Spirit.

A Prayer for the Coronavirus

Oh Lord, you who are the refuge of the poor and needy, we ask that you would save us from the pestilence that stalks in the darkness and the plague that destroys at midday. Be our sun and shield. Be our fortress. Be our comfort this day. May we not fear any evil but rather trust in your might to save and your wisdom to guide, so that we may rest always in the shadow of the Almighty. In the name of the One who heals our diseases. Amen.
— W. David O. Taylor

Helpful Quotes

“The church, though, is not just a hospital, but a field hospital. Unlike a stationary institution that occupies a certain territory and defends it against encroachment, a field hospital is mobile, an event more than an institution. A field hospital is unconcerned about defending its own prerogatives, and instead goes outside of itself to respond to an emergency. As a body, it is visible, but it does not claim its own territory; its event-like character creates a space of healing. It neither withdraws from the world, sect-like, nor resigns itself to the world as it is. It is not confined to working within the given political and economic structures of the world, nor is it concerned primarily with gaining influence among the powerful in order to change the world from above. The approach is from below….[Pope Francis says] “‘An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives, it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.’ The church is not a player in the game of the powerful. ‘I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and clinging to its own security. I do not want a church concerned with being at the center and which ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures.’”—William Cavanaugh

Suggestions for General Prevention

For the American public, the immediate health risk is currently high, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are asking people to be prepared for a potential health crisis. The CDC reports that the manner of transmission of the disease appears similar to that of other respiratory viruses, including Influenza, via respiratory droplets. These droplets are in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes without containing their cough or sneeze (such as into their inner elbow or tissue paper). You can take the following steps to help minimize the spread of this virus and any other contagion:

  • Encourage anyone with symptoms of a cough, disease or a fever within the last 24 hours to stay at home.
  • Provide several containers of alcohol-based (60%-95%) hand sanitizer around your congregation in visible and accessible areas. Make sure there is a container available for people to use before taking Holy Communion. However, communicate to your congregation that hand sanitizer is no substitute for washing your hands, as it is most effective against bacteria, not viruses.
  • Ask children and youth to wash their hands upon entering the children’s space. Children should also wash their hands  prior to being served any food at snack time.
  • Provide boxes of Kleenex and facial tissue in the sanctuary so that people who are coughing and sneezing can safely cover their mouths and nose.
  • Provide empty waste bins in the sanctuary so that soiled facial tissue can be disposed of safely.
  • Consider asking people to avoid hugging or offering handshakes at the “Passing of the Peace.” Instead, do fist bumps, toe taps or elbow taps. Have fun and get creative!
  • Suggest that greeters greet people with a smile but do not shake hands, and allow each person to pick up their own bulletins.
  • Regularly clean surfaces such as doorknobs, countertops, etc., using bleach (1 part bleach to 100 parts water) as recommended by the CDC.
  • Take care of yourself during pastoral visitations. Follow all infection control measures in place at hospitals.

Additional Resources

Your local health department

The CDC’s COVID-19 newsletter. Go to their newsletter subscription page, click “Subscribe Now,” enter your email address, and under “Manage Subscriptions,” choose the newsletter entitled, “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).”

Johns Hopkins (a website that monitors the progression of the Coronavirus)

Posters to print:

(Poster) What you need to know.

(Poster) Stop the spread of germs.

(Poster)  What to do if you are sick.

To report cases of COVID-19: Call the Communicable Disease Control Program at 562-570-4302 (business hours)
or 562-500-5537 (after hours/weekends)

What You Can Do Now

Don’t Panic. In his provincial letter about the Coronavirus, Archbishop Foley Beach says, “We witness to our Christian faith when we resist panic, knowing that our times are in the Lord’s hand (Psalm 31:15). No one can snatch us out of the Father’s hand (John 10:28-29). And so, ‘for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:28).”

Pray. In the Prayers of the People this Sunday, consider including a prayer for the deliverance and healing of those suffering from COVID-19, both in the United States and around the world.

Contribute. This challenge is best faced as a community: As the impact of the Coronavirus continues to unfold over the next weeks and months, be sure to share your best practices for helping protect your church and family from the Coronavirus.

“C4SO stands in empathy with those affected by the Coronavirus and their families,” says Bishop Todd Hunter. “We offer our prayers for their healing, and we pray for the doctors and organizations working to provide medical supplies and assistance to address this serious risk to public health.”