How has COVID-19 affected your church attendance?

[NewCreation435]

I joined a Baptist church less than one week before the state I am in ordered a stay at home order. I found out about the stay at home order while I was standing in front of a client's house around 4 pm on March 13. I received an email from our company owner saying that at 5 pm all visits would need to end and that we would be doing remote only visits after that. This had an impact on the church because groups of 10 or more could not congregate. It took a while for churches to do other things like facebook live services or drive up church where people stay in their cars. At the church I joined, drive up church still happens on Sundays at 9 am. About 12 or so people go into the church at 11 am for a service, but most people don't go to that one. This is a church that was averaging 140 in worship. So, it has impacted in a huge way the way that people do church. Most of the time, I have just watched the service on facebook live, though I have gone to the drive up church several times and the in person church once.
I am in a high risk group due to being type 1 diabetic. Up until recently, I was also on crutches due to a knee injury that made mobility a challenge at times. I feel like I have to take extra precautions due to having type 1 diabetes which is an autoimmune disease. To be honest, I also feel like i never got a chance to really know people in the church before all this started. I had only been going there about 5 months before I joined.
How has COVID-19 impacted your involvement in the church?

 

[tango]

Our church is a mostly older congregation so it's not surprising that attendance is down. When we reopened for physical services we made it very clear to everyone that we would continue to distribute recordings of the service to anyone who wanted them and that we didn't expect people to come if they didn't feel safe.

At present we're typically running at between 50-60% of normal attendance. Curiously it seems weekly giving is up, so I don't know whether those not physically attending are mailing in checks or what.

My involvement is much like it always was. From what I can tell my situation is such that I'm about as low-risk as it's possible to be so I'm really not worried about the virus, I just take those around me into consideration. For the most part it's pretty easy - in a rural area it's not difficult to stay six feet from people when talking and I'll cover my face if I'm near someone who asks or who I know is at higher risk.

 

[Josiah]

In The People's Republic of California, our Democrat Governor is simply the all-power, absolute Lord. He is also the infallible expert on all things medical.

He shut down churches (well, INDOOR worship) for some 3 months. We did online worship.... we streamed the service inside, with no worshipers in the seats. Fortunately, we have some "techie" people who pulled this off (very well, I might add), something we never did before but will do from now on.) Then - with a LOT of restrictions - we could "re-open" and we did that for 5 or 6 weeks - but only about half our parish returned, the others continued to just do the online thing. Next Sunday, we go to outdoor worship. We have a large shade tree on part of the parking lot and that's where we are going to do this. This will work - until the rains come. We'll see how many come to that.



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[Lamb]

Our church met outside one time in the evening so far since this all started. They're still doing the Sunday videos and probably will continue through the fall. Attendance is hard to gauge because page views don't get a really accurate count.

 

[tango]

In The People's Republic of California, our Democrat Governor is simply the all-power, absolute Lord. He is also the infallible expert on all things medical.

He shut down churches (well, INDOOR worship) for some 3 months. We did online worship.... we streamed the service inside, with no worshipers in the seats. Fortunately, we have some "techie" people who pulled this off (very well, I might add), something we never did before but will do from now on.) Then - with a LOT of restrictions - we could "re-open" and we did that for 5 or 6 weeks - but only about half our parish returned, the others continued to just do the online thing. Next Sunday, we go to outdoor worship. We have a large shade tree on part of the parking lot and that's where we are going to do this. This will work - until the rains come. We'll see how many come to that.



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Some at our church suggested meeting outdoors although the majority shot down the idea because of weather. Some days it's too hot to sit outdoors for any length of time and if it rains the turnout is likely to be zero. That's before considering the technical requirements to get sound equipment out there.

In fairness it seems that state governors up and down the country have become little more than dictators, ruling by executive order. It's just a matter of how petty they are in their tyranny.

 

[Lord Saru]

In India, we follow a region wise set up. The red zone areas are not permitted to hold any mass gatherings. For other zones, they are permitting 50 people to assemble based on a lottery system.

The good thing is that most of our parish people have taken to view the proceedings broadcast on TV as well as in youtube. This was already prevelant in my state before COVID19, the only thing was that it was used by people of age.

Personally, I havent gone to the church since April. I would prefer to see the mass on TV rather than go and get infected.

 

[Lamb]

My church has mainly been in person for those who want to attend but not everyone attends in person. I still watch the videos because I am still trying to stay away from people as much as possible. Lately though we've had bad weather on Sundays so church was canceled and a video was posted instead. Now that more people are getting the vaccine (my church is mostly older folks), I might feel more comfortable going next month or the month after if my surgery doesn't get rescheduled then.

 

[Stephen]

My church is closed for the current lockdown. We have to view on line.

 

[Faith]

I joined a Baptist church less than one week before the state I am in ordered a stay at home order. I found out about the stay at home order while I was standing in front of a client's house around 4 pm on March 13. I received an email from our company owner saying that at 5 pm all visits would need to end and that we would be doing remote only visits after that. This had an impact on the church because groups of 10 or more could not congregate. It took a while for churches to do other things like facebook live services or drive up church where people stay in their cars. At the church I joined, drive up church still happens on Sundays at 9 am. About 12 or so people go into the church at 11 am for a service, but most people don't go to that one. This is a church that was averaging 140 in worship. So, it has impacted in a huge way the way that people do church. Most of the time, I have just watched the service on facebook live, though I have gone to the drive up church several times and the in person church once.
I am in a high risk group due to being type 1 diabetic. Up until recently, I was also on crutches due to a knee injury that made mobility a challenge at times. I feel like I have to take extra precautions due to having type 1 diabetes which is an autoimmune disease. To be honest, I also feel like i never got a chance to really know people in the church before all this started. I had only been going there about 5 months before I joined.
How has COVID-19 impacted your involvement in the church?

I am fairly new to my Lutheran LCMS church, having gone there about two years or so. Since I haven’t gotten involved in much there yet, just some classes (though I am planning on being on the decorating staff) and since Covid caused our church to cancel services for awhile, after that many people did then, and are still avoiding going to church. Things like Bible study was canceled, one Bible class I was involved in stopped then resumed online, which I didn’t do online. So we are now very slowly returning to church, having classes available etc. My Bible Study is still unavailable and may be over for good.

 

[Faith]

Our church met outside one time in the evening so far since this all started. They're still doing the Sunday videos and probably will continue through the fall. Attendance is hard to gauge because page views don't get a really accurate count.

We’ve had two outdoor services since Covid started.

 

[Faith]

I joined a Baptist church less than one week before the state I am in ordered a stay at home order. I found out about the stay at home order while I was standing in front of a client's house around 4 pm on March 13. I received an email from our company owner saying that at 5 pm all visits would need to end and that we would be doing remote only visits after that. This had an impact on the church because groups of 10 or more could not congregate. It took a while for churches to do other things like facebook live services or drive up church where people stay in their cars. At the church I joined, drive up church still happens on Sundays at 9 am. About 12 or so people go into the church at 11 am for a service, but most people don't go to that one. This is a church that was averaging 140 in worship. So, it has impacted in a huge way the way that people do church. Most of the time, I have just watched the service on facebook live, though I have gone to the drive up church several times and the in person church once.
I am in a high risk group due to being type 1 diabetic. Up until recently, I was also on crutches due to a knee injury that made mobility a challenge at times. I feel like I have to take extra precautions due to having type 1 diabetes which is an autoimmune disease. To be honest, I also feel like i never got a chance to really know people in the church before all this started. I had only been going there about 5 months before I joined.
How has COVID-19 impacted your involvement in the church?

I still go to church but attendance has been down, with from what I hear, lots of people are watching services online. Now, though, I’m noticing an increase of people attending. Hopefully as more of us get vaccinated attendance will rise further.

 

[Faith]

My church is closed for the current lockdown. We have to view on line.

Ours closed for awhile but has been open now for months.

 

[NewCreation435]

I still go to church but attendance has been down, with from what I hear, lots of people are watching services online. Now, though, I’m noticing an increase of people attending. Hopefully as more of us get vaccinated attendance will rise further.

I find it difficult to pay attention sometimes to services online. I am planning on trying to go more in person now that I am fully vaccinated.

 

[Faith]

I don’t know which shot we’re getting, but we go in for our first (only?) vaccination at the end of the month.

 

[Lamb]

I don’t know which shot we’re getting, but we go in for our first (only?) vaccination at the end of the month.

Will you feel more comfortable getting out more to do other things after the vaccine?

 

[Faith]

Will you feel more comfortable getting out more to do other things after the vaccine?

Yeah, but we already get out and do a lot now. Taking our chances, though I’d feel a lot better after being vaccinated.