Emerging Together from the Pandemic
By Jane Harris
WHEN I STEPPED into the entrance of St. Augustine’s Church in December, Karen and Michael Larsen had just finished stacking a table with 2021 stewardship envelopes and small white packages containing reserved sacrament wafers to be used during the live-stream Christmas Eve service. With their coats hung over the back of chairs, they kept watch through the window for fellow parishioners who had been instructed to drive up to the church and wait inside their cars. With each arrival, the Larsens went out into the sub-zero afternoon to offer envelopes and baskets through open car windows. This would be a Christmas like no other in the Diocese of Calgary.
With the exception of a few weeks in the fall, there has been no in-person worship in the Diocese since March 15, 2020. Platforms such as Zoom, Facebook and YouTube have been used for everything from clergy meetings to Sunday services, to coffee hours, prayer rooms, and Bible studies in communities as big as Calgary and as small as Rimbey. While some churches opened briefly under strict social distancing last fall, they shut down again Nov. 15, after Alberta’s COVID-19 case rates surged to one quarter of Canada’s daily active cases. They remain closed at the end of January.
Brother Jason Carroll, Diocesan Ministry Developer, found his role transformed. “Most of my job was supposed to be in-person. It was well into July before the Archbishop said I could travel again. Then in mid-November we were back in lockdown.” That meant finding a way to support parishes from a distance, usually via Zoom conference. By that time, Carroll was also dividing his time between the Diocese and a new job as Interim Pastoral Assistant at St. Augustine’s in Lethbridge.
“In terms of technology, we thought we were doing pretty well before, but the pandemic showed there are ways we could adjust to this,” says Greg Kerr-Wilson, Archbishop of Calgary and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert’s Land. “Zoom, it turns out, is a good place to pray for one another.”
Surviving the pandemic entailed revamping the way parishes operate. The Diocese made grants available to enable even small churches to purchase video equipment and applied for salary relief on behalf of the parishes. Many congregations encouraged members to send offerings via e-transfer and pre-authorized debits.
Clergy rose to the challenge, too. “Many were live-streaming within a day or a week. Some rural churches are getting more people than had been attending in-person services, sometimes from different parts of the world,” says Kerr-Wilson.
He also notes that virtual services appear to be facilitating evangelism or a return to church for some people. “It can be less intimidating, like an entrance hall they can click on. Prior to this we had not addressed a way for people who can’t be there to participate,” says Kerr-Wilson.
“We’ve discovered the little churches very often are more adaptive than larger congregations. People pick up and do,” he adds. One example is Christ Church in Fort Macleod, which does a live Sunday service, Zoom Bible study, and Compline services. It has also hosted an Alpha course during the lockdown.
Still, Kerr-Wilson makes a point of reaching out to rural and Indigenous communities. Sophia David, a parishioner and prior warden at Christ Church in Fort Macleod, tells of one instance:
“When our two younger girls were supposed to be confirmed the week after we closed again in November, the Archbishop called and asked the girls if they could get together to chat with him. For them it has meant so much and to me, too. Last week, they were talking about the 12 Days of Christmas. By the time he was finished we were all listening.”
“I think unity has increased. Parishes are just working together,” says David. For example, she recently assisted St Albans in Brooks in setting up its own Zoom service and her children participate remotely in a Youth Bible study at St. Luke’s in Red Deer.
“The number of people who stepped out of their comfort zone is amazing,” says David. “Rev. Andy Lees, our minister, was very nervous about technology, but he just went in with both feet and is doing a brilliant job.”
The Ven. Noel Wygiera, Rector of St. Luke’s and Archdeacon of Rocky Mountain, produces the church’s Sunday Zoom service from his dining room table. However, it’s not just social distancing requirements that have kept Wygiera and his parishioners in their houses. “We had a flood in the fall that left us with no functioning toilets,” says Wygiera. The repairs, which include putting in new floors and ripping out sopping wet drywall, are expected to be completed by the end of January.
In spite of this, St. Luke’s streams Wednesday Happy Hour, Zoom Kids Sunday School, Sunday Evening Youth Bible Study, and Wednesday Evening Small Groups, in addition to Sunday morning worship. Wygiera even found himself standing in for a vacationing priest in the Diocese of Fredericton, N.B. “He asked me if I wanted to preach for one of their services. So I was doing my Zoom at 7:00 in the morning,” says Wygiera.
In his role as Archdeacon, Wygiera notes that many rural churches have fully embraced technology; others chose simpler outreaches like distributing printed sermons to parishioners. Still others continue to tap into videos and live-streams posted by other churches.
“I know we’ve taken some flack for suspending services, but this is a way that we demonstrate that we love our neighbours. Most people have embraced that,” adds Wygiera, who also sits on the COVID Task Force for the Diocese of Calgary.
Across town at St. Leonard’s on the Hill, Sunday services are recorded and posted on YouTube. “We had been thinking about live-streaming for some time, so we actually had a lot of equipment already set up thanks to a couple of tech-savvy people in our congregation,” says Incumbent Chris Roth. When the pandemic hit, the church purchased some additional streaming tools and a video camera for recorded services. The production team is made up of the music director and choir members who are willing to lead readings, intercessions, and help with the video.
Worshippers watch the completed video on their own or as part of a Zoom meeting. While we might assume many seniors would have difficulty with technology, Roth has been amazed by the capacity of older folks to quickly adapt to video streaming. “Our videos are being offered by staff members to seniors’ residences, and they are being shared with family members and friends.”
That said, the telephone has become an essential tool for staying in touch with parishioners who don’t have access to technology and for ensuring that parishioners across all demographics are coping during the pandemic.
“One of the unexpected challenges for me was that I didn’t realize how much I relied on looking into people’s eyes to see how they are doing as we shook hands or hugged at the end of the service,” says Roth. Restrictions on in-person funerals are particularly unsettling. “I have offered prayers standing next to a casket in the funeral home with family on speakerphone, and I felt that we were missing something important by not being together in the same room.”
The Archbishop acknowledges that while the pandemic delivered exciting opportunities to grow ministries online, the Body of Christ needs to meet together in-person. “This experience has made us think more adaptively. We found ways to extend our reach, but I think it has also given us a deeper appreciation of what a precious thing it is to meet together in person.” TAP
Jane Harris is an award-winning journalist, author and poet whose books include Finding Home in the Promised Land: A Personal History of Homelessness and Social Exile (J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing). She lives in Lethbridge, Alberta.
