Rehoboth Church Adjusts to Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has presented a special challenge to houses of worship, which have had to conduct their services online as the state’s stay at home order remains in effect. “We had to make some adjustments to how we do church,” said Pastor Chris Lindberg of Community Covenant Church. “We’ve always been livestreaming our gatherings even when we were holding them so it was a little bit of tweaking but we were able to completely adapt over to a fully online Facebook Live/YouTube Live on our website.”

Even though unemployment has soared in Massachusetts due to the economic shutdown, Lindberg said donations to the church have remained consistent. The church always hosts a massive Easter Egg Hunt which draws close to 1000 people. This year’s event was cancelled but “what we did do is we created an Egg Hunt in a bag,” Lindberg explained. The church delivered hundreds of the egg hunts in a bag to anybody who signed up for one. Lindberg said the church got a favorable response from the people they visited.

As for when Community Covenant will be allowed to reopen, no one knows for sure. Gatherings may be limited to less than 50 people at a time. Lindberg said various options are being discussed, including a “picnic church” and a “drive-in church.” The church leadership is waiting for direction from government officials as to how to keep congregants safe when new infections are still being reported every day. “We want to make sure we’re honoring that and following those guidelines,” Lindberg added.