Worship continues at Asheville church despite pandemic limitations
2020 • Writing & Reporting @ UNC
Betty Jane Crandall sat in an arc of lawn chairs in her church’s parking lot. As the other forty or so churchgoers took out cookies, animal crackers, Wheat Thins, all temporary substitutions for the body of Christ, Crandall tore off a piece of a flour tortilla.
On a normal Sunday, church members would come forward to receive bread and wine, a representation of Jesus’ blood shed for them. But Crandall, still in her lawn chair, dipped her tortilla piece into grape juice that she’d poured into a shot glass. She pulled down her mask to eat, then quickly pulled it back up.
“In 80 years, I’ve never known anything to be this strange,” Crandall said.
As COVID-19 restrictions relaxed in Asheville, North Carolina this fall, many religious entities began to meet in person again, holding outdoor, socially distanced services and advising members to bring an extra blanket each week as it gets colder. For some churchgoers, being around people again has been a sign of light and hope, a reminder of a uniting religious community that the pandemic made somewhat inaccessible.
Crandall, a member of Asheville’s Circle of Mercy congregation, has watched every Youtube video her church has filmed in the past eight months and attended each Wednesday night Zoom prayer meeting. At 80, she knows she has to be as careful as possible during this pandemic. But in-person communion services once a week were too good to pass up. “I’m glad we can meet outside to see each other and touch elbows,” she said. “‘Cause I really missed when we weren’t meeting together, when we were just on Zoom.”
Mary Katherine Robinson, the pastor and head of staff at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church (BMPC), remembers that after 9/11, religious people flocked to the sanctuaries. “They all wanted to be together,” she said. “And I think that was the biggest challenge in the beginning. You just couldn’t come to the sanctuary. You had to find holy, sacred places elsewhere. And you had to find holy spaces on the Internet, which is quite a challenge.”
BMPC still films “YouTube church” for hundreds of viewers each week, but this fall, they designed an in-person vespers service for Sunday evenings.
They choose to follow safety guidelines set by the state, limiting their attendees to 50 and requiring social distancing, though religious services are exempt from the state’s restrictions. To prevent complaints from members, “we made the decision to create a totally new service, so no one could compare it to what it used to be,” Robinson said.
No church service, in person or online, looks like what it used to be. For older folks especially, the disconnection is made stark by their increased COVID-19 risk and a technological disadvantage, though pastors are working tirelessly to include them.
Jo Hauser, another member of Circle of Mercy, is grateful for each of her pastor’s masked, distanced visits to her home, but she also feels like she’s losing touch with her religious community. “Most of who I know in Asheville are these people who are in the Circle,” Hauser said. “If I stop coming, I lose all of my contact with all the people who mean something to me.”
BMPC went old school in the beginning to include older members. "We made old fashioned phone calls. We also took one of the phone lines at church and did a ‘dial-a-devotion,’” Robinson said. Older folks who didn’t have an Internet connection “would just call up the church, get voicemail and hear one of us saying a devotion.”
BMPC’s decision to try in-person gatherings, though, comes as they deal with devastating loss, a harsh reminder of the continued state of the world. A COVID-19 outbreak at Highland Farms, a retirement community in Black Mountain and the home to around 100 BMPC members, meant that in just one month, BMPC lost six of its members.
Robinson said that BMPC has started Zoom memorial services, which have surprised church members as a suitable way to grieve together. But because of feedback, there is no way to sing together on Zoom. “That’s been one of the hardest things, not being able to sing,” Robinson said. “I miss singing in the sanctuary and singing with a whole crowd of people.”
Singing together and sharing communion bread, fundamental parts of a Christian service, are two of the most dangerous activities during a pandemic. With in-person gatherings, these acts are slightly revitalized, though their reinterpretations are representative of the larger, scary reality.
“If worship is the work of the people, which is what it really stands for, my people aren’t there. And I miss them dearly,” Robinson said. “But as I said in my sermon last week, I am stubbornly optimistic. I am forever hopeful, and I will continue to preach that way.”
Before Crandall joined Circle of Mercy, she thought having communion every week would get old. “But it never gets old,” she said. “And I love communion at Circle of Mercy.” Even if it means she’s eating a grape juice dipped tortilla piece in a lawn chair.