Churches won’t be using technology to people their buildings Easter Sunday, but they will be employing it to celebrate a significantly unoccupied tomb.
The Rev. Dr. Jim Phillips posted a sign outside North Greenwood Baptist Church, where he is the pastor, that reads, “The church building is empty. So was the tomb” — a reference to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Phillips said he put up the sign, thought, “That’s not right,” and had to go back and edit it to include the word “building.”
Another Greenwood pastor has had similar thoughts. “We are the church, not the building,” said Dr. Kerrick Nevels, pastor of two Missionary Baptist churches in Greenwood: Brooklyn Chapel and Strangers Home.
The two churches will have a joint Easter service at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. The location was still undecided Friday, but Nevels knew where the worshippers would be: At home as they sheltered in place during the COVID-19 epidemic.
“I think God is seeking true worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth ... He wants to know, ‘Will you worship me from your home?’”
The technological set-up will include livestreaming not only his sermon but contributions from children of the congregations.
“Our young people are going to present Easter poems by software that will allow us to switch (from the church building) to their homes. We are going to use an app. They will stream via their laptops and computers.”
This will come up in the main livestream, which can be seen on the Facebook pages of both churches. People can also join a conference call and listen by phone.
The service will be similar at New Green Grove Church of Faith, said its pastor, Bishop Milton Glass. New Green Grove’s livestream will begin at 11 a.m. “This year, we are going to have some of the young people doing recitals and some things on Facebook,” he explained. “They will be live videos with people sending them in. They are going to be doing them at home, but we are going to air them.”
The service can be watched on the church’s website and its Facebook page.
Glass said it’s been helpful that New Green Grove has been streaming videos for years, so the process is familiar, and he’s pleased by the outreach. “On some of our services, we’ve had 4,000 views,” he said.
This sermon, titled “He Is Risen,” will be followed by communion, and “members have been instructed to have the crackers and wine (actually we do grape juice) ready.”
The service will be streamed from an empty sanctuary. Glass would prefer to be preaching to people in pews — but, he said, “I am getting used to it and feeling the presence of the people.”
At North Greenwood Baptist, Phillips chanced upon 600 communion kits, including wafers and juice, at Lighthouse Books and Gifts on Fulton Street, which is owned by Carolyn and Roger Davis. He bought them for the church and set them outside for members to pick up.
At Providence Missionary Baptist Church, “the children can participate from home, and we are going to show it in church,” said the Rev. Jessie Payne, pastor. Their presentations will be projected onto a large screen, and this will be livestreamed at 10:45 a.m. “We are on radio, on Facebook, YouTube. We have been doing this for years now.”
These have been watched by friends, relatives and others from Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
His sermon, titled “It Doesn’t Look Like What It Is,” will discuss how when Jesus’ followers went to the tomb two days after his death, they didn’t find his body there and thought someone had taken it. But then they encountered the risen Christ. What they thought had happened was not correct, he said.
Greenwood’s Catholic churches will be livestreaming their Easter worship, and Immaculate Heart of Mary has been teleconferencing services, also. St. Francis will have a bilingual vigil on its Facebook page at 8 p.m. Saturday and will again be livestreaming Sunday at 10 a.m. in English and 11:30 a.m. in Spanish, all from a library that has been converted into a makeshift chapel, according to the Rev. Joachim Michael “Kim” Studwell, pastor.
“We certainly wish that we were doing this with live people,” he said. “That would be the better way. I think it would be happier for everybody. But you can look at this as a major burden or an opportunity.”
He spoke about the value of prayer: “We join together with everybody who is suffering, recognizing that we are holding each in prayer, and that is a tremendous act of love.”
Phillips said he suffered recently while he and his wife, Cynthia, were quarantined at home and also sequestered from each other in their house while she recovered from COVID-19. It hurt him to hear her coughing and ill when he could not go to her. “That was the biggest challenge for me,” he said.
His sermon on Sunday will consider Mary Magdalene’s discovery of the empty tomb and her fear that Jesus’ death jeopardized her. Then Jesus appeared before her. “Her hope was restored by knowing Jesus was alive. Her future was completely taken care of.”
The church regularly livestreams its events on Facebook, its website and through an app. Worship Sunday will begin at 10:30 a.m.
•Contact Susan Montgomery at 581-7241 or smontgomery@gwcommonwealth.com.
