The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

AFTER nearly three months of participating in virtual worship, churches in New Providence were allowed to open their doors for “in house” worship over the weekend with social distancing and hygiene requirements.

However, not every church was willing to return to the “new normal” and some, like Mount Tabor Baptist Church, have taken a phased approach to reopening to ensure the safety of churchgoers.

At the end of May, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced in the House of Assembly that church leaders in New Providence, Grand Bahama and other islands that were not yet fully open for commercial activity, could under certain protocols accept their members into sanctuaries for worship as of Saturday, June 6.

Worship services are permitted between 7am-1pm, however everyone in attendance must wear a mask and return home immediately afterwards. Among other rules, congregation members have to sit six feet apart and sanitize before entering church.

St Christopher’s Anglican Church in Lyford Cay re-opened its doors yesterday with a reminder from Anglican Bishop Laish Boyd on new protocols for worship.

“My brothers and sisters in Christ, these past few months have been very difficult for us,” said Bishop Boyd. “As Christians of every denomination, we have not been accustomed to a church where we cannot gather in the building. What this period has taught us is that God is still God and we are still the church.”

Bishop Boyd serves as interim head priest at St Christopher’s with the departure of Archdeacon Keith Cartwright for the position of rector at St Agnes Church.

“This period has also challenged us to focus on what is really the nature of the church and that is a group of people who individually have a relationship with God and our challenge to maintain that relationship,” the bishop said. “We begin corporate worship in our buildings again and let’s not lose the focus that we were forced to have while we were at home. Our personal relationship with God is vital and we must each work on maintaining that and allowing that personal connection with God to influence everything that happens outside of that in a centric circle moving outward from ourselves.

“You will notice when we gather we are subject to a number of protocols – social distancing, the wearing of masks, sanitizing before we enter worship and you will also be asked to sanitize your hands before you receive Holy Communion. For Holy Communion, there will be two stations and this will be our system going forward until further notice. I ask you please to observe these protocols, strictly. You will notice that the clergy will sanitize their hands before administering Holy Communion.”

In an effort to maintain social distancing as much as possible, St Christopher’s marked church pews showing where one should sit. During the giving of collection, the collection plate was not passed as normal, but due to the small number of people present, the church’s ushers were able to move around freely to collect.

Meanwhile at Mount Tabor Baptist Church, Bishop Neil Ellis and his pastoral team are taking a slower, phased approach.

“Churches are open all around the country today and we want to thank our governmental leaders and our health professionals for leading us through this very difficult time and bringing us to where we are now as a people,” Bishop Ellis said. “Even though we are able to open up for public worship today, we have decided here at Mount Tabor to take a phased approach to our reopening and so today, only the members of my ministerial alliance are in the worship service with me.”

Bishop Ellis said in taking on a phased approach, he and his team are first “practising” the new protocols. Worship will go back to normal at the church, in Pinewood Gardens, gradually.

“Next week our deacons and our elders will join us and we will have another dry run with them,” Bishop Ellis continued. “And, then on Father’s Day, the third Sunday, we will open to the public with all of our members for in person worship. There is a video with all of the protocols for our reopening on YouTube and Facebook. We want all of our members and followers to watch the video before they come into the public worship service.”

Mass at Christ Church Cathedral, on Shirley Street, did not have the melodious singing of its choir as usual, however, parishioners seemed to be satisfied with the fact that they can now come to church to worship.

“It was a ‘said’ mass as opposed to ‘sung’ mass,” said parishioner LaGloria Davis. “We had about 41 persons out at 7.30 am mass. There were some hiccups along the way, but we were happy to be out. So I would say everything went well with our one hour mass.”

Before the relaxations were announced at the end of May, churches in New Providence, Grand Bahama and other islands that had not opened for commercial activity were allowed to perform drive-up church services. Since the COVID-19 state of emergency was announced in mid-March, churches had to use social media and virtual means to facilitate worship.