Bedside Baptist Has Taken on a Whole New Meaning Due to the Coronavirus Crisis
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Top Row: Bishop Charles E. Blake West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, Rev. Jacqueline Thompson, pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Pastor “J” Edgar Boyd of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles
Bottom Row: Rev. Kenneth C. Curry, Jr., of Friendship Baptist Church in Yorba Linda, Pastor Amos Brown Third Baptist Church in San Francisco and Pastor Touré Roberts of The Potter’s House at One L.A. |
Usually it’s come as you are, but this past Sunday the message to parishioners of African-American churches across the Golden State was: tune in online.
Worship houses from Southern California to beyond the Bay Area have been instructed not to hold in-house services for some time due to the novel coronavirus outbreak making its way around the globe.
“We may not be able to touch in the natural but we are connected in the spirit,” the Rev. Jacqueline Thompson, pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, told her parishioners via video stream last Sunday. The 100-year-old congregation is one of the oldest Black churches in the Bay Area.
For Clint Thompson of Santa Monica, the governor’s shelter in place order meant abandoning his weekly jaunt to West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles for Sunday service. The popular South Los Angeles church canceled its service and instead live-streamed Bishop Charles E. Blake’s message online. Thompson, a 37-year-old actor, said he watched the service for his weekly inspiration, but noted that he missed sitting in the pews.
“The service is good and its theatrical,” he said. “The music is good, the praise dancing. It feels like a live music festival.”
Thompson isn’t the lone California worshipper who will be catching the gospel online during this time.
Churchgoers across the state are tuning into worship services online via video streaming on their websites or social media pages. This is in response to government offi cials across the state requesting that church services not convene anytime in the foreseeable future, to slow the rapid spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes.
Sermons, choir performances, praise and worship, and other church service mainstays go on as usual. But they happen in front of a handful of worshippers, camera crews and technicians responsible for posting the services online instead of the dozens to hundreds of people who usually pack California Black church benches on Sunday mornings.
The spread of the coronavirus, offi cially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, has sickened more than 329,000 people on six continents according to offi cial tallies by governments and health organizations. It has caused the deaths of at least 14,522 people, as of Monday morning.
The high infection rate of the untreatable virus has changed life across the globe, shuttering businesses, schools, offices, restaurants, sports and entertainment venues and any other places groups of people might gather.
California’s Black churches say they are taking the pandemic seriously by vigorously cleaning their worship houses and closing their doors to the public for regular church activities.
Pastor “J” Edgar Boyd of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles said in an online statement his church is working on ways for the church body to stay connected through video chats and conference calls.
“Please know that we are praying for the safety, physical wellbeing and spiritual strength for you, your household, and for your entire family,” Boyd wrote.
Pastor Touré Roberts of The Potter’s House at One L.A. said in his Sunday morning sermon, that it seems like the world has been flipped on its head during the coronavirus emergency, but he saw a silver lining.
“There are sometimes it feels like the world wasn’t turned upside down, but it was turned right-side up,” he said. “People are spending more time with their families. People are texting one another and checking on one another. In the midst of all this craziness, it seems we are getting our priorities straight, and I have just come to suspect that God is somewhere in it.”
Worship houses from Southern California to beyond the Bay Area have been instructed not to hold in-house services for some time due to the novel coronavirus outbreak making its way around the globe.
“We may not be able to touch in the natural but we are connected in the spirit,” the Rev. Jacqueline Thompson, pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, told her parishioners via video stream last Sunday. The 100-year-old congregation is one of the oldest Black churches in the Bay Area.
For Clint Thompson of Santa Monica, the governor’s shelter in place order meant abandoning his weekly jaunt to West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles for Sunday service. The popular South Los Angeles church canceled its service and instead live-streamed Bishop Charles E. Blake’s message online. Thompson, a 37-year-old actor, said he watched the service for his weekly inspiration, but noted that he missed sitting in the pews.
“The service is good and its theatrical,” he said. “The music is good, the praise dancing. It feels like a live music festival.”
Thompson isn’t the lone California worshipper who will be catching the gospel online during this time.
Churchgoers across the state are tuning into worship services online via video streaming on their websites or social media pages. This is in response to government offi cials across the state requesting that church services not convene anytime in the foreseeable future, to slow the rapid spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes.
Sermons, choir performances, praise and worship, and other church service mainstays go on as usual. But they happen in front of a handful of worshippers, camera crews and technicians responsible for posting the services online instead of the dozens to hundreds of people who usually pack California Black church benches on Sunday mornings.
The spread of the coronavirus, offi cially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, has sickened more than 329,000 people on six continents according to offi cial tallies by governments and health organizations. It has caused the deaths of at least 14,522 people, as of Monday morning.
The high infection rate of the untreatable virus has changed life across the globe, shuttering businesses, schools, offices, restaurants, sports and entertainment venues and any other places groups of people might gather.
California’s Black churches say they are taking the pandemic seriously by vigorously cleaning their worship houses and closing their doors to the public for regular church activities.
Pastor “J” Edgar Boyd of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles said in an online statement his church is working on ways for the church body to stay connected through video chats and conference calls.
“Please know that we are praying for the safety, physical wellbeing and spiritual strength for you, your household, and for your entire family,” Boyd wrote.
Pastor Touré Roberts of The Potter’s House at One L.A. said in his Sunday morning sermon, that it seems like the world has been flipped on its head during the coronavirus emergency, but he saw a silver lining.
“There are sometimes it feels like the world wasn’t turned upside down, but it was turned right-side up,” he said. “People are spending more time with their families. People are texting one another and checking on one another. In the midst of all this craziness, it seems we are getting our priorities straight, and I have just come to suspect that God is somewhere in it.”
