Bishops Share Thoughts on Variety of Ways "Essential" Role Can Be Fulfilled

As North Carolinians adapt to life under state, county and municipal “stay-at-home orders,” clergy and lay wardens in charge of congregations may wonder what these orders mean for our churches. Your bishops offer the following guidance to help you discern the course of action that will best enable you and your congregation to love God and your neighbor at this time.

Under these orders, travel to houses of worship is currently permitted, and yet we counsel you that it may not be advisable. Your bishops do regard the ongoing offering of worship as essential to the spiritual care and feeding of our people, especially in this time when our pastoral contact is limited or inhibited for reasons of public safety. There exist a variety of ways for us to fill this essential role of providing worship, especially on Sundays, the Lord’s Day. We want to remind you that, when offered under the parameters we have already set, all these ways can be valid, faithful and acceptable expressions of leadership and support. Ways to worship faithfully while practicing physical distancing include:

• livestreaming or pre-recording services from your church building;
• livestreaming or pre-recording worship offerings from wherever you are sheltering in place;
• using the services provided by the Diocese or other Episcopal churches (e.g. National Cathedral) as an offering to your congregation instead of producing your own;
• co-operating with Episcopal clergy colleagues in your town to take turns leading worship combining your gifts;
• sending lectionary readings or links, and a written or recorded reflection for the day, to your congregation by e-mail, with lay ministers sharing the information by telephone for any who do not use e-mail;
• holding services of Morning Prayer over Zoom or another appropriate electronic platform.

These are all equally valid, and your bishops are open to other creative adaptations you may suggest to us, within the parameters we have already set.

As we are a diocese of well over a hundred worshipping communities, we want to say explicitly: this is not a time for peer pressure to influence your discernment and decision making. Each context is unique, with its own challenges and blessings, and one size cannot and should not fit all. As we walk together as diocesan colleagues, we stand with and affirm the care-filled choices that others make.

What is essential is that you trust the wisdom that God is giving you and your community in how to navigate this time of sheltering in place. As you discern, please consider what are the truly essential functions your church must perform, and who can safely perform those functions, where, and how. Informing your congregation of options for Sunday worship (whether or not you lead that worship) is essential. Opening the church building, for example, to a work party to polish the brass or clean the windows would not be essential and might, in fact, be a vector for further spread of the virus. In order to prevent such well-intentioned but potentially dangerous contact, clergy and lay wardens in charge of congregations may consider whether to close church buildings for any purpose other than worship and prayer (within previously-offered diocesan parameters).

As your bishops, we support your discernment and will back you in the decisions you make for the well-being and safety of your community. If further restrictions are issued locally that prohibit options you have been using, please consult with us so that we can find a way forward together.

Please know that we could not be more grateful for your prayerful, creative, faithful, inspired, adaptive and energetic leadership for and with our people during this time. It is a deep honor, blessing and gift to serve as your bishops.