The Church's Response to Covid 19

Case Study One: New Wine in New Wineskins Rich Wardwell Rich Wardwell serves as a Licensed Local Pastor in a United Methodist Church in South Georgia. After a nearly 30-year career in the technology industry, Rich is following God’s calling into ministry while pursuing his M.Div. at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Context: Rural South Georgia Affiliation: United Methodist Size: 327 members (90 average attendance) Introduction The impact of COVID-19 on the church in the United States has been significant, if uneven. As communities began to see infections and the first deaths in March of 2020, governments and communities responded with varying degrees of lockdown and restrictions on movement and the social gathering of people. Christian churches in these communities came under both the legal impact due to COVID as well as moral responses to the pandemic. These decisions were complex, difficult, and dynamic, as the sparse data, changing government restrictions, and the shifting winds of community consensus created nearly impossible decisions.

For one church in a small rural community in South Georgia, the impacts of COVID and the response attempting to maintain some continuity of worship was no different. Complicated by a lack of technology and an older, potentially more virus-susceptible congregation, this church, like many, has been forced to make difficult decisions to pursue the continuity of the church in the best manner possible. Over the next few pages discussing this church, I will: describe the context of 13