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Bay Area pastors prepare to take church beyond digital services for Easter

The biggest day of the Christian calendar is Sunday. Pastors all over Tampa Bay will host online services. Many others will take church to the community themselves.

LARGO, Fla — A report from The Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling firm, found that 58 percent of pastors say they plan to hold a digital service on Easter.

That’s what faith must look like during a COVID-19 outbreak.

Easter will certainly look different in 2020 than it has in years past. The cancellation of services due to coronavirus social distancing measures means Christians around the world will be celebrating the most important Sunday of the year from home instead of with fellow believers in a group setting.

That has forced Tampa Bay pastors to get creative with ways to remind others they are still loved despite the physical distance between them.

“Obviously, nothing can replace face-to-face contact. There is nothing that’s going to be able to duplicate that,” Lucas Hillman of Grace Christian Fellowship in Largo said. “But, there are ways in which we can let people know that we still are remembering them, thinking of them and that we long to, and are looking forward to, seeing them again.”

Hillman, who has served as an associate pastor for over a decade, plans to stuff Easter eggs with personalized notes and Bible verses before hiding them “in plain sight” in the yards of his church families' homes.

“This is just one way that we hope to let people know that they are not forgotten,” he said.

Down the road in Seminole, pastor Kenny McNatt of Seminole Assembly of God had a similar idea. Instead of the church’s typically 8,000-egg hunt on the church grounds, masked and gloved volunteers stuffed eggs which will be delivered to the homes of congregants with children for parents to hide. It’s a fun way, he says, to remind normal church attendees they are loved.

“There are still ways that we can serve even with the limitations that are around us and we can still be effective in doing ministry and protect people and help prevent the spread of this disease,” said McNatt, who has spent 13 years at Seminole Assembly. 

“The church is not a building. We are the church. Individuals who have Christ in them is the church.”

Seminole Assembly will celebrate its 65th Easter service this Sunday. The children’s ministry has developed curriculum for kids to do at home for their home services.

Chad Scarbro has served as the lead pastor at Northside Baptist Church in St. Petersburg for 14 months. His church is offering a 8:30 to 10 a.m. drive-up prayer opportunity for the congregation before directing them home for a live-streaming service online.

“We’ve had some millennials come through. I’m 40, so we’ve had some people my age come through,” he said. “We’re going to continue to do that this Sunday.”

Originally, Scarbro aimed this idea at the church’s 55-and-up crowd because he knew many of them weren’t familiar with how to find an online church service.

“That population desires personal interaction, not Zoom or anything like that,” he said.

Instead, it’s hit on a multi-generational level. When church members drive up to the church, a pastor will pray for any requests while standing six feet away from the car.

Easter, because of coronavirus, will be about adaptation in 2020.

“It’s a great holiday because again it’s not just about the eggs and the candy but we believe Easter is about hope,” Hillman said. “The living hope that our Savior Jesus is alive and that we get to celebrate that and again, just the celebration aspect is to remind us that we are not without hope in this world.”

While 99 percent of churches held services on their campuses on the first weekend of March, only 7 percent did so on March 29, according to Nashville-based LifeWay Research.

It won’t feel different but will look different.

Easter is going to happen regardless of what is happening as activities in the church. Easter is a celebration of the resurrection,” McNatt said. 

“Easter is going to go on.”

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