{"id":806309,"date":"2020-04-11T19:33:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T01:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=381691"},"modified":"2020-04-11T19:33:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T01:33:40","slug":"churches-synagogues-get-creative-to-keep-connected-amid-coronavirus-quarantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/churches-synagogues-get-creative-to-keep-connected-amid-coronavirus-quarantine\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches, synagogues get creative to keep connected amid coronavirus quarantine"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"870\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-1024x870.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-1024x870.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-300x255.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-768x652.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220.jpg 1294w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>The Dillon Community Church provides &#8220;drive-thru&#8221; communion to church goers in their cars on Palm Sunday in the church parking lot in Dillon on April 5, 2020.<\/strong><br \/><em>Courtesy Dillon Community Church<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>DILLON \u2014 For some people across Summit County, creativity has helped them celebrate Passover and will help them celebrate Easter on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>For others, all or some of their celebration will wait until after the social-distancing measures to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus are a thing of the past.<\/p>\n<p>For Pastor Jim Howard at the Dillon Community Church, the church community has learned and prepared in recent weeks how to celebrate Easter in a time of COVID-19 quarantine. For Palm Sunday, church staff set up a table and cones in the middle of their parking lot off La Bonte Street. Soon, gloved and masked staff took six feet worth of steps to each side of the table, carrying paper cups with unleavened bread to rolled-down car windows. It was the church\u2019s creative way of following quarantine health protocol while providing the Christian tradition of receiving communion to more than 100 people.<\/p>\n<p>This Sunday, for Easter, the church will do something a bit different considering the forecast snow storm set to strike Summit County. Instead of a \u201cdrive-thru,\u201d communion, as Howard put it, the church will host a \u201cflow-through\u201d communion from 11:30 a.m. through 4 p.m. After registering online, church goers will be able to follow social-distancing protocol while entering at one door church staff will leave unlocked.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row sd-donation sd-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/sdn-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>From there, they can choose to turn right to meditate in the church\u2019s sanctuary, where pre-recorded music and verses will loop every half-hour. They can then walk up to the stage at right to receive \u201cself-communion,\u201d as Howard put it, before exiting through an emergency door to the parking lot. Fro those who don\u2019t want to meditate, church goers can walk straight through the building and give themselves communion at the other end, before exiting through the church\u2019s front doors.<\/p>\n<p>Howard said the thought behind the method is to prevent people from coming in close contact with each other.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are telling them to keep their coats on,\u201d Howard said, \u201cnone of the restrooms will be open \u2014 and they don\u2019t have to touch anything. We are staying by with fluid cleaner and rags, in case they touch anything. And only 10 people will be allowed in at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For those who don\u2019t want to come to the church on Sunday, Howard said the church will continue to employ its practices of Zoom video chats and uploading pre-recorded videos to the church\u2019s YouTube page and website. On Sunday at 10 a.m., the church will post the Easter service video that was recorded Saturday morning by a small group of church staff. The service video, complete with music and Howard\u2019s sermon, is separated into two parts: one with Howard wearing a mask, and one without. It\u2019s a metaphorical way, Howard said, for the church to signify to its community that the second half of its Easter celebration will occur in person, together, when social-distancing measures have concluded.<\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_hide\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2-773x1024.jpg\" alt class=\"wp-image-381695\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2-773x1024.jpg 773w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2-227x300.jpg 227w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2-768x1017.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2-1160x1536.jpg 1160w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/ChurchCreative-SDN-041220-2.jpg 1290w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 773px) 100vw, 773px\"><figcaption><strong>Pastor Jim Howard recites the Easter Sunday sermon at the Dillon Community Church on Saturday, April 11 in a video recorded for Dillon Community Church community members to watch digitally on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020.<\/strong><br \/><em>Courtesy Dillon Community Church<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWhen we will celebrate as a community, life without our \u2018masks,&#8217;\u201d Howard said. \u201c2 Corinthians 3 says, \u2018when sometime turns to Christ, the veil is taken away.\u2019 We said, \u2018there will be a time when we can remove the masks, and that\u2019s what Easter is all about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Dillon Community Church is not the only faith community in the county treating the Easter holiday this way. Over at Father Dyer United Methodist Church in Breckenridge, Rev. Calob Rundell joked on Saturday that the quarantine period has been a \u201clearning curve\u201d for his video editing skills.<\/p>\n<p>A month ago, during the first Sunday the church tried to produce virtual video services, Rundell struggled through Internet connection problems, eventually having to cancel digital services. Since then, the church has pivoted to pre-recording its religious content and uploading it to their Vimeo channel, where church-goers can find the church\u2019s message for Sunday. But, similar to Dillon Community Church, Father Dyer is effectively postponing its main Easter celebration until after social-distancing measures have ended<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTomorrow\u2019s message,\u201d Rundell said, \u201cis, yes, tomorrow is Easter. But that\u2019s not really where we are in our story yet. When we can meet, we will.\u2019 This is \u2018extended Lent.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At Synagogue of the Summit, president Jackie Balyeat said community members have leaned on the Zoom video chat platform to celebrate Passover. The synagogue\u2019s annual second-night-of-Passover community service led by Rabbi Ruthie Gelfarb took place on Zoom, as has the synagogue\u2019s weekly meditation sessions and Torah studies. It\u2019s the synagogue\u2019s effort to maintain as much normalcy as possible in abnormal time.<\/p>\n<p>Years from now, Balyeat said she will look back on this unprecedented Passover celebration during quarantine with fond memories of how she, her family and her synagogue have made something happen that, under normal circumstances wouldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first night of the Seder,\u201d Balyeat said, \u201cwe did a family Seder and we had four generations in five different time zones. Without the quarantine, I wouldn\u2019t have thought to do it. What it has done, it\u2019s caused you to think outside the box on ways to remain connected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/churches-synagogues-get-creative-to-keep-connected-amid-coronavirus-quarantine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dillon Community Church provides &#8220;drive-thru&#8221; communion to church goers in their cars on Palm Sunday in the church parking lot in Dillon on April 5, 2020.Courtesy Dillon Community Church DILLON \u2014 For some people across Summit County, creativity has helped them celebrate Passover and will help them celebrate Easter on Sunday. For others, all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-806309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-14 07:57:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}