{"id":807049,"date":"2020-05-02T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=382660"},"modified":"2020-05-02T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T02:00:00","slug":"summit-county-faith-leaders-differ-on-county-church-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-faith-leaders-differ-on-county-church-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County faith leaders differ on county church regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Breckenridge is seen on Friday, May 1, 2020. Local church leaders have a variety of opinions on the county’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

DILLON \u2014 On Saturday local church officials shared their thoughts on how public-health order regulations are affecting the religious community, as Summit County entered Stage 1 on its “Roadmap To Recovery” <\/a>on Monday, April 27 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Opinions were varying. Chuck Straughn of Ten Peaks Church was happy with how the county has worked with him to cultivate creative ways to host services.<\/p>\n

Karen Johns of Lord of the Mountains Lutheran Church said the church is trying to make the best of a bad situation. They are keeping a positive attitude about how they can still interact with church members while the county order currently mandates no gatherings of more than 10 people.<\/p>\n

Jim Howard, the senior pastor at Dillon Community Church, was critical of the county\u2019s current order, saying those he\u2019s interacted with have been negatively affected in terms of their mental health and family and social lives. As he sees it, the county has \u201cpulled the plug on personal connection.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI do virtual coffees all the time, and it can only go so far,\u201d Howard said. \u201cPeople need touch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stage 1 of the “Roadmap To Recovery<\/a>,” deems places of worship as being \u201copen with strict precautions” \u2014 such as social distancing, signage and face coverings. County spokeswoman Julie Sutor said when the county is able to enter Stage 2, the strict precautions would continue and the maximum number of people in a group gathering would be 25-50. In Stage 3 that will be upped to 250 people.<\/p>\n

Straughn said after Ten Peaks Church lost access to their typical gathering location, the Silverthorne Library, he used his technology background to build a radio transmitter. <\/p>\n

He used it to broadcast an onsite FM radio transmission which reaches a few hundred yards out. Families of churchgoers are able to park their cars within the broadcast range to worship. It\u2019s a method of worship involving social distancing that county Public Health Director Amy Wineland approved. He said the church is content to continue with services like this through summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s so people have that presence and experience of worship in a physical setting,\u201d Straughn said.<\/p>\n

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The Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church built in 1881, sits adjacent to its contemporary counterpart on South French Street in Breckenridge.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Over at Dillon Community Church, Howard said the county\u2019s outlining of the stages this week didn\u2019t improve anything for his large congregation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole basic approach is being focused in one area, and
\nthat\u2019s public safety,\u201d Howard said. \u201cBut what they’ve done is they’ve
\neffectively removed our ability to help people with both healing and
\ncelebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

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St. Mary’s Catholic Church, adjacent to its old structure, is located on South French Street in Breckenridge.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hearing it from everyone,\u201d the pastor added. \u201cIt doesn’t matter if you\u2019re Christian or not Christian, a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn\u2019t matter where you stand on the continuums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard pointed to recent teen suicides in the county, canceled weddings and funerals due to the 10-person maximum and \u201cnumerous marriages on the rocks\u201d as negative developments from the county\u2019s health order.<\/p>\n

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The Church at Agape Outpost in Breckenridge is a non-denominational house of worship in Summit County. Live streaming services are being offered on Sundays at 10 a.m.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEvery area that requires personal contact, they’ve removed,\u201d Howard said. \u201cAt the start of this, it felt like we would figure it out. It was novel and we could wait. Then came the phase of fear. And now we\u2019ve entered the phase of anger and frustration. I\u2019m not sure I know anybody that is not angry now. And I\u2019m talking 1,000 people in our county.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard added he and other Dillon Community Church personnel are \u201coverwhelmed\u201d in advising people frustrated with the shutdown, including talking people down from opening up their businesses in defiance of the health order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a steam kettle that\u2019s pressurized and it\u2019s going to explode,\u201d Howard said. \u201c\u2026My request is just open the door and let us get back together. We are not rabble-rousers. We are just citizens who want to do something right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sutor said the county is acutely aware of the stresses associated with the restrictions in the public health orders and struggles with that balance on an hourly basis.<\/p>\n

“Every community across our country is struggling with the same decisions,” Sutor said, “People\u2019s mental and economic well-being contribute significantly to their emotional well-being, and we hope to stabilize our circumstances here in Summit County as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

“Every single day that we navigate these uncharted waters, we understand that the restrictions have real impacts on our community,” Sutor added. “But these measures are in place to save lives, so that\u2019s the balance we have to strike.”<\/p>\n

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Rocky Mountain Bible Church on Main Street in Frisco is one of several places of worship in Summit County.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

At Rocky Mountain Lutheran, Johns, the congregation president, said though the church community is not content with the current situation, they understand it. She said the church is continuing its Sunday live-stream video services like previous weeks while also increasing one-to-one phone call outreach to church goers and encouraging families to share video readings from home. <\/p>\n

She said the church\u2019s bishop is targeting June 7 as a possible day to return to normal, pending health developments.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us want that going into the future as our permanent means of worship, but it\u2019s what we have,” Johns said. “We can see each other. We are doing all kinds of meetings on Zoom. We are still seeing faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a challenge,\u201d Johns added, \u201cbut often times challenge presents an opportunity to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Breckenridge is seen on Friday, May 1, 2020. Local church leaders have a variety of opinions on the county’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com DILLON \u2014 On Saturday local church officials shared their thoughts on how public-health order regulations are affecting the religious community, […]<\/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-807049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-12 06:22:56","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\/807049","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=807049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}