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What We Did When Church Was Illegal
by Captain
Michael Ramsay
As I am writing this church gatherings
are still illegal in British Columbia. I will write about what
we are doing now but first I thought we would look at what we
did the first time church gatherings were illegal, during the
pandemic, in BC. It was back in March of 2020. The world was
gripped by panic. I was on furlough with my family in Europe.
We literally had to flee across borders and reschedule flights
more than once to try to get back to our country as each
terrified nation closed their borders to visitors. We, like so
many others, were racing, trying to get home while we still
could. We had originally flown out of the United States. That
is where our car was and we couldn’t get it because the US
would not let us in their country. We did get home safely
without it. A night or two before we arrived we were informed
that almost everything in Canada and British Columbia had shut
down – including Salvation Army Corps: the churches first and
later the Thrift Stores and some other ministries. In our
community even soup kitchens and other necessary services for
people in crisis were closed due to an all-encompassing fear
of the pandemic. This was the first time church gatherings
were declared illegal.
My family and I spent the next two
weeks in isolation. From there we helped arrange the Alberni
Covid-19 Community Response. This is an organization made up
of a number of agencies in our community. My wife and I also
met via messenger video chats with corps council, our
management teams, and key workers every morning to discuss how
to implement the Army’s role in the community response to
Covid-19. There were a number of decisions we had to make
about many things, including corporate worship, during this
time.
I would be lying to you if I said that
I wasn’t concerned about Hebrews 10:23-25 where it says:
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who
promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one
another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting
together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging
one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
I was more confident in this:
James 1:27
“Religion that God our
Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after
orphans and widows in their distress…” and
Matthew 25: 34-40: …
“Come, you who are
blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited
me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you
looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see
you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to
drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or
needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in
prison and go to visit you?”
“The King will reply,
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of
these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
We embraced our worship of the Lord
through service. Because every other food service for
vulnerable people had shut down we offered hot meals seven
days a week delivered straight to people’s homes or for pick
up from the front door of The Salvation Army for people who
did not have homes. Later we were able to use the Community
Response Unit from Gibsons (Thank you Darrell Pilgrim and Ian
Pollard and the BC EDS team!) to better serve those with
undeliverable addresses. At the height of need in our
community we were delivering meals to over 700 individuals
every day in our community. We were confident that we were
offering the true worship of James 1 and Matthew 25.
We were still bothered, however, by the
fact that traditional Sunday church gatherings were illegal.
We tried to ‘do church’ in many ways, like many others. We
made videos and posted them on-line: this had diminishing
returns. At first I don’t think I’d ever had so many people
listen to my sermons; by the end of our experiment with this,
I am sure almost nobody was. We also made newsletters and
mailed them or hand delivered them to our congregation
members’ homes. We had many end-of-driveway visits and the
newsletters were a good way for people to still feel
connected: this worked well, for a time. Some churches
developed dynamic interactive Zoom church meeting during this
time complete with break-out rooms and interactive worship.
Many of our congregational members are not able to access this
technology so we never did try that. I do understand that that
did work well for many people for a time. The problem with
Zoom over the long term, as I came to discover from the many
zoom meetings I participated in with various community groups,
is they lack tangible personal interaction. They miss the
human element. The informal conversations are at least as
important as any item on any agenda. We – like everyone else –
struggled our way through this time and came out the other end
as churches (like businesses and other groups) re-opened their
doors in new Covid-safe ways.
We relocated our services to the Legion
Hall which is quite a bit bigger than our regular worship
space so we could properly social distance. We sat 2 people
(who are in the same bubble) at tables 6’ apart from the next
table; people wore masks; we took their temperatures; we
collected contact-tracing information; we had multiple
Plexiglas shields and sanitized everything. It was good to
meet again. We were actually safer during our newly opened
Sunday meetings than we were in our re-opened store and our
ever-expanding social services (which were each inspected,
approved and very safe!) And then it happened.
Just before Christmas, like just before
Easter, the government declared gathering for church illegal.
This time it upset a lot of people in a lot of churches a lot
more than when they previously declared it illegal because
this time many in the churches felt targeted. Our church
services were certainly not less Covid-safe than our thrift
store (which is allowed to be open), our food services and
meal assembly (which is still going strong), our warming
centre (which was opened during the most recent lockdown) or
other things we are doing. And our church services, as they
were set up, were far more safe than many restaurants, stores,
pubs, and other places that are not closed in BC. The fact
that the government banned church gatherings did not sit well
with many people.
This was our solution: we were in
constant conversations with the Health Authority as to what
was acceptable for making food and for people gathering for
service or other reasons (we have just opened a warming
centre!). When church gatherings were opened up again we
ceased preparing meals seven days a week and began taking
Sundays off. Now that traditional gathering for Sunday church
is illegal, after many conversations and much research, we
decided to gather to make sandwiches to be served to people
who are homeless and/or hard-to-house in our community. So
every Sunday an approved number of our congregation members
meet at the Legion, where we were meeting before, to worship
the Lord by making sandwiches rather than singing. During
Advent we took a minute or two to light a candle or four and
read Advent Reading s. We then said a prayer and went to work
worshipping our Lord through service, as we do the other six
days a week. Now that Advent has come and gone, prior to
commencing our worship through sandwich-making someone (fully
masked) will read a short scripture and devotional thought.
After making the sandwiches we then clean up, load the truck,
pray, and head out to continue our worship in service.
Covid-19 has provided many challenges
and many opportunities for worship and service in many corps
in many communities. I know many people have risen to the
challenge to serve God in these challenging times “being as
gentle as doves and as wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16) while
properly “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Christ
what is Christ’s” (Matthew 22:21) This is how we have been
trying to do that in our community here. This is how our
congregation has been worshiping legally while traditional
church gatherings are illegal here.
This issue of JAC is looking at The
Salvation War of 2020 from a 2030 perspective: What was
significant? What was overblown? What did we do right? What
did we miss..? One of the lessons that the Lord has driven
home to me is that as we have been faithful with a little He
has given us a lot of opportunities to serve on new fronts in
the Salvation War. We have been blessed to be able to pray
with, walk with, and share the Gospel with many new people in
many new ways. And as I know Army Corps across the territory
and world have dedicated themselves to being as wise as
serpents and gentle as doves in fighting the Salvation War
during this time, I am confident that we will look back in
2030 to the Army’s mobilization in 2020 and celebrate how He
has used us to claim many victories in the battles of 2020.
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