ROSEMOUNT, Minn — The coronavirus pandemic has many of us thinking more about the meaning of life and death. These thoughts are perhaps amplified for Christians right now, as they celebrate Holy Week and Easter Sunday.
Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and ends on Holy Saturday. According to the Bible, the days in between commemorate significant events, including the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday.
With stay-at-home or similar orders in effect across the globe, churches are re-calibrating their Holy Week and Easter Sunday celebrations.
For many, a popular approach has been to produce a video of the service and stream it online.
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Pastor Bill Goodwin of Lighthouse Christian Church in Rosemount says many large churches have been offering both physical and digital church for years, so the transition to digital-only should be relatively smooth for them. But most small to medium churches weren't quite at that point, he says, including his own.
"It's been a dream of ours," Goodwin said. "Actually, one of our, we call it '2020 Vision', we've got five things that we're focused on and one of those things was that, in 2020, we would go online."
Now, ready or not, Lighthouse Christian Church is exclusively online.
"It's been quite a learning curve," Goodwin said. "The first Sunday, I was more like Jimmy Fallon. Doing it from home. Then we tried it in the worship center here. Obviously it was empty. I tried to give a message as if it were full of people. That did not feel genuine or real to me. And then last Sunday, we did a close-up just with a backdrop."
Goodwin calls Easter the 'Super Bowl of the church world' and says this year is an especially big deal.
"It's a whole new thing," he said. "It's a paradigm shift for every follower of Jesus because now we're doing the first ever in the history of the world Digital Easter."
Traditionally, churches worldwide see more visitors on Easter. Goodwin expects the same, if not more this year. Hes already tracked an increase since posting church services online.
"We're so grateful for YouTube Premiere," he said. "That's what we've been using, where we prerecord but yet we set it up as a 'premiere' so that everybody that watches it for the first time gets to tune in at 10:00 o'clock on Sunday morning."
After that, the video stays on YouTube and may be viewed any time. That's why, back at the building in Rosemount, a small worship team continues to rehearse and record.
"The church has never been about a building," Goodwin said. "The church has always been about people who follow after God."
When asked what he prays about, Goodwin offered a message of hope:
"I pray that when this ends, we will take from this what we need to learn and we will be better people," he said. "We will be better human beings. We will be kinder to one another. We will not take things for granted that we took for granted just even a few weeks ago. God has not left us. He loves us and He's with us."
The Lighthouse Christian Church Easter Service premieres at 10 a.m. on their YouTube channel.
The Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis is another church offering Easter Sunday services online, since they are currently closed to the public. The following services will be live streamed on the parish's website and Facebook page:
- Good Friday
Station of the Cross, 12 p.m.
*Celebration of the Lord's Passion, 3:00 p.m.
*Tenebrae, 7:00 p.m. - Holy Saturday
*Celebration of the Resurrection, 7:00 p.m. - Easter Sunday
*Solemn Eucharist with Archbishop Bernard Hebda, 9:30 a.m.
*ASL interpreted