Many church leaders say that coronavirus shutdowns are no longer bearable — and some are taking reopening into their own hands.
In Illinois, for instance, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s slow walk toward reopening has frustrated many business owners, some churches are no longer waiting for his signal to welcome their congregations back. One such church, Metro Praise International, which serves an evangelical congregation in Chicago, on Sunday staged “passive resistance” to Pritzker’s order.
“This is a principled stand for our First Amendment rights and, more importantly, our biblical mandate to gather with other Christians in worship and fellowship,” church leaders said in an announcement, noting that from henceforth, normal services will resume.
Joe Wyrostek, the church’s pastor, told the Washington Examiner that he does not plan to sue Pritzker, but instead wants to show the governor and other political leaders that the First Amendment right to assemble is important to his congregation. In Wyrostek’s view, the needs of church communities have not been prioritized during the shutdown.
“This is our right,” he said. “We laid it down for seven weeks, but now, this is how we’re taking it back up.”
Wyrostek said that in his first two services since breaking Pritzker’s order, modeled after the restrictions laid out by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, about 100 people total showed up. Nearly all of them brought masks, Wyrostek said, and he put out hand sanitizer stations for those who wanted to use them.
Wyrostek plans to continue holding services and trusting his congregation to be responsible in their efforts to stay safe.
“We’re adults,” he said. “We know what to do.”
Metro Praise is not the first Illinois church to resume services during the shutdown. At least two churches have sued Pritzker in the past month for banning church gatherings. After a lawsuit from The Beloved, an evangelical church in northwestern Illinois, Pritzker changed the ban from a zero-person to 10-person limit on church gatherings.
That concession was not enough for The Beloved, however, and the church pushed forward to hold socially distant services with more than 10 people, a legal representative for the church told the Washington Examiner. The church has continued to hold services without legal retaliation.
On Sunday, Cristian Ionescu, a pastor at a Romanian Pentecostal church in Chicago, delivered a similar message to his congregants that Wyrostek gave to his, saying that opening back up was not “a rebellion for the sake of rebellion.”
“We feel that we are discriminated against,” Ionescu later told the Chicago Sun-Times. “We follow the same rules as other places that are also considered essential, and yet we cannot have more than 10 people in a service, which is ridiculous.”
In Virginia, where Gov. Ralph Northam’s 10-person limit has provoked backlash from the Justice Department, one church decided to send Northam a message. Although the governor does not allow for churches to resume in-person services, and even then, at 50% capacity, Josh Akin, pastor of GraceBuilt Church in Waynesboro, decided to kick off early.
Akin opened his church on Sunday at 30% capacity because he felt “so personally convicted” that no governor should have the right to tell him when to hold service, he told the local ABC affiliate.
“I’m so happy that next Sunday, every church in Virginia can gather up to 50% capacity, free from worry that police will come and shut them down,” Akin said. “But I’m glad that this Sunday we had a chance to show that, even if somebody doesn’t approve, it’s good for us to worship Jesus. Even when people are frowning at you, unhappy with you, or insulting you, Jesus is worth it.”
