I believe it was
@King Dead that recently talked about their church recently reopening, so to speak. Mine welcomed back most parishioners back for the first time today in roughly a year. Every other pew was cordoned off to help enforce social distancing but it was difficult for more than two families to sit in a pew due to the six-foot restriction between unrelated people. Apart from not having songbooks available and having people drop off their offertory envelopes into a centrally-located basket before and after the service, everything else remained largely the same as any other Sunday.
That said, I'm not sure what the church will do in two weeks to accommodate what would normally be a significantly larger crowd for Easter Sunday. Even if the church adds one more service to the schedule, I don't think it will be enough because pre-COVID Easter services tended to draw standing room only crowds. Perhaps the pastor anticipates a good number of those people opting to stay home and watch via livestream despite the bishop encouraging able-bodied/healthy people under 65 years old to start attending weekly services again.
Yep, that was me. Now that it's been a couple weeks, our pastor is pretty much ready to get rid of some of the procedures we were doing. He mentioned this morning getting rid of the registration requirements since we've never had 50 people sign up for any service so far, at most we've had about 40 people. He sent out an email a couple days ago encouraging people to show up regardless of registration and we still didn't hit 50. We also have ribbons that cordon some sections of the pews off, but we alternate which side of the pew is open so that we can get people in each row; he also mentioned getting rid of those as well since he's tired of them (and some people want their "assigned" seats back). He was a little worried about Easter attendance, but I think (and hope) he's just opting to celebrate normally and say to hell with it, Easter's more important than getting in a tizzy over the virus. We still have at least a couple dozen people/families tuning in to our Zoom broadcast, and it's likely some still will for a while yet.
Things still aren't 100% normal yet aside from these. We're still doing socially-distanced communion, which I continue to not be a fan of since it's just not the same as being up at the altar with your congregation (that and I miss the common cup, though who knows if/when we'll bring that back what with everyone being germaphobes now). We haven't resumed doing fellowship after church yet because something something we have to rush people out so they don't infect each other with the virus they don't have, but I'm going to have a talk with my pastor and see if he's fine with resuming on Easter. If not, fuck it, I'll just get a cake anyway and anyone who wants to stay can get some. We're still taking temperatures at the door, bizarrely, even though I don't think a single person has run a fever yet, so I think that's on the chopping block soon too.
On the plus side, our Wednesday night potlucks have returned, albeit with a slightly smaller crowd than before, but it's good to come together and share some time and a meal. We also don't really bother with masks either because there's barely a dozen of us at most and all except for me have gotten the shots, so it's like eh, what's the point? And people in general are receptive to handshakes and hugs, so it's good to see that the instinct for human love and companionship can still override the coof hysteria. We're still a ways away from normal, but man, it's been so much nicer to have that back in my life.
I do kind of miss being able to go to church in my pajamas, but I've been so happy to give that up.
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