Bethel Evangelical Free Church in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT–As Governor Tim Walz looks to ease up restrictions that apply to churches in Minnesota, Bethel Evangelical Free Church and Christian Church of Fairmont described how they handled the pandemic and will look to move forward once these restrictions ease up.

Bethel Evangelical Free Church kept their church going during the shutdown by utilizing online services. The services would be recorded on Saturday night and then uploaded to their YouTube channel so their congregation could participate and watch it at home.

In-person services that required masks and social distancing started on June 21, 2020. Along with that, Bethel launched small groups to meet and get together as well as a live stream so people could stay at home and watch and participate in the service that way.

Another thing Bethel has done is something called Children’s Worship since there hasn’t been childrens’ Sunday school. Five-year-olds to sixth grade would meet in the gym at Bethel, sing three or four songs, learn from a lesson and then break up into groups of three to five kids with a leader and discuss what they learned during the lesson. This was done to offer something to kids and give them more capacity in the worship center. Bethel’s Pastor Seth Watson said that on average there would be 30 to 50 kids at a Sunday service and that the capacity limit right now sits 225 people at 50 percent capacity.

Leadership at Bethel has discussed what fully reopening will look like. One of the things they are planning is to offer three services at 8:30 a.m., 9:45 a.m., and 11 a.m. Two things that won’t come back are the offering plate and a meet and greet part of the service. The congregation of Bethel is used to the idea of online giving and has adapted to that.

The message Watson wants to send to the community is that the pandemic has been pretty divisive and, as Christians, they are called to love each other regardless of others’ opinions and find how they can love each other even when opinions differentiate.

“People have very strong opinions right now, but we are called to love each other,” Watson said. “The way we go about this and the decisions we make is up to conscience and what we think is best. The most important thing is the witness we give people to the world to be one of loving each other instead of bickering, being upset and talking badly about people who believe differently than us even in the church on a particular issue.”

Christian Church of Fairmont Pastor Jacob Wurster started his role as the lead pastor right in the middle of a pandemic. When everything first started with the church was not live streaming or hosting services due to the pandemic and changing pastors. Wurster arrived at the church in November and had to shut down the church for two weeks due to an active case. Wurster did live stream services for those two weeks.

Wurster’s prior experience included serving as a youth minister and associate pastor with some level of responsibilities, but not all of them. Wurster said it was a double-edged sword coming into a new role as a pandemic is happening.

“It’s bad because you’re not able to do everything,” Wurster said. “You’re not able to do all of the things that are kind of expected of you, but at the same time, the same sentence is true. I didn’t have to do everything that was being expected of me so I was able to hone and find my rhythm within the things I was being allowed to do and do those things really well.”

As things opened up in Minnesota Wurster said because there has been a whole year of not doing anything they were able to create, make things new, and be excited about what things could look like moving forward.

One of those new things is that children’s church is in a bigger area than what they had previously. They’re now able to have a big space for songs, videos, and lessons.

A lot of the restrictions didn’t limit Wurster and his church. because the sanctuary and fellowship hall is a large building and can fit a lot of people. The congregation size doesn’t come close to the limits. The main differences were offering hand sanitizer and wearing masks.

In January, children’s ministries and young adult ministries came back. When this first started food wasn’t allowed at events and Wurster said that was a huge component of fellowship and events.

Usually, the church hosts a Valentine’s Day banquet that includes food. This year was a little different as there couldn’t be food, but instead, they had games, scavenger hunts, and gathered.

“It’s tough because the culture of church is so driven by fellowship, dinners, and meeting with food,” Wurster said. The restrictions changed in March to where there could be 50 people in a gathering with food.

Last year, their Easter service was canceled. This year it was normal with an Easter sunrise service, an Easter breakfast, and then an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Moving forward Wurster and his church are allowed to have fellowship dinners again.

With the restrictions loosening up it’s not going to change what Wurster and the Christian Church of Fairmont have been doing. For now, it will make things safe, but Wurster said it will be more about doing things outside, getting together, and not being as scary as it once was.

Wurster’s message to the community is that everyone wants to be as safe as possible and wants people to stay healthy. There is an online version of church that provides the worship experience of a Sunday morning.

“We want to get past this just as everyone else does,” Wurster said.