Pastors preached to empty sanctuaries because of the coronavirus threat.

In times of crisis, even if only temporarily, many people turn to religion. For example, after the attack on September 11, 2001, church attendance across the country was short-lived

, People face fear and seek community and meaning. Therefore, a special challenge for the church is that our current crisis requires us to stay at home. Most of the largest churches in the country have chosen

Beginning this weekend, you will sometimes be pressured by local bans on large gatherings, or will be directed by sect leaders. Many small churches have also cancelled on-site services and are trying to find ways to meet online or to meet the spiritual needs of their congregations during times of high anxiety. As a result, there is an urgent need for comfortable services, and various local church services are circulating to the audience online.

Most large churches have broadcast their services online, or at least have advanced recording equipment and technical and creative personnel to produce professional broadcasts. Many of these large churches have normal "performances" on Sundays, with worship band performances and priests preaching to empty auditoriums or small groups of staff. On the Eden Prairie of Grace Church in Minnesota, senior pastor Troy Dobbs gave a sermon in an empty auditorium that can accommodate 4,200 people. At Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, dozens of staff members filled rows of chairs in front of Houston’s former Compaq Center. This competition The field can accommodate 16,000 people. Smaller churches are scrambling to provide services and other resources online. Many people are coming to Facebook Live for the first time. At the Presbyterian Church in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Pastor Desiree Lawson used the video conferencing service Zoom to lead a service in her home and invited church members to enter their prayer requests into the chat function.

The leaders directly resolved the virus, acknowledging the fears of the parishioners and trying to provide spiritual comfort. At the Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Michael Curry

At the wedding of Meghan Markle and Harry Prince, he ended his sermon by moving the a cappella of the children's song "Jesus Loves Me". At Crossroads Church, a large church in Cincinnati and Kentucky, pastor Brian Tome invited community members (including Cincinnati City Council members, a school teacher and a full-time mother) to come on stage to share peace of mind and anxiety. He responded with prayer. (Tome recorded a video last Monday. This video has been deleted. He analyzed the virus and then cancelled the real-time service on Thursday.) He seemed to be trying to find the right tone of service, and once joked "Shame on Your suggestion is to not stand employees 6 feet away from the suggestion. But his sermon was titled "How to Deal with Crisis."

Some leaders shared their experience with the virus during the service. At the Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Mariann * Edgar Budde (Mariann * Edgar Budde) sent a brief introductory message from her home. She was learning that she had been in contact with someone who had recently been positive. After being self-isolating. (She is waiting for her test results.) In Life.Church, a large multi-site church in 11 states, Pastor Craig Groeschel talked about his two-week isolation experience to end his sermon. Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald, another director of Life.Church, attended a large church leadership meeting in Germany, where people who had a small dinner with them were diagnosed with the virus. Groeschel and Gruenewald discovered this person's condition when they turned on Wi-Fi on the flight home. They immediately alerted the flight attendants, and the flight attendants cleared the surrounding space on the plane. "Now I know what it would be like to be a leper," he said with a smile. He admitted that his self-quarantine period was completely different from the dilemmas faced by others in the next few months, but he said that this was still one of the most difficult periods in his life: "We were not created as one person."

Preaching is usually a solo performance, but church music (public singing and worship) is difficult to replicate without a congregation. At the Washington National Cathedral, the four choir members were a few feet apart, accompanied by an organ player, singing choral music and hymns, singing empty seats. In many contemporary churches, bands usually perform their usual worship songs on the big stage and record them with sophisticated cameras to obscure the fact that there are empty seats in front of them. In smaller churches, music is sometimes composed of pianists and solo singers, and is filmed with still cameras and amateur recording equipment that pick up all the echoes in the empty room.

Many Sundays this weekend have obvious embarrassing moments: empty rooms, rudimentary technology, and in some cases, priests seem to be incomparable. But for those who attend church activities every week, including myself, watching these temporary services is still a comfort. At the Upper East Side of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, at the end of the ceremony, a string quartet and a pianist accompanied the singer to perform on the stage. The singer performed 19

The hymn of the century "My soul is good", this is a song that can be assured in peace and sorrow.

After the service, the live broadcast of the church sanctuary lasted a few minutes as the band collected music scores and packed up their instruments. The staff wore several pairs of rubber gloves, tidying up the stage and chatting. When watching at home, it was a deep impression of casual, lively interpersonal interactions. Many of us may have not witnessed it again for weeks, let alone participated in it-an unexpected spiritual relief, although short and short. accidental. Then, carefully keeping a few feet apart from each other, the last few people in the sanctuary of the church put on their coats and walked out of the frame. The screen went black.

Correction, March 16, 2020: This song originally misspelled the name Mariann Edgar Budde.

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