Churches prepping to reopen under restrictions to keep worshipers safe from COVID-19

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Businesses, restaurants and even gyms have reopened in Mississippi under new guidelines.

Now, churches have safety recommendations from the state to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In an attempt to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, many churches placed their services on hold and have resorted to social media to spread the good word.

Pastor Randy Randle of Community Wide Outreach ministry in Columbus hoped to reopen soon.

“I believe that we are going to be able to reopen pretty soon and I feel like all churches need to come together and develop a strategy to open,” said Pastor Randle.

Pastor Randle said he did have plans to keep worshipers safe.

“The first step is to make sure that the church is sanitized before service and after service,” said Pastor Randle. “The second thing we want to do as a church is, we ordered a temperature checker that is no contact. So that we can check people’s temps before they come in the church and if it exceeds 99.5, we would just tell them to omit until they go and seek a physician or the temperature comes back down.”

Pastor Sammy White, of Oakland Missionary Baptist Church, in Crawford, felt the state was relaxing the restrictions too soon but was happy there were guidelines to help pastors with ways to reopen safely.

“I’m looking at possibly having two services and also do, you know, the sanitizing all the doorknobs and things of that nature,” said Pastor White.

But in the meantime, Pastor White said he will continue to stick to the current plan when preaching to his people.

“We are able to do parking lot service, drive-in service,” said Pastor White. “So we are able to do that and it is working out well for us. Also Facebook time, we are doing Facebook service, so that’s working out good. So those are the mechanisms that is being put in place and our members of the church seem to adapt well.”