What COVID has meant for our church in Spain
The first confirmed case of COVID on the mainland was Feb. 24th. We were all watching Italy closely at that point. By Sunday March 8th I’d gotten ahold of some hand sanitizer (Spain ran out of alcohol almost immediately, and it’s still very scarce) and made it a requirement at the entrance of church. The following week, Spain went full-fledge into quarantine mode. All classes were cancelled by March 11th, and the country entered a state of emergency on March 14th. I was rushing to get set up for online streaming (for church as well as for all my English classes).
In the initial state of emergency, churches were among the very few establishments allowed to stay open with heavy precautions (strong catholic traditions in Spain). On Sunday 15th I livestreamed one service from church with only 2 of our members attending (the only ones who don’t have internet at home). I had to do some explaining to policemen who came to check on us, but everything was fine. The other service was fully online.
The following week, even churches were required to close, so from that point on the church building was closed and I led all the services from my house online. I set up our Wednesday prayer services on Zoom, while we had both our Sunday services on Facebook livestreaming. The reasoning was that on for our prayer service we could have a “closed” group with full liberty to pray for non-church members by name in detail, while on Sundays I kept the prayer time more geared toward a public setting, since anyone was free to join the livestream. I figured out how to do conference calls from my cell phone, so for those believers who don’t have internet access or couldn’t figure out how to use Zoom, I’ve been calling them all on my phone for the duration of the service. With loudspeaker on, everyone can hear each other whether they’re connected online or by phone.
We had 8 full weeks of online-only services. Our church people responded like champs. Several of them are high-risk individuals, but they’ve been trusting God and have been very involved in all the services. Praise the Lord, one young man who hasn’t been to church in years started joining all our online services. He’s been participating and asking for prayer. During these 2 months of services I helped organize a virtual choir with members all around Spain who would prepare a special number each week to include in Spain’s church services each Sunday. I probably averaged around 30 hours each week compiling the videos to have ready each Sunday morning. These are the videos we’ve done:
Finally, last week, Spain eased restrictions slightly, allowing churches to hold services again, with strict health guidelines in place. So this Sunday, May 17th, we finally saw each other once again! What a blessing that was! There was still a restriction in place preventing people from travelling between cities, so those who live outside the church city weren’t able to come. We also had to ensure we were under 30% capacity for our auditorium (which was no problem for us), as well as all use facemasks, and sanitize everyone and everything. I took a TV to church to put song lyrics on-screen so we wouldn’t have to touch hymnals, and I livestreamed everything for those who couldn’t come to church. At this point we plan to hold only the Sunday AM service at church each week indefinitely. Nobody knows how long it will take for things to get back to normal here, and I believe it’s very important to maintain a public testimony of acting responsibly about dealing with the virus.
One big praise out of all of this, the guy who came back to online services also unexpectedly came to church on Sunday! It was a huge encouragement for everyone to see him. He’s a very cheerful guy who’s paralyzed and uses a wheelchair. He also plays basketball, and we all joke that the wheelchair is his Ferrari cause he wheels it around like a maniac! I trust that’s just one of the many ways God will use all of what’s happened for His glory and for the spiritual growth of our church. Thank you for your prayers! God bless!
David & Raquel+
Ps. 34:3
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