REGION — After navigating nine months of changing guidelines by the Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) and executive orders from Governor Janet Mills, churches are yet again adapting to provide congregants with a semblance of normality through holiday services.
For Father Paul Dumais of the Saint Joseph Parish in Farmington and the Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Jay, adapting to Mills order of no more than 50 people gathering indoors means offering four days of Christmas masses.
“I’m trying to make an accommodation that reflects the public health, the pandemic, but I am trying to make that accommodation within the context of the Catholic tradition,” Dumais said in a phone interview. “I’m extenuating the point that Christmas for Catholics is not just one day.”
Those interested in attending a Christmas mass will have to register online at https://signup.com/client/invitation2/secure/126764265409/false#/invitation for one of the 11 services offered from Thursday, Dec. 24 to Sunday, Dec. 27.
Each time slot accepts 100 people and Dumais said that the first 50 to arrive at the parish at their selected time will attend the mass in the parish. The remaining 50 will watch the service livestreamed in the parish hall. The services will also be livestreamed to Facebook.
“You never know what people are going to do, but we’re preparing to welcome as many as we can by creating a second, overflow space that will be connected to the livestream,” Dumais said.
Another adaptation will be the way in which Dumais offers parishioners communion. Rather than receiving communion directly into their mouths, Dumais will request that people receive it by hand.
“There’s a little extra precaution on my part in the sense that I sanitize my hands before distributing holy communion,” Dumais said. “I wear a mask, people wear masks, but they have to remove their masks in order to actually receive holy communion. And they need to observe a kind of movement in the communion line, they need to accommodate each other by allowing for physical distancing.”
Other churches are taking the outdoors approach such as St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Wilton where Rector Mother Sue Cole will conduct a Christmas Eve service in the parking lot at 5:30 p.m.
“We’ll do a reading of the gospel and singing silent night with candles and that’s pretty much going to be it for Christmas Eve,” Cole said in a phone interview.
Cole said that she had been conducting indoor services until about early November, but as COVID-19 cases have been increasing, the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, Thomas Brown, requested that indoor services temporarily come to a halt.
With cold temperatures preventing outdoor services, Cole switched to Zoom which she noted has not been an easy transition for her 35 congregants. Zoom participation has been averaging about 10 people, and Cole said that she expects a much higher turnout for the in-person Christmas Eve service.
“I really think that we’re going to have a lot more of the congregation. I do have some people that don’t have computer capacity at all and actually, I’ve had a couple call me and say, ‘oh yes, we’ll be there,’” Cole said. “If it’s super cold, then you can stay in your car and roll down the window.”
On Sunday after Christmas, Bishop Brown will also conduct a holiday service with lessons and carols via YouTube and Facebook.
The First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Farmington is also opting for an outdoor gathering on Thursday, Dec. 24 at 4:30 p.m. People are encouraged to meet outside of the church with their own candles for “Christmas carol-humming” while wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
The church will then offer a full Christmas Eve service live over Facebook at 6 p.m.
Emmanuel Assembly of God in Livermore Falls has found ways to accommodate its congregants through a variety of methods, allowing for both online and in-person services.
“We’ve got a layered approach with how we’re trying to meet people’s needs right now…we are streaming our services online,” Pastor Jonathan Lang said. “We also have a radio transmitter for those — we have some people who may not feel comfortable coming in the building — they still want to demonstrate the physical connection by coming to the church property, so we’ve been broadcasting our services over radio signal.”
Lang said that sometimes there are up to 20 people listening to the service from their vehicles in the parking lot.
All of these options, streaming, parking lot broadcasting and in-person attendance, will be available for the church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service at 6 p.m.
“We’ve had some people in our community very depressed during this holiday season and we just want to make sure people, regardless of what level of comfort they feel and connection, they know that there’s people there,” Lang said. “There’s ways to connect and that they’re not alone despite the social distancing; they don’t have to be alone.”
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