This is the fourth, and final, installment in a series of articles looking at churchgoers’ thoughts about their church and COVID-19. In part 1 of this series, I shared an overview of the findings from a national survey of churchgoers, part 2 focused on the strategies being used in the churches, and part 3 looked at the trends around anxiety about returning to church.

While these first three articles used data from a national survey of churchgoers from all denominations, I’m going to share some findings from a survey of seven individual Churches of Christ in this final article. These congregations requested assistance in surveying their members from early May through mid-June. From those seven congregations, there were 829 respondents. After answering the 10 questions about how they were handling the pandemic and their anxiety about returning to face to face worship, they were asked two open-ended questions:

• “If you are the parent of a child/children under 18 who also attend this church, what are some additional concerns that you have?”

• “What concerns or comments would you like to share with the church leaders?”

I’ll begin with the responses from parents of children under 18. [1] For parents, the primary concern is that their children will not be able to maintain the necessary social distance and will unknowingly infect someone in the congregation with COVID-19. As one respondent wrote:

For younger children, how do we keep them from spreading the virus to our elderly? They don’t understand social distancing. Also - how do we begin to keep them separated at church so they don’t spread it? This is all just a really confusing time...Covid needs to go away!! I want them to continue to be immersed in our Christian family. We miss everyone terribly.

This parent’s sentiments are a good summary of the views expressed by other parents: they miss gathering together and know that their children are missing out on an important experience but just can’t imagine how it might be safe to get together.

Parents also reported some concern that if the main worship service were to resume but without Bible classes and children’s church, then it would be difficult for children to engage. One parent put it this way:

One thing I’ve been mulling over is that our church service does not particularly engage children - thus the reason we have children’s classes, Kids Praise, 2-time, 3-time, etc. Also the playground is a huge hub. So, if these places and parts of worship that are most beloved by our children are unavailable, and we return to our normal service, then our kids will simply sit in the pew unengaged, which is not normal at all to them…

Again, parents seemed to want their children to be engaged in church and to grow in their faith but they were unsure how that could happen with physical distancing and/or mask-wearing in place.

Next, we turn our attention to the more general question inviting comments and concerns. The responses here were quite varied and included many people saying that they were praying for the leaders of their congregation and sharing words of encouragement for leaders. There was also a big emphasis on the need for good communication from church leaders. A minority – only about 14 out of the over 200 responses – took the perspective that the church should just start meeting and not worry about any changes to the service. The vast majority of responses encouraged leaders to move slowly. One respondent put it this way:

As anxious as I am to see everyone again in corporate worship, I don’t want to rush into that too quickly. I truly appreciate the elders for being concerned about all of us and when the time is right I can’t wait to thank you in person. These virtual services have been a blessing and I am thankful that we live in a time when this technology is available.

Another common theme was that the church is not just what happens in a building. For instance, here are comments from two different respondents:

“Church” doesn’t require a building, or even a large assembly. No pandemic, war, or persecution has ever ended the church yet, and neither will this...

...I believe we should give equal time to discussing ‘NOW’ - what we are doing now, how we are encouraging each other now, and how we can fully continue to be the church now. Let us fully value the time we have NOW, and let us not see it as a kind of inferior state of treading water until the real thing can happen again…Meeting together might happen physically fairly soon, and it might not - but we are still the body of Christ in this world.

Similar to parents’ concerns about their children being carriers of the disease and infecting someone who is at higher risk, many respondents said that they were less concerned about themselves than about others in the congregation. Finally, respondents offered numerous suggestions for ways to social distance, wear masks, clean, communicate expectations, and the like.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s been three months since these data were collected, and a lot has happened since then. Some churches have reopened only to close again the following week, COVID-19 numbers have spiked, reopening plans have been walked back, the divisions in our country seem to have grown. So where are we now? My goal over the next few weeks is to launch a new survey that will help answer some of those questions and give us insight into what exactly has changed in the last few months. In the meantime, let us know in the comments how things have changed in your congregation in the last three months.

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[1] One church took the survey before this question was added, so these responses represent only six congregations.