Easter Sunday Services Adapt To Social Distancing During COVID-19 Era

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Churches around the area canceled in-person services this Easter Sunday is coronavirus cases and deaths continued to rise.

CBS 2's Jeremy Ross had a look late Sunday afternoon at how church leaders and congregants celebrated in the era of COVID-19.

On the normal holiday calendar, Easter's spring temperatures bring flocks of families and others downtown. But this, of course, was no normal holiday.

Thus, most who took in services were experiencing them through mobile ministry, with differing results.

The Rev. Shannon Kershner preached in her living room. It is a fraction of the size of the ornate sanctuary that Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church would usually offer on Easter.

The danger posed by the novel coronavirus, however, prevents large gatherings. But it cannot prevent the message of hope she streamed.

"This has been OK, and we're still able to be church," Kershner said. "We're still authentically who we are. It's just in some different ways."

"The church is more than a building," added Josie Hood. She watched her Naperville service from home.

But she would have preferred to congregate with her congregation.

"Trying to act like this is the norm, and I'm afraid that this might be our new norm," Hood said

There are churchgoers who say there is no substitute for being with fellow parishioners, singing in unison, and praying as a group inside churches. But technology may be changing that.

"We did this on Zoom, so you could scroll though and see everybody, and I thought was really cool and thought it was really moving," said Molly Beran.

Beran found her streaming Easter service producing a stream of emotions.

"The waterworks really started. I was starting tearing up during the sermon," she said.

Pictures show Beran's subsequent Easter brunch with family, albeit by video conference.

Meanwhile, parks normally hosting Easter egg hunts are now hosting a fraction of that traffic.

Overall, it is a holiday many are grateful to share – even if they are six feet, six miles, or six time zones apart.

"There is this sense of interconnectedness that we might not always be completely aware of when we're each in our own separate church building," Rev. Kershner said.

Fourth Presbyterian added the number of people watching the Easter stream on Sunday was about as many as they would expect in the church during a traditional service.