During the pandemic, Longview Presbyterian Church has added members via Zoom

February 8, 2021

Online services — even a wedding via Zoom — continue at Longview Presbyterian Church during the pandemic. (Contributed photo)

During the first week of COVID-19 quarantine and canceled in-person worship services, the Revs. Liz and Dexter Kearny performed a wedding via Zoom.

The Kearnys have served as co-pastors of Longview Presbyterian Church (LPC) in Longview, Washington, since 2016. It’s their first call following their studies at Princeton Theological Seminary and definitely their first virtual wedding.

The couple, two witnesses and the Kearnys stood outside in a park 10 feet apart.

“We signed the document one person at a time,” said Dexter. “Then we all went home, hopped on Zoom and did the service. We hadn’t had time to look up what was legally allowed over Zoom, so we figured we’d get the legal applications done, then come together and have a religious ceremony [on Zoom] with all the family and friends.” Dexter said he and Liz will preside over another virtual wedding next month.

The virtual world has changed many things. Yet the Kearnys say worship attendance at LPC has remained fairly stable, around 60 each Sunday. They even had several new members join the congregation via Zoom recently.

B. Jo Brewer, one of the six new LPC members, visited the church a few times before in-person services were canceled. During those visits, she discovered that she already knew several people in the congregation through participating in social justice work in the community, cooking breakfast for residents of a homeless encampment and serving on the board of a domestic violence shelter.

She also found the sermons touched something deep in her soul. Before attending LPC, her mantra was, “I don’t do church.” After a few worship services, that changed to “If I were to do church, it would be Longview Presbyterian Church.” She calls the church a “little tiny dynamo community of faith.”

Initially Brewer considered waiting until in-person gatherings resumed to become a church member. But she decided instead to join others in an online new member class in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

“What this says to me is it’s not the building. It’s not even the pastors in the pulpit. It’s the community of faith,” she said. “I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together.”

Jeannie Olander, her partner Devin Beiden, and her mother, Marlene Sandstrom, whom she cares for because of dementia, all joined LPC without ever having visited the church in person.

“I feel like God directed us,” Olander said, explaining that she feels LPC meets all their needs. 

The switch from in-person to virtual worship has been a step-by-step process. The first week Liz and Dexter sang the hymns a capella. “In subsequent weeks we’ve had different people step up, using gifts we didn’t even know they had,” Dexter said. “One young man said, ‘Oh, yeah, I can layer music.’ The pianist plays and records the music, then four people separately record the different parts of each hymn. Then everything is layered, so it still feels a bit like the choir is still together.”

Instead of monthly events, LPC provides a fellowship opportunity and a Christian education opportunity on different days each week. Both of these online weekly events have been so successful that worshipers have asked that they continue after in-person gatherings resume. They say it allows people who are working outside the home, those working at home or retired to connect and engage without having to drive to the church building — which was difficult for some people, especially in the winter months when it gets dark earlier.

“It’s been really amazing to see how people have stepped up and used their gifts in new and creative ways,” Dexter said. “It reminds me of Isaiah 43:19: ‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’ I feel like the Holy Spirit is working,” he said. “This time has forced us to pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is doing.”

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus:  Congregation Growing During Pandemic

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Octavia Coleman, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Heather Colletto, Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Gracious and loving God, show us the way with your compassionate, freeing love. Amen.