As of yesterday, places of worship were allowed to once again hold indoor services, albeit with strict adherence to COVID-19 safety measures, as part of the phased reopening of the country.
Guided by the COVID-19 Emergency Measures, places of religious worship are allowed to open for religious service and gatherings, including funerals and weddings.
However, with the measures only being issued on Thursday, some churches in the city are prepared to reopen while others have decided to defer their return to some normalcy until next week.
Denzel Williams, a student Pastor from the Universal Church, explained how the Universal churches will be following the guidelines for the reopening of churches. He said that in order to limit attendance for each service, the ministry decided to have only 25% of the number of seats in the church filled with worshipers today. “The church has 1,200 seats in the building. We will only have 25 per cent of that filled, this gives us enough space to these persons” Williams said. He then added that if persons arrive and they are not a part of that 25%, they will be asked to wait until the next service starts. The church has decided to have multiple services throughout the day to facilitate as many people as possible.
Terrence Thomas, who is a representative for the Guyana Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, said that a decision to have the services return to some normalcy next week rather than today came about because the pastor is waiting for the government to properly declare the services are allowed before having persons gather. He also said that the process of sanitising and through cleaning would be done while they await the reopening.
Over the past four months, with places of worship not allowed to hold gatherings, many churches opted to hold online services via Zoom, Facebook Live and YouTube and some even broadcast their services on local television stations. By doing so, they were able to continue their messaging to followers. Some churches also created accounts where offerings and tithes could be transferred.
