-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Rev. Emily Sauer accepts a donation from a parishoner that drove up during the Drive Thru Blessings & Offerings event Saturday afternoon at St. Olaf Luteran Church. Heather Liska, right, helped out.

Churches and ministers across Fort Dodge have spent the last six months keeping their faith and finding ways to serve the spiritual needs of their congregants during a global pandemic.

When Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation on March 17 prohibiting gatherings of 10 or more individuals because of COVID-19, churches were not exempt from that order. That meant some churches simply canceled services indefinitely, while others turned to technology to continue to hold worship services.

First Presbyterian Church, 1111 Fifth Ave. N., immediately turned to streaming Sunday services on Facebook and YouTube. As COVID-19 restrictions began to lift over the summer, the church started offering a single in-person worship service on Sundays, asking congregants to wear masks and socially distance in the pews.

While COVID-19 put a road bump in plans to host Bible study classes and other group activities, the staff at First Presbyterian has found alternative ways to reach out and keep congregants involved.

On weekdays, the pastors have been doing a Facebook livestream reflecting on Bible passages and inviting viewers to submit prayer requests.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
The pews at First Presbyterian Church, 1111 Fifth Ave. N., are taped off at every other row to facilitate social distancing during the church’s Sunday morning service. An average of 30 members have been attending the service, comfortably spread out in the sanctuary.

“I think that’s been a really cool way to stay connected with people,” the Rev. Dr. Austin Hill, the church’s lead pastor, said.

In recent weeks, the church started to prepare for starting up its regular activities and ministries.

“We’ve had ongoing conversations about Sunday morning worship services as well in terms of trying to allow for more opportunities for connection,” Hill said. “Starting to allow for fellowship time after the service, which is something that people have really missed.”

However, those plans had to be put on hold last week as Hill and other staff members tested positive for COVID-19 and are quarantining for now. Hill said he hopes that once he and the others are healthy again, they can start opening the church and ministries again.

“We’re still wanting to have as many of those kinds of measures that we can that would keep people less likely to infect one another, while also still providing space for connection,” he said. “That’s the challenge, holding both of those things with intention.”

-Messenger file photo
St. Olaf Lutheran Church member Dennis Gross puts an offering in the bucket in March during the Drive Thru Blessings & Offerings at the church. Rev. Emily Sauer, center, and Heather Liska provided the blessings.

When churches were allowed to start offering worship services again, Rev. Emily Sauer decided to move the services for St. Olaf Lutheran Church, 239 N. 11th St., outdoors, to enjoy God’s nature and allow for social distancing.

Eventually during the summer, Sauer added an indoor service, noting that it hasn’t been well-attended during this time.

“It’s been hard with not seeing as many people in worship, but it’s understandable too that people don’t want to get sick,” she said. “It’s hard when you go to church and it just feels empty.”

While trying to effectively provide spiritual support for the members of St. Olaf has proven challenging, it hasn’t been all bad, Sauer said.

“There’s been some good things that have come out of it,” she said. “The main things to highlight is they’ve had to use technology to be better at connecting with each other.”

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
First Presbyterian Church, 1111 Fifth Ave. N., has started to hold a Sunday worship service. Members are encouraged to wear masks and every other pew is taped off to facilitate social distancing and allow the members to spread out in the sanctuary.

With help from staff from the church’s nursery, Sauer visits with members weekly over the phone.

“We have about 135 members over 75, so they have the list and they go through it and do check-ins with people and if there’s any needs, they pass those on to me,” she said.

She added that she thinks this practice is something St. Olaf will continue even after the coronavirus pandemic ends.

At Trinity United Methodist Church, 838 N. 25th St., the staff has reached out beyond the church doors to provide support and encouragement.

“We adopted the high school staff,” said Rev. Jena Finch-Manchester. “We want to love on them and encourage them, so we decided that once every two months, we’re going to send them a gift and a note to say we care and that we’re praying for them.”

With the newly-completed Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 2220 Fourth Ave. N., the county’s Catholic population has a single worship site to attend. While parishioners are able to attend Mass in person, the parish will continue to livestream many of its Masses, Monsignor Kevin McCoy said.

After a short hiatus at the beginning of the pandemic, holy communion has been returned to its place in Mass, McCoy said.

The new church has enough seating for up to 1,000 people, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Holy Trinity Catholic Parish is limiting Mass attendance to 300 individuals. The parish asks that families sign up for seating at the various Mass times on the website www.holytrinitywci.org.

Parishioners are still asked to wear masks while attending Mass.

“We’ve tried to develop protocols so we don’t have people passing one another,” McCoy added.

With the opening of the new church, Holy Trinity Parish is looking to expand its programs and activities again, taking advantage of the new space.

“We’re trying to find a new sense of normal by returning to having some prayer opportunities,” McCoy said.

The pandemic has greatly affected the ability to visit shut-ins and members living in nursing homes, Rev. Kendall Meyer, of St. Paul Lutheran Church, 400 S. 13th St., said. It’s also dropped in-person worship attendance to about 30-35% of what it normally is, the pastor said.

“There is a certain amount of loneliness,” Meyer said. “When we first started the pandemic, shut down back in March, there were no church services at all. And when we opened up again, we did so in a very limited capacity. But when we did, people were cheerful coming into church because they were so happy to be back into the sanctuary.”

It wasn’t quite “normal,” but it’s a step toward normalcy, he said.

“I think the hardest part for the congregation is just the different ways we have to do church and the fact that we can’t support and encourage each other in the ways that we have in the past,” Meyer said.

One of the things Meyer has done since the start of the pandemic to try to help alleviate some of the anxiety his congregants are feeling about COVID-19 is form his Sunday sermon messages around encouragement and support, assuring them that God’s presence is always with them.

Concerns over the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 are not going anywhere anytime soon, Meyer said.

“I think the biggest thing is that we’re really in the fourth inning of this ballgame,” he said. “This is not going to be something that is going to be over next month or at the end of the year. I believe that this is something that’s going to be going on for quite a while.”