How our churches kept spirits high when the country was locked down

When local marts around the Province closed down during lockdown earlier this year, farmers everywhere sorely missed what for them was not only their main business opportunity, but also a huge part of their social lives.

However for a group of farmers in Co Fermanagh, they were able to return sooner than they expected - but for a completely different reason!

Thanks to a wonderful link up between Enniskillen Methodist and the Farmers’ Mart in the town, members of the local church were able to use the premises for a few months in which to hold their weekly church services in the form of drive-in events.

And the whole initiative proved to be so successful and positive that Circuit Superintendent Minister, the Reverend Lorna Dreaning said a return to this format of service isn’t ruled out for occasional necessity in the future.

“We have a big church here, with a congregation of around three to four hundred people,” Lorna told us.

“At the beginning of lockdown, we started up our own food bank, and I also would have kept in contact with people who were living on their own, even if it meant just looking through their window, or standing in the farmyard.

“We knew a lot of people who maybe had no access to the internet or any way of keeping in contact with us.

“So we felt that we needed to keep the visitation going in some shape or form.

“A lot of people were very anxious and worried, and I think that was the one thing that came across with the farming community - they had to keep their farms going in the midst of all of this.

“They were in the middle of lambing and different things like that, and a lot of them were very anxious about what was going to happen.

“Then in May / June the announcement that we weren’t allowed to have our normal church services was made, but that it was fine to have them outside.

“However, our own churches didn’t have car parks that were big enough, so we needed to think of somewhere we could go that would be big enough for the whole circuit to come to.

“It ended up that we got in contact with the Johnstons in town here, who own the mart, to ask them if we could use it. We had no other facilities, and we wanted to keep church going in some form, so that even if the parishioners were sitting in their cars, they would at least see each other and still feel part of things.”

That’s exactly what happened, and was, as Lorna, reveals, a resounding success.

“I would say we had 80 to 100 cars every week, and in fact just recently, I was talking to someone who asked if we could go back to the mart?” she smiles.

“People loved coming, they knew that they didn’t have to get dressed up. Some came with cups of tea and coffee and their dogs!

“We kept all the services going until the end of August, and had all the holidaymakers around this area coming here too.

“People felt safe sitting in their cars.

“They didn’t even have to put their windows down as they had it all transmitted through their radio.

“So there was still that sense of security, but everyone still felt like they were actually going to church.”

Lorna says it was helpful for herself and her fellow church leaders as well in terms of being able to physically see those people they perhaps had missed or hadn’t seen in a while.

“For our final weekend, we had a weekend of music and had 200 cars attend.

“We decided that we would go back to the mart for Harvest because we couldn’t decorate the church.

“It was a huge success.”

She added: “Hopefully by next summer, we will not be in the same pandemic, but we would consider actually going back to the mart again. It was something that we needed at the time, and it worked well for us.

“I think it felt special for the farmers too; the marts had all closed down in March, and I think that for them, being allowed to visit, felt a bit like coming home for them.”

‘We discovered new ways of doing things’

Reverend Dr Stephen Skuce, who is District Superintendent of the North Western District in the Methodist Church in Ireland, believes strongly in the importance of being allowed to worship together.

And the clergyman said he also felt that it was “good for the wider community to see that the churches are not frightened”, even in the midst of the current pandemic.

“Churches are the hope and the light, our doors are open, our lights are on, and whilst we are not expecting the wider public to suddenly start going to church in a way that they haven’t before, we are showing them that as people of faith, we are confident that no matter what happens, God is with us, and we are going to plough on.”

It’s a strong message, and an important one; Dr Skuce oversees around 90 Methodist churches in Counties Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Londonderry, including a number along the border.

Many of these are rural, and many are made up of members of the farming community.

Back at the beginning of lockdown, the churches followed the regulations and closed their doors, switching to alternative, online methods of delivering their services, including Zoom and Facebook Live.

“We discovered new ways of doing things, ways that none of us had known how to do previously.

“As soon as the drive in services became possible, I contacted two or three of our colleagues best placed to deliver this right, and it all built up very quickly. At our peak we probably had 13 or 14 drive-in services happening at different spots across the district, where two or three churches were coming together.”

However, Dr Skuce says that once the green light was given to actual services recommencing, church leaders wasted no time in re-opening their doors, allowing access to the pews in the safest manner possible, complete with face coverings, social distancing and hand sanitiser.

“Out attitude was very much one of, we are now allowed to do this, so let’s do so. We are not holding back, we’re not scared or nervous.

“We are Christian people, people of faith.”

Added the minister: “My district covers the border stretch, so there are people who have come through the Troubles - we are tough people.

“It maybe comes to no surprise that out attitude is we are not going to give in to this, this is a problem that we’re going to have to overcome, battle our way through, and that’s what we are doing.”

Dr Skuce says that members of the churches “held together really well” over lockdown. And his team of ministers went above and beyond, visiting and calling vulnerable older people who perhaps couldn’t get signal for their mobiles and devices, one such clergyman even “literally phoning one person who couldn’t get online every Sunday morning and going through a half hour service with them.”

And he revealed that the numbers flooding onto their Facebook pages to watch live streamed services had skyrocketed.

“We’ve also had Bible Studies being done via Zoom and prayer meeting through What’s App.

“It’s been a steep learning curve for some older people who were maybe not particularly au fait with the technology, but now, we have any number of people in their 80s who are joining in on these calls, and have their iPad set up and so on.

“They didn’t know how to do all this six months ago.”

Work is the ‘gospel on feet’

From providing nappies and other essential products to parents of newborn babies, to manning local chemists so that busy pharmacists could get on with the business of prescribing essential medicines, and setting up a live broadcast from the local leisure centre, a team of volunteers from Co Antrim were happy to do all this and more during lockdown in a bid to help their communities.

Indeed, as their minister, the Reverend Jonny Campbell-Smyth, from the Church of Ireland’s Ballynure and Ballyeaston parish says, this work is essentially, “on a spiritual level, the gospel on feet.”

He adds: “We have been trying to show the gospel in every day situations so that people know they’re cared for and accepted, and that the church is open and ready to help in whatever way we can.”

Rev Campbell-Smyth explains that Ballynure, in particular, would have a very rural congregation.

“We’ve always been a community-facing church,” he says. “We’ve always wanted to find ways of connecting more and more with the community rather than this idea of simply opening the doors and hoping that people would come in.

“So back in February when we realised that things were getting really bad, I decided to call on local councillors and MPs for the area, and the Northern Health and Social Care Trust. I sat with them to try and understand what the issues would be, and they highlighted a number of things, and then from that what birthed was a thing called Together Ballyclare, which was a drive to reach out - there to reach out not just to our parishioners, but to anyone within the community who was finding things difficult. Giving hope to people in a time which for them, seemed very hopeless. We did really practical things like going shopping for people, having chats with them - addressing the whole issue of loneliness, as people were facing that.”

This then led to the church members partnering up with outside agencies again - including a local restaurant - to deliver around 40 food parcels a week to those in need, and, pay for those same families to have a meal prepared for them that was then delivered to them as well.

They also came up with the idea of a Pick Up A Picnic initiative, so families could collect food from four different pick-up points, in case they felt embarrassed about doing so in the presence of other parents. And they donated items to the Baby Basics centre in Ballynure, as well as appealing for people to bring in unwanted school uniforms, which they cleaned and made ready for others who could use them.

“We cannot be a church and ignore the things that are said in scripture; this was all about hearing the needs of people and responding to that,” added Rev Campbell-Smyth.

Special line of work

Pastor Billy Jones (below) knew he had truly made a difference to someone’s life the day he received a phone call from a farmer in England.

The clergyman, who ministers at Dunseverick Baptist Church, near the Giant’s Causeway, reveals that it was in response to a special “telephone ministry” he had set up just before Easter.

He explains that it was a move he felt was needed as the more elderly members of his congregation weren’t familiar with accessing services on social media.

“I set up a freephone number that people could dial into and I put up a different message each day for 120 days. It continued until the end of July when lockdown ended. It was what I would call a ‘Thought for the Day’. The company who facilitated it told me that from the time it was set up, on April 10, until the end of July, a total of 9,000 calls were made to that number.

“A farmer from England called me and said that he and his wife had phoned it religiously at a certain time every day; that was their routine, and they wanted to thank me for those messages. That was very humbling.”

Pastor Jones is well known for his drive-in services, which have been running in his church’s car park for a number of years.

When lockdown hit, clergymen from all over the Province got in touch with him to seek his advice on how to make their drive-in services successful too.

Through his pre-pandemic work in the area, the minister has built up a network of people living in this part of North Antrim and who trust him and have in the past appreciated the door to door ministry, in the form of regular visits, by him and his team.

He is also involved in chaplaincy work “for a few local sporting clubs”, and says their importance in terms of the mental health and social lives of rural people cannot be underestimated.

“For those who are actively involved, it is part of their livelihood. Just like farming, it’s more than a hobby - it’s a way of life.”