FEATURESChurches And Challenges Of Complying With COVID-19 Guidelines

Following the easing of the total lockdown on 4 May, 2020 in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), banks and markets were given guidelines on how to operate in order to ease the suffering of Nigerians who were subjected to completely stay-at-home for more than two months.

Prior to the ease of lockdown directives, it has been a daunting period for faith-based organisations in the country, religious leaders were at the front advocating for the reopening of worship places.

They did not take it likely with the government for not including a religious gathering in the earlier easing of the lockdown directives issued, as most of them took to the media to express their displeasure and grievances at the decision of the federal government.

Subsequently, the government had to bow to the pressure from both Muslims and Christian religious leaders to reopen places of worship on 7 June, 2020, after guidelines were set up for worshippers to follow in order to prevent the spread of the dreaded coronavirus during their gatherings.

Most church leaders heaved a sigh of relief in the FCT, as they were glad to reopen for Sunday mass and service after about three months ban on religious gatherings, which was placed as a measure to contain the dreaded virus in the capital territory.

LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that most of the churches that reopened on June 7 struggled to comply, while some major churches complied with the guidelines for the reopening of places of worship in the territory released by FCT administration after a meeting with the leadership of the FCT Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and League of FCT Imams Initiative.

The guidelines stipulated that places of worship must sign up to full compliance with all aspects of non pharmaceutical interventions required to protect the public from COVID-19, such as ensuring the supply of running water and soap/alcohol sanitisers at entry and exit points and in all high-contact locations including bathrooms for worshippers to sanitise their hands before entry; provision of temperature checks before entry and mandatory use of face masks.

Also, the guidelines strongly discouraged all close contact including shaking hands, hugging, kissing, handing out of materials and sharing of worship tools including prayer mats, musical organs, microphones, while each service should be for a maximum of one hour, with an interval of 30 mins in between services to allow time for disinfection.

Most of the churches visited by LEADERSHIP Sunday since the lockdown on religious gatherings was lifted, revealed low compliance with most of the guidelines, especially the use of face mask and common ones such as sanitisation/ hand washing; avoiding close contact like handshaking and hugging; social distance in sitting arrangements, and time management to stick to the one hour duration.

However, despite the massive compliance from churches like Dunamis International Gospel Church, Living Faith Church, Catholic Churches, Redeemed Christians Church of God (RCCG), some smaller new generation churches could not comply completely, while some were yet to be opened as a result of finding it difficult to comply with the guidelines.

Pastor Raphael Markson of New Life in Christ Assembly at Bwari area council, lamented that his church has not been able to resume normal services, because the guideline was too strict on religious worship places, as if the virus would easily spread in churches when worshippers come together.

Markson said that instead of limiting the worship period of every service to one hour, the government should have allowed the normal time of church services to hold, while worshippers strictly adhere to other necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

According to him, “It is unfortunate that this kind of situation has befallen the church of God, people no longer trust the presence of God to overcome any challenge they are going through. How can the government limit the time you spend in the presence of God? When the Bible said that in the presence of God there is liberty.

“I have no problem with other preventive measures to curtail the spread of the virus, but where I have a problem is where they now control the time we spend with the Almighty God. That is wrong. Are they saying that the virus has a specific time to move and when it is more than one hour of any gathering, that is when it starts moving? That is funny.

“So, I strongly recommend that they should review the duration of worship and allow the children of God worship their Father, Who has the power to overcome all challenges and ensure their safety. One hour service is not enough to spend in the presence of God,” he said.

The Senior Pastor of ECWA Church in Kpaduma II, Asokoro extension of Abuja, Reverend Yohanna Azaki, explained that despite the strict measures on the guidelines, the church had to resume normal services on the day that the lockdown on religious gatherings was lifted, and they ensured that members complied strictly to the instruction of the government on how to organise their services.

“Apart from the fact that the government is trying to control the spread of the virus, we as religious leaders are conscious that people’s lives are very important. So, we made sure that the physical distancing was strictly adhered to, also with the use of facemasks. Although most of our members found it difficult to comply with the face masks, we were strict on that and we made sure that they complied.

This is the matter of life and death and we cannot preach to someone that is dead, we can only preach to the living. So, we must do all we can to protect the lives of our worshippers. We advised our members to always comply with the guidelines, and that when we obey our government we are obeying God.

“Our major challenge in complying with the guidelines was the issue of the face masks. We had to force our members to wear it before they enter the church and if they do not have it, they are not allowed into the church. Most of them complained, but we had to tell them the reality that the COVID-19 is real and we had to do whatever needs to be done to stop the spread,” he said.

According to Azaki, the major challenge in adhering to the guidelines is the issue of timing the worship period, which made the church to suspend some activities like Choir special ministration and Bible studies, just to meet up with the one-hour requirement on the guidelines.

“For some churches that are yet to resume normal services, I believe that they are finding it difficult on how to regulate their worshippers, because to control people is not an easy thing to do, and they may also be finding it difficult to put in place all the necessary measures in the guidelines.

That should be the reality of things.

“For me, the best thing that the whole Nigeria should have done is to forget opening religious places for the next six months, for things to normalise, because there is no way we will not gather to worship God after everything. But unfortunately, the society does not see it that way. They are putting all the government under pressure to open mosques and churches,” he said.

SOURCE: Leadership.ng