TYLER, Texas — The year 2020 was a year of virtual services for many churches across the country.
With 2021 coming to an end, there is even a more significant concern with the new COVID-19, variant Omicron, which has become the most dominant strain in the U.S.
The new strain isn’t stopping local churches from holding in-person services, but rather heightening their COVID-19 safety measures in hopes of preventing an outbreak.
“We are people of faith but that gives us no reason to be foolish about the fact that we are still dealing with the pandemic,” said Ralph Carraway, senior pastor at St. Louis Baptist Church.
Before the pandemic, St. Louis Baptist Church had a congregation of around 800 people; that number has lessened to about 300 people in attendance.
With Christmas approaching, Caraway says they anticipate more people returning to spend the holidays in fellowship during their Sunday Christmas service.
"I would say probably 200 plus, we're really are looking forward to it, especially for our seniors, those that have really missed being able to fellowship with fellow parishioners,” said Caraway. “The safety measure is always the biggest focus for us, we can’t be lax."
The church is implementing safety measures to ensure their upcoming Christmas service won’t be a super-spreader event.
“We're still social distancing, we're still wearing masks, we're still taking temperatures, anything and everything we can do to create a safe environment,” Caraway added.
They’re also taking extra measures like COVID-19 testing and vaccines in hopes of limiting the spread.
“We always open and we've worked with different areas and medical inches here in the city, to make sure to ensure that people get those vaccines that won't those vaccines, or even will open again to open up COVID testing," said Caraway.
By implementing safety measures, Caraway hopes to see his church filled again like it used to be.
“Our hope for the future is that there's complete healing from this, said Caraway. “We would love for the building to be filled again and anticipated that to happen again that's the main objective.”