Coronavirus disorients religious worship but virtual services in Volusia-Flagler emerge

DAYTONA BEACH — Turn on CNN, and you can watch the national and worldwide death tolls from the coronavirus pandemic grow by the hour.

Shell-shocked people terrified of catching the highly contagious virus are afraid to kiss their own family members, touch door handles and walk through stores. Nearly 10 million people nationwide are suddenly unemployed, and throngs of business owners are watching their livelihoods list and threaten to capsize.

People are walking through dark days, days with surreal and almost apocalyptic moments. It’s a time when those who believe in a higher power want to sit in the comfort of their house of worship more than ever to find the peace and perspective they need to center themselves.

But COVID-19, which has sickened more than a million people across the globe and more than 10,000 in Florida, has stolen even that, leaving many people to cope on their own.

The News-Journal is providing this important health information for free. Help support our journalism. SUBSCRIBE HERE.

It’s left some feeling lost. One Daytona Beach woman, Carol Podschelne, said her devout Catholic husband is rattled by locked church doors and fervently prays the Rosary every night for hours.

“My husband is old school Catholic, like you’re going to Hell if you don’t go to Mass,” she said. “He prays for all of us. He never misses a night.”

Bishops and even Pope Francis have said it’s OK to not go to Mass while the pandemic is running amok. But Podschelne said her husband “is not handling it well at all.”

Plenty others of faith in Volusia and Flagler counties are disoriented since most local houses of worship stopped holding in-person services a few weeks ago. Local churches and synagogues have quickly switched to live streaming or recording services, some stumbling through the technology as they learn to come into peoples’ homes via flat screen TV, laptop and smart phone.

Members of Daytona Beach’s Allen Chapel AME Church on George Engram Boulevard are connecting every morning on a group phone call to listen to their pastor hold a service from his office.

Pastor Belinda Watkins is connecting her 50 congregants at Fellowship Church of Praise on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard with various online tools and group text messages.

“They know if they need anything we’re here,” Watkins said. “If I can connect people to Christ, they can do that from wherever they are.”

Even Easter and Passover services are headed for virtual worship services. The soft glow of candles will be replaced with the electric glare of computer screens.

Local Christians won’t be packing the pews in churches permeated with the sweet scent of lilies on April 12. Families are probably going to skip the fancy dresses and suits and gather in front of computers and television screens to watch live streamed Easter services in churches they can’t enter.

First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach is thinking about holding a drive-in Easter morning service on its sprawling piece of open land off Tomoka Farms Road. But that’s probably the closest anyone will come to a large Easter gathering in the area.

There will be no poetic sunrise services on the beach, which the county completely shut down last week.

“It’s a little sad, but we don’t want to jeopardize everyone’s health,” said Les Wilkinson, First Baptist’s executive pastor. “There’s not much wisdom in thinking we can carry on as normal.”

Wilkinson said about 700-800 people have been logging onto his church’s online services since the virus took hold.

“People miss the fellowship of getting together, but we know it’s not forever,” he said.

Later this week, Temple Israel and Temple Beth-El in Ormond Beach are going to use the live online group meeting tool Zoom to hold their Seder services, usually large warm family gatherings held around dining room tables in people’s homes to celebrate Passover.

Rabbi Courtney Berman is the leader of both Temple Israel and Temple Beth-El. She’s already been using Zoom, Facebook and videos for her weekly Shabbat services, and even for the Shiva commemoration of a congregant who recently died.

Temple members can see one another on their computer screens. But Berman is worried about the impact of extended physical separation among congregants, especially for those not logging on.

“I don’t think it’s really hit everyone yet,” she said. “I’m afraid it’ll get harder in the next couple of weeks. I think it hasn’t worn away at people the way it will.”

Yiskah Tucker, daughter of Ormond Beach Rabbi Bruce Tucker, said it’s been “very, very tough” for members of Congregation Beth Judah in Ormond Beach to not get together. Meeting up via Zoom has helped bring a little “peace and strength,” she said.

“The four walls can get small,” she said.

Both spiritual shepherds and their flocks are slowly adjusting and changing their religious practices as they try to wrap their heads around something that feels Biblical.

And some are discovering they don’t need to be in a particular building with a steeple to stay connected to God.

“I’m contemplative. I silently talk to God all the time,” said Podschelne, who helps people in Daytona Beach homeless shelters through her position at Catholic Charities.

The 75-year-old said someone once told her, “There is only one real sin you need to avoid. Just never stop talking to him.”

Podschelne has been a member of the Basilica of St. Paul Catholic Church on Ridgewood Avenue for 40 years, and she misses the daily 9 a.m. Masses.

“I like to go before work because it gives me strength,” she said. “The church isn’t even open for prayer. While it’s painful, I understand it.”

St. Paul’s is streaming its services, with only the priest in the church, on Facebook. But Podschelne doesn’t even have a Facebook account.

“I’m not connected online. I’m connected to God, period,” she said.

Disrupted church attendance, and all the other changes the virus has spurred, could offer an opportunity for spiritual growth, said the Rev. Bill Zamborsky, pastor of Prince of Peach Catholic Church in Ormond Beach.

“He’s there in good times and bad, but in bad times we’re paying more attention because everything is out of whack,” Zamborsky said. “God is always coming to us. He will use this to get through to us.”

Zamborsky said Catholics shouldn’t feel guilty about not going to church while the coronavirus continues to tear through the country. He said there’s only an obligation to go if you can.

“We can practice our faith at home,” he said. “This doesn’t take away the commandment to keep the Lord’s day holy.”

The Rev. Arul Yagappan, a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Palm Coast, agrees the coronavirus could spark a spiritual growth spurt.

“Spiritually speaking, God is telling us something,” said Yagappan, whose parish is live streaming Masses, saying the Rosary in online broadcasts and opening on weekday mornings for those who want to come inside to pray silently. “Maybe we are to be patient and see what that message is.”

He already sees one truth emerging.

“We are helpless in this kind of situation,” he said. “We need to turn to God. Science is not enough. Most people are focusing on science and not God.”

Somewhere in the chaos, God has a plan, and people need to wait and see what that is, Yagappan said.

Watkins, the Fellowship Church of Praise pastor, thinks the world is getting a good look at the end times prophesied in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

“These are the last days,” she said. “We were warned about that by Christ. He told us when that happens, just stand in a holy place and don’t be moved by it.”

As faith leaders trudge through whatever is happening, they feel as disconnected as their congregants. Asked how his parishioners are holding up through the pandemic, Zamborsky said he didn’t know because he has lost contact with many of them since he made Masses live stream-only events.

“It very definitely is strange,” he said.

Worrying about everyone in the parish of 1,500 families, especially the elderly members, is “a heavy weight” Zamborsky said he carries.

“I use it to enrich my prayer experience,” he said.

He normally visits people in local hospitals and nursing homes, but with the virus now he can only go inside during emergencies.

“It distances them in a particular time of need,” Zamborsky said. “Now sometimes people will call and we pray over the phone.”

The Rev. Derrick Harris is also separated from congregants who normally would be filling his Midtown neighborhood church. He even halted his Sunday morning tradition of serving a free hot breakfast at the church to 50 children in foster care. Now he’s delivering the meals instead to as many of those kids as he can.

Harris, senior pastor of Master’s Domain Church of God in Christ, is feeling a financial pinch with no one coming in and making their weekly donations. But he’s not worried.

“It’s really not bothering me at all,” Harris said. “I know it’ll be over soon and everything will be all right. I try to tell people, stay calm, this too shall pass. We assume it’s in God’s hands and it’ll be all right.”

Harris had been hoping for some normalcy by Easter. But projections for continued spread of the coronavirus show Florida might not even hit its peak of cases until next month.

That has everyone bracing for a strange Easter and Passover. But maybe with the trappings of the holidays stripped away — no Easter egg hunts or elaborate Seder dinners — perhaps there will be more of a focus on what the celebrations are truly about.

“It’s a beautiful time of remembrance,” Watkins said. “He’s in our hearts and we have one another. It’s going to be OK.”