Carter Tan is the English Ministries pastor at Grace Chinese Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.
It has felt like a ghost town at church for the last two weeks. The normal hustle and bustle, the loud chattering and warm greetings were noticeably missing from our Friday evening gatherings and Sunday Service.
Since the news of the coronavirus broke out in early January, we have seen our church attendance decrease by nearly 40 percent on Sunday mornings. I expect attendance to continue to decrease as more and more cases are reported worldwide and in America. Fear is one driving factor for the decrease in attendance, while good old precautionary common sense is the other.
Fear is a powerful emotion indeed. When our Elder and Deacon Board issued an official statement asking church members to self-quarantine if they had been to China recently, it sparked mixed reactions. On one hand, it assured the members that leadership is taking active precautionary steps to avoid contributing to the spread of coronavirus. On the other hand, it created suspicion and irrational fear in others to stay away from the church at all costs.
In comparison, the Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that this season alone has seen at least 19 million flu illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths from flu. That seems to be more of a dire threat to American Chinese churches than the coronavirus.
Source: Baptist Press
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