Local church held in-person services Sunday amid pandemic and stay-at-home orders

Editor's Note: Pastor Kevin Martin reached out to WRAL News about 24 hours after this story was published.

"I appreciate and fully share your concern for keeping our community safe during the COVID-19 pandemic," he wrote in an email.

"We are practicing the strictest social distancing, no contact services, with aggressive sanitation. ... If I could simply live-stream all our services and meet our member’s needs I would happily do that. But the centrality of the Sacrament of the Altar to our weekly worship does not make that possible for the Lutheran Christian faith."

Martin also apologized for the parishioner who made an obscene gesture at a photographer outside the church service.

In light of state and county stay-at-home orders and rules about gathering and social distancing, many churches are holding drive-up services, where people attend church in their cars in the parking lot.

But Our Savior Lutheran Church on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh held Sunday services indoors and in person.

WRAL News reached out to Pastor Kevin Martin multiple times over the phone, e-mail and on social media, but Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

A parishioner of the church shared a letter with WRAL News written by Martin in which he stated his plans to continue to hold in-person services while most churches either stream their services online or hold drive-up services in parking lots that have been approved under state and/or county authority.

In the letter, Martin says the church has been deemed "essential" by the state and can legally assemble. He points out that he has limited the services to 30 people and says they would involve social distancing of six feet and "frequent sanitizing."

"I take very seriously the threat of the coronavirus," Martin wrote. "I understand it puts many people at risk ... We are no threat to public health in anything we're doing."

Governor Roy Cooper has made it very clear that, under the state's current restrictions, now is not the time for any gatherings, including church services.

"I miss going to my church," the Governor said at a recent briefing. "I also care deeply about my congregation. I think it's irresponsible for some politicians to use faith to lure people into endangering themselves, their families, and their own congregation... especially at a time when the President's own guidelines don't advise [North Carolina] reopening yet."