Colorado Springs church continues outdoor worship service, ahead of winter months

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs continues to hold their Sunday service outdoors, while devising a plan for handling the upcoming winter months.

The episcopal church began outdoor services on June 28th. They plan to continue outdoor services until Sunday, November 22nd. With winter around the corner, one concern is that the indoor church space lacks proper ventilation.

The episcopal church says that due to the limited airflow, they will add an additional Saturday evening service in more ventilated areas throughout the church.

Grace and St. Stephens will also continue their online service offering, which averages around 350 people for each Sunday service.

As a sign of the times, the local church, founded in 1923, has made sweeping adjustments to their Sunday service, including holding an outdoor worship, and forgoing hand-shaking, hugging, and coffee hour.

Also, in an effort to keep everyone safe, Grace and St. Stephen's encourages worshippers to make reservations online. The staff tells KRDO they have 75 spaces on their lawn available for reservation that are spaced six feet apart. Within the circles, worshippers are required to wear masks.

Father Jeremiah Williamson says, "It’s actually been great. One of the hard things I think for a lot of folks during this pandemic is that they haven’t been able to be together."

Church officials tell KRDO that they've also been able to re-introduce communion, with a contactless dispenser brought to around to each worshipper.

In efforts to encourage social distancing, the church worked with the City of Colorado Springs so worshippers could park in their car and tune into a short-range FM Radio station for the service.