HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Ten members of the clergy and their spouses at Hot Springs Baptist Church and two members of the large congregation tested positive for the coronavirus last month, threatening to create a hot spot when the outbreak first got rolling in Arkansas.
The pastors met in the middle of March as restrictions on crowds began to come down from public health officials. They worked on altering how they professed their faith, but a day later when one of them began to feel ill, it turned into a test of faith.
"We made a pretty strong decision and we just said, "Okay, everybody's in 14-day quarantine. No staff remains," said Rev. Manley Beasley, the senior pastor on the tough call he made when the test returned positive for his sick colleague.
"When the dust settled, five of our church people had ended up contracting it, their wives or their husbands did," he said. "Boom, you're at 10 right there."
Two more people from the 700-member congregation would test positive as well, though not from any apparent contact with the staff. While a dozen people in one of the largest churches in the area would perhaps eventually be expected, it alarmed nearly everyone and altered perspectives among the faithful.
"There was a little bit of an attitude by some people that 'we're just gonna trust God to keep us well,'" said Rev. Beasley. "There's some of that out there, but we've felt very strongly all along that we needed to cooperate in this respect and we think we've gained some valuable lessons."
Rev. Beasley said local public health officials worked closely to help keep the church from becoming an outbreak along the lines of Greer's Ferry Assemblies of God in Cleburne County, which developed more than 60 cases and at least four deaths after a large gathering to hear a visiting speaker early in March.
The pastors went from planning to preach on video to an empty church to instead delivering sermons through individual segments pieced together by an editor. For two weeks they've learned on the fly how preach from separate social media pulpits.
Rev. Beasley says all but two people have been fully cleared and as far as he knows, no one got seriously ill. That encouraging news means many will soon be eager to get back in the pews.
"We share what all people of faith are experiencing right now, which is after a couple weeks you really begin to miss the social interaction," Rev. Beasley said.
But the church leaders know those altered perspectives are part of the plan for getting back together when the time is right. They're counting on higher guidance in making that decision.
"I think God can use this to strengthen people of faith," Rev. Beasley said, adding he thinks attendance may soar when they do meet again. "Bad things happen all around the world all the time, but we still believe God's the answer for everyone."