Area pastor holds drive-in church service

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – East End Baptist Church didn’t let the new rules from keep their congregation away. The church held a drive-in church service Sunday morning for anyone in the area to join.

Church pastor Byron Benson thought this would be a great idea because of the Coronavirus.

“People are trying to stay away from each other and social distancing and we want to cooperate with that so we just ask people to come and stay in their cars and we’re transmitted over a small FM transmitter,” said Benson.

Even though members were not able to go inside for a church service, they were all able to gather around in the parking lot to hear a message from the pastor.

“We’re in a situation where everybody has to do things differently and the church is no different, and so we want to keep people safe and so this seemed like a good idea and I guess what makes it different is the fact that you can do this without being too close to anybody else,” said Benson.

Andy Hubbard and his family have enjoyed trying something new.

“I think it’s wonderful. I tell you we have wanted to be able to reach out to the community for a long time and this has really forced us to get outside the comfort zone and I think it’s absolutely fabulous,” said Hubbard.

Furry friends like Buster and Sadie were able to join the service, too.

“This is their first time to come to a worship service and normally we don’t bring them inside but this was a great opportunity to bring them with us and so we could just enjoy this together,” said Hubbard.

Benson said that there could possibly be more church services like this.

“You know there’s even the idea that it might actually accomplish something that we’ve never accomplished before and we may carry on doing it in the future.”

The service was held on channel 89.5 but could change for each service.