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How Willow Creek Church will reopen South Barrington campus next month

Willow Creek Community Church will reopen the doors of its sprawling South Barrington campus for worship services and children's programs Sunday, March 7, for the first time since the pandemic began.

The facility will implement new and existing COVID-19 protocols to ensure the gatherings are safe, officials said. These include a mask requirement for every person at least 2 years old and 25% capacity for each venue within the building.

What will be new for Willow Creek is the resumption of worship and the children's activities at this particular campus. Some smaller activities have already occurred during the past year, along with the streaming of worship services for virtual attendance, and most of Willow Creek's other Chicago-area campuses reintroduced in-person services earlier. Such services will restart at Willow South Lake in Lincolnshire this Sunday, Feb. 14, while those at Willow Creek North Shore in Glenview will begin March 21.

For South Barrington Campus Pastor Shawn Williams, who came to the church during the pandemic, the ability to meet in person promises a superior experience for congregation members that goes beyond the music and teaching that have been available virtually.

"I'm pastoring a congregation I've never met," he said. "I think we were designed to live in a community and be connected to one another. From a scientific perspective, mental health issues are on the rise. ... To even be in a lobby to meet with people - it's what I've been longing to do for the past six months."

Congregation members are not being asked to register to attend the services, except for the children's programs. It's expected that the main auditorium of just over 7,000 seats should be sufficient to accommodate those who attend, but the next largest auditorium should be able to handle any overflow, Williams said.

The plan is to hold two Sunday services at 9 and 11:15 a.m. The most likely way to address any capacity issues that arise would be to add a third service, Williams said.

Angelia Hopson, Willow Creek's director of safety and crisis management, said the timing of the reopening and the protocols that have been adopted were decided in consultation with experts and after observing similarly sized churches that have already reopened, including in Indiana.

One of the best ideas that came from other churches was the practice of staggering members' entrances and exits from the auditoriums to avoid bottlenecking at the doorways, Hopson said. Volunteers will be holding those doors open to reduce the number of people touching common surfaces.

While the virus creates special challenges, Willow Creek is hardly a beginner when it comes to crowd management, Hopson said.

"The most important thing is that they feel safe returning to the campus," she said.

Steps included getting the word out about the reopening and its protocols a few weeks in advance to allow returning members to become familiar with them.

Though Easter Sunday is on April 4, that was not a factor in the reopening decision any more than Christmas had been, Hopson said. There are no plans to increase capacity or loosen restrictions for the holiday.

"We have really been resigned to just doing everything as safely as possible," she said.

Participants must agree to abide by the church's rules and restrictions, which can be found on its website. These include emailing Willow Creek if they become symptomatic or are diagnosed with COVID-19 within 14 days of attending a service so that contact tracing may be done.

Though having to reverse this reopening might not be under the church's control, it's not something Hopson is anticipating. That's because of the general 18- to 24-month span of pandemics that experts informed the church of, as well as the current status of the vaccine rollout, Hopson said.

  Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington has set March 7 as its reopening date for worship services and children's programs since it shut down because of COVID-19 nearly a year ago. Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com
  For Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington Campus Pastor Shawn Williams, who came to the church during the pandemic and is "pastoring a congregation I've never met," the March 7 reopening is "what I've been longing to do for the past six months." Mark Welsh/mwelsh@dailyherald.com
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