Shall we gather at the drive-in? NC church holds Sunday service in theater parking lot.
Standing on an outdoor stage and the promise that a church is not its building, Pastor Will Breedlove invited the people of Henderson’s Harriett Baptist for services Sunday morning in the parking lot of a drive-in movie theater in town.
And whenever the words of his sermon moved their spirits, the people honked their vehicle horns and said, “Amen.”
“I just wanted to be able to gather and keep people safe,” Breedlove said before the 11 a.m service at the Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre. His earlier service, at 9:30 a.m., drew a full house under the current rule: no more than 50 people total, with church volunteers in orange vests directing traffic to park only in every other spot.
For good measure, congregants were instructed to keep their car windows closed and listen to the service through their car radios, via the tiny FM station the theater uses to provide audio for movies.
From a social-distancing standpoint, it looked safer than the parking lots outside grocery and home-improvement stores on the 50-mile stretch of U.S. 1 between Henderson and Raleigh.
It was the second Sunday that Breedlove held services at the theater, and he hopes it won’t be the last. He plans to spend time Monday getting clarification from health officials on whether it would still be allowed under stricter statewide rules about gathering that were set to go into effect Monday evening.
Gathering as a church
Churches across North Carolina and around the world have been searching for ways to come together during the coronavirus crisis, and many have been streaming their services or coming to their congregations via Facebook live. But those sermons are delivered from otherwise silent sanctuaries or pastors’ home studies, and while the message is important, Breedlove knew something was missing.
“There’s just something special about when the church gathers,” Breedlove said.
Breedlove lives with his wife and children in Henderson and has gone to see movies at the Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre over the years. So he approached owner Mike Frank and asked if he would let the church pay to use the space and its broadcasting system.
Frank, who bought the place 9 years ago and runs it on weekends year-round, said he didn’t feel comfortable charging the church money for that. So Breedlove took a look at the weathered boards of rock-band-sized wooden stage at the foot of the sprawling movie screen, and made another offer.
If he could round up the materials and the labor to rebuild the structure, his church and maybe others could use it for church now and other events later. Members of his church and others went to work.
The theater, which opened in 1949 as the Moon-Glo and is one of few of its type still in business, promises “movies under the stars.” Frank doesn’t know the history of the stage.
Last week, when they offered just one service, more than the 50 people allowed wanted to come, so this week, Breedlove added a second service.
Debbie and Waylon Edwards wouldn’t have missed it. They brought their grandson, Jonluke, and parked up front, leaving the motor running so they could have air conditioning. It was already 80 degrees outside.
“You can listen to preaching on TV, but it’s the fellowship, being with your brothers and sisters in Christ,” Debbie Edwards said. Coming here, she said, they passed three churches, not counting their own, and every one of them sat empty, not a car in the parking lot. That’s a sad sight on a Sunday morning, Edwards said.
No hugging at this service
Jimmie and Stephanie Gupton were there to worship, too, and to see the faces of their church family, if only through the windshield of their Jeep.
“It’s very hard to be Southern Baptist and not be hugging,” Stephanie Gupton said. “But we’re following the rules.”
An associate pastor opened the service with a prayer for healing, and a quartet pulled from Harriett Baptist Church’s praise team harmonized hymns into wireless mics. They kept their distance — 6 feet — from one another but their voices came close together.
Breedlove’s message came from the book of Job, described in the Bible as a God-fearing man set upon by Satan who hoped to prove that Job’s faith would last only as long as his good fortune. Job lost his wealth and his 10 children, the Bible says, but not his faith.
“It’s easy to praise God’s holy name in the good times,” said Breedlove, who noted that at least one church member has been laid off from his job as a result of COVID-19 business closures. “We learn from Job to praise God even when times are bad.”
Wilson and Jackie Hoyle, married more than 50 years, held hands through the service and said they felt fortified by it. It’s an uncertain time, filled with the threat of illness and economic loss.
Later Sunday night, sold-out audiences would watch “Sonic the Hedgehog” or “Bad Boys For Life” on the big screen.
But for a few hours Sunday morning, the drive-in offered a little taste of the divine.
“It builds me back up,” Jackie Hoyle said, “and gives me the strength to go forward.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2020 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Shall we gather at the drive-in? NC church holds Sunday service in theater parking lot.."
