Churches gear up for Easter Sunday services indoors and outdoors

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — “I think people are really excited to be able to come back,” said Father Efrain Bautista of Corpus Christ Catholic Church in Bonita.

The Corpus Christi Church has its Holy Week schedule online with daily mass held indoors, outdoors and online.

“We have a great number of people who feel safer outside than inside, so that’s why we are doing our Easter services outside, still going to require social distancing, still going to require face masks,” Bautista said.

The South Bay church can hold 900 people indoors, but California red tier restrictions limit it to 25 percent attendance capacity.

“All of our locations will have one big outdoor service at 10 o’ clock, and that will also include a lot of stuff for families as well,” said Rock Church Pt. Loma campus pastor Travis Gibson.

Travis Gibson says there will be outdoor and online services on Sunday as the church prepares to do indoor services soon.

“We’re getting back in the building two weeks after Easter, so it will be April 18th, that will be our first Sunday back in the building, and we’re really getting excited about that making some big plans and doing trainings to make sure we do it safely,” Gibson said.

This time last year, the Awaken Church in Kearny Mesa held a parking lot party Easter basket giveaway with prizes, music and a dancing bunny rabbit as all places of worship were closed for indoor Easter services.

This Sunday, the Awaken Church will hold Easter service online, indoors and outdoors, and its website lists that a reservation is required in order for each church campus to meet the 25 percent guideline.

“We are going to be in a virtual space still, we feel like right now it is still prudent for our ministry to remain in the virtual space,” said City of Hope International Church Pastor Terrell Fletcher.

City of Hope services will only be streamed online, and Fletcher doesn’t have a building re-entry date yet, but is planning for some time in the month of April.

“We want people to feel very comfortable , but we also as a ministry want to be ready to provide a space that people feel comfortable coming to. Easter is about hope, and we’ll be preaching and teaching about promises fulfilled this Sunday,” Fletcher said.

State guidelines call for those singing or playing an instrument outdoors to be 6 feet apart with a mask and 12 feet apart without one. Congregants indoors and outdoors are required to wear a face coverings.

“People are just glad that there are going to be able to celebrate Easter this year unlike last year. It’s still going to look a little different than Easter in the past,” Bautista said.

WATCH: Easter egg hunts in San Diego in 1976, 1977 and 1980