Las Vegas pastor still planning live Easter service

The Rev. Joseph Guy, lead pastor of Open Arms Community Church, 2800 W. Sahara Ave., plans to hold a service at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 12, with an estimated 35 to 50 church members attending.

That would make his church perhaps the only one to hold a traditional live Easter service in Southern Nevada, where the coronavirus pandemic has prompted other churches to livestream services or adopt alternative methods of worship.

Guy said Monday that he still plans to conduct the service and that, since announcing those plans, he has received about a half-dozen phone calls and Twitter messages from others who oppose that.

“I did get one call from a guy (who was) excited about coming,” Guy said.”The rest of them were pretty well negative.”

Guy said members of his church have been meeting for about a year, mostly in small groups, and that plans to open the church with an Easter service were made before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

In a series of Twitter postings last week, Guy wrote that attendees will have their temperatures taken and must use provided sanitation stations. Attendance will be limited to 35 to 50 attendees in the main room, rows of seats will be positioned six feet apart, and staff members will wear protective gloves. There will be no contact, and communion will not be taken.

“Coming to our Easter Service will be no different than shopping at Walmart, Smith’s, or Albertsons,” Guy wrote on Twitter, and anyone who exhibits symptoms will be asked not attend and instead to watch the service’s livestream on YouTube.

Guy said the significance Easter has to Christians makes it important to have services. “To close your doors to Easter is, to me, beyond unthinkable,” he said Monday.

“I mean, I’m concerned about people. If anybody would get into a problem, it would probably be me, with my compromised immune system,” added Guy, who says medication he takes for rheumatoid arthritis has weakened his immune system.

Guy said he doesn’t believe that attending the service would cause anyone to become ill. “I have faith and believe it’s not going to happen,” he said, even as the church takes all of the precautions it can.

In Louisiana and Florida, pastors who continued to hold services in defiance of orders prohibiting large gatherings have been arrested. In Arkansas, 34 people who attended a children’s program in early March at a rural church 75 miles north of Little Rock have been sickened by the virus, including the pastor and his wife. More people who attended the event, held before all activities there were called off, are awaiting test results. The pastor posted on Facebook urging people to take the coronavirus warnings seriously, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Church services and churches are not explicitly mentioned in Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s directives banning gatherings of 10 or more people and enumerating essential and nonessential businesses.

The ban against large gatherings is to be enforced by police, and penalties for breaking it could include warnings or even civil or criminal penalties. Officer Larry Hadfield, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said Monday that the department is awaiting guidance from the Nevada Attorney General’s office.

However, Guy said Monday that he would challenge legally any order to halt his church’s service.

“I’m going to be 28, and I have never heard … (of) pastors getting arrested for having services,” he said.

Contact John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.