How World Harvest Church is dealing with gathering size restrictions

Pastor Mike Sturgeon has been preaching at World Harvest Churches for nearly 21 years. He spent 18 years at the church’s location in Enid and has almost finished his third in Stillwater. But he has never experienced anything like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC’s recommended meeting place restrictions have controversially limited church services. World Harvest Church in Stillwater is supplementing its normal 10:30 a.m. Sunday services with a live stream.

Sturgeon has taped the names of all of the church's members onto seats inside the chapel. He said this helps him be more comfortable when giving a sermon to a mostly empty room. He said he doesn't know what turnout to expect when in-person services resume.

Sturgeon adjusts the focus ring on the camera that broadcasts his sermons every Sunday. Before COVID, the church only broadcast on Facebook. Now, with help from Life.Church, he is able to stream on the church's own website.

The meeting place restrictions mean the church has to use an acoustic band that is reduced in size from its normal one.

Jacob Jeffries, the audio technician for the church, said the increased emphasis on the online stream means he has to manage two differing sound mixes. The pastor and every member of the band are mic’d up, but their output levels have to be adjusted differently for the acoustics of the church interior compared to the speakers people have at home.

An empty World Harvest Church parking lot at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2020. Sturgeon said he chose May 31 as the day for the church to return because it is the Pentecost, a Christian holiday celebrating the 50th day after Easter Sunday. The church’s elder members will decide this week whether to hold separate services for older and younger members. Sturgeon said the two groups for these services would be one of people 50 years old and older and one of 49 and young.