The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Local Churches in Nigeria

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has disturbed the World’s political, social, economic, religious, and financial structures. The COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 30th January 2020 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). On 27th February 2020, the Federal Ministry of Health announced the confirmation of the first case of Coronavirus disease in Lagos State, Nigeria. To prevent the spread of the virus the federal government issued a directive on lockdown of all official and unofficial programme. These actions affected all organizations and institutions include the local churches in Nigeria. The article discussed the impact of COVID-19 on local churches in Nigeria. Secondary data were sourced from print material and online publication by recognized institutions and individual authors. The article identified; suspension of corporate worship, suspension of sacramental activities: (Baptism, marriages, confirmation, Holy Communion, suspension of crowd, revival programme, reduction in the income of the church and suspension of rural evangelism and increase in the welfares packages of the local churches as the impact of COVID-19 on the local churches in Nigeria. To ensure the continuation of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic, the article recommended the following: pastors should adopt the use of the ICT facilities and other technological tools in reaching to their members and sharing the word of God While the traditional physical means of pastoral ministry should be continued as much as possible, pastors should the use of Internet facilities to alternate ministry, as supplementary to the traditional ways (Adebayo,2020), the local churches should diversify revenue generation to create more income generation apart from offerings, and government should distribute palliative using the local churches.