Rev Dr Tie King Tai
SIBU: The Methodist churches are looking at the possibility of having more sessions for the Sunday service as a way to avoid hosting larger congregations.
According to Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference president Rev Dr Tie King Tai, this is meant as a precautionary measure, undertaken in view of the current Covid-19 situation, which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He adds that normally, the larger churches would run three sessions on Sunday – two in the morning commencing at 7am and 9.30am, and another in the evening, commencing at 7pm.
It is estimated that every session hosts more than 1,000 people.
“We are planning to have more sessions so that people would have more options and hopefully, this would reduce the number of congregations per session.
“We have not done it yet – it’s still in the planning stage,” he pointed out in a statement yesterday.
Additionally, Rev Tie observed that some of the Methodist churches had begun to broadcast the service live on Facebook.
“We encourage live broadcasting, so that people can have another option of being involved in the service while at home, and staying safe during this time,” he said.
According to him, every church is required to provide hand sanitisers to members of the congregation upon entering and leaving the house of worship, and also to sanitise public areas within and outside the church premises regularly.
“Church activities would also be reduced,” he added.
It is announced that the Catholic Church in Peninsular Malaysia is suspending all public masses, beginning from today until March 29. This was jointly declared by the Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese, Penang Diocese and Malacca-Johor Diocese via a statement issued on Thursday.
However, the Catholic Church in Sarawak has yet to make any decision.