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A Local Pastor Is Building The Church Of The Future Today


Sunday, August 23, 2020 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

Pews? Stained glass windows? Permanent building funds? The COVID-19 pandemic is swiftly making those staples of church relics of the past, says Rev. Teddy Matthews, pastor of Empowerment Church, which held services in Bellwood pre-COVID-19, but that now holds all of its online.

Matthews said that the transition from the church that “modern society has made the church out to be,” according to Empowerment’s website, to the church of the future was relatively smooth.

“For us, the transition was easy, in the sense of moving from in-person to online,” Matthews said last week. “We were able to do it within about 24 hours. We moved full virtual and were ready that Sunday morning [after the Gov. J.B. Pritzker prohibited large gatherings in March].”

Matthews said that since the transition, the church he founded out of a Bible class four years ago has flourished.

“That first Sunday virtual service, our attendance increased by over 75 percent,” he said. “I couldn’t fit 250 people in a building. For us, the transition allowed us to really focus on something we believed in even before the pandemic, which is we are a local church with a global reach.”

Matthews said that his church hosts an “online campus,” which allows people to log-in, chat and engage.

“We do seven services on Sunday online,” he said. “People can watch them any day of the week, 24/7. We also added a daily prayer call to help. We increased our tech support to serve people, so we make someone available to [pray with people who request it] all day on Sunday.”

Matthews said that with the switch to virtual, his church is still doing physical outreach.

On Aug. 21, Empowerment teamed up with the Maywood Park District and the Proviso Census 2020 commission to host a free gospel concert and night of unity in the community in Maywood. Matthews said that Empowerment will help host two more free concerts on Sept. 4 and Sept. 25.

And on Aug. 22, the church hosted a drive-thru communion pick-up in Bellwood that was free and open to everyone. The church also gave out free masks and hand sanitizer.

Matthews and Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson during Empowerment’s drive-thru communion pickup in Bellwood on Saturday. | Shanel Romain 

The new way of doing church, Matthews said, has grown his Empowerment’s community impact, its finances and its membership.

“I’d say we’re well over 125 members now,” Matthews said. “To be clear, our online viewership has grown exponentially, but we’ve taken in as new members around 50 people online. So, we have grown.”

Matthews said that 10 to 15 of those new members live outside of Illinois — another reflection of the church’s local, but global perspective.

Matthews said that, in certain ways, he considers the pandemic to be a course correction.

“I think this pandemic will change how we do church forever,” he said. “I think moderate sized churches and multiple services will be the new big. I don’t think we’re going back to megachurches, because people will be afraid of large sizes, which is what should’ve happened years ago.

“We’re moving away from serving numbers toward serving real people and real needs. You have to connect to people during the week and do real pastoral care and congregational care. You have to call them. I think this looks a lot more like the church in Acts. The church has been resisting the inevitable, which is meeting people where they are.”

For more info on Empowerment Church and its upcoming outreach events, click here.

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