Oklahoma Megachurch Pastor Groeschel and YouVersion Founder Quarantined After Exposure to COVID-19

Two pastors of one of the largest churches in the country may have been exposed to the coronavirus at a leadership conference in Germany and have been quarantined in their homes by local health officials.

Religion News Service reports Craig Groeschel, the senior pastor of Life.Church in Edmond, Okla., was one of the speakers at the Willow Creek Deutschland Leitungskongress 2020, which took place last week in Karlsruhe, Germany. Groeschel was accompanied to the conference with Bobby Gruenewald, another pastor of the 90,000-member church.

The meeting was cut short after one speaker contracted the COVID-19 virus and became ill.  There were around 7,400 attendees registered for the conference, according to RNS. 

Groeschel and Gruenewald went into quarantine for 14 days after returning home to Edmond from Germany.  They have not had any direct contact with church members or their families. 

Neither man has displayed any symptoms of COVID-19 infection. 

"Pastor Craig and I remain at home and healthy. While en route home from Germany, we were made aware of the situation at the conference. We immediately notified health authorities and have followed every recommendation," Groeschel said in a statement to CBN News. 

"Out of an abundance of caution, we have been isolated in our homes the entire time, even limited from interaction with our families. We have no symptoms, and someone is checking on us regularly. In the meantime, we're making the most of this time to focus on ministry work and look forward to getting back to our normal routines."

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Gruenewald said he and Groeschel remain in good spirits despite their isolation. 

"We're making the most of this time to focus on ministry work and even doing some extra sit-ups and pushups," he joked to RNS. 

Gruenewald is the founder of the YouVersion Bible App, which has been downloaded more than 400 million times. 

Meanwhile, the coronavirus is also having an impact on a wider range of churches.

Communion and the Coronavirus

Other church leaders around the country are thinking about how to best protect their congregants as they participate in the very reason they attend services in the first place - the observance of Communion.

For Christians, communion or the Lord's Supper is a remembrance of what Jesus Christ did for mankind and a celebration of what we have and will receive because of his sacrifice. 

The observance of the Lord's Supper is found in Matthew 26:26-29CloseMatthew 26:26-29 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take this and eat it, for this is my body." And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, "Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant* between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt) .

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father." -- Matthew 26:26-29CloseMatthew 26:26-29 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take this and eat it, for this is my body." And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, "Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant* between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)

The Apostle Paul told the Christians in Corinth to continue observing the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29Close1 Corinthians 11:23-29 For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, "This is my body, which is given for you.* Do this to remember me." In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this to remember me as often as you drink it." For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again. So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against* the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ,* you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself. OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt) .

In many churches around the country, servers with trays walk the aisles and pass plates filled with unleavened bread wafers and cups of grape juice among attendees. Health officials would probably agree that letting each person put their hand in the same bread plate during any kind of viral outbreak is not the most sanitary method available.  

One pastor in Mt. Holly, NJ, came up with another way to serve communion that takes a little longer, but as he explains it, more "Christ-centered."  

"It's easy to get into the mindset that the Lord's Supper is a necessary inconvenience, so you do it the easiest way possible in order to fit in the time frame of your service," Rev. Barry Gray of First Presbyterian Church told The Washington Post. "We didn't want to fall into that. We were thinking: How do we make it intimate and personal with Christ at the center?"

At the appropriate time, all congregants come forward to receive a piece of bread and a small cup of grape juice from one of four servers rather than taking wafers from a tray.

When the news of coronavirus broke, and his church members became worried about the health risks when partaking of communion, Gray decided to take one more step suggested by a deacon: disposable gloves. The servers would wear disposable gloves when passing out the bread and the juice. 

And so on this past Sunday, Gray told the newspaper he addressed the elephant in the room when it came time for communion. When he finished preaching, he put on gloves.

"I cracked a little joke about it," he told The Post. I said: 'Well, Dr. Gray is about to do some spiritual surgery!' "