Wesley Community to begin hosting drive-in church service at Skylight Drive-In west of Pembroke on May 24
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As COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease, the provincial government is now allowing drive-in religious services, and Wesley Community Church in Pembroke is taking that literally.
So literally in fact that they are about to start holding a weekly service at the Skylight Drive-In on Forest Lea Road just west of Pembroke, beginning on Sunday, May 24. Service time is 10:30 a.m.
“I had been seeing some churches in the U.S. beginning to do this very concept as a way of gathering their church community for Sunday services,” explained Pastor Kevin Wilson, lead pastor of Wesley Community Church.” In Canada, there had been a couple of provinces that also gave churches this option for their weekly services. So, I began to think of how we could do this at Wesley Community once Ontario gave the go ahead for drive-in services. Knowing our parking lot would not work, I thought of the Skylight Drive-In and reached out to Kevin Marshall to see if he would be open to us using the drive-in. Obviously, it is set up for this type of thing.”
For the service, people are not allowed out of their car and the drive-in’s bathrooms are closed. People simply drive in, listen to the service via the drive-in’s fm radio system on their car radios, and then drive on home. Wilson will be preaching from the back of a pick-up truck near the screen and there will also be a singer and a guitar player. At the time of day when the services take place, the sun is shining on the screen so there is no opportunity to project anything.
Skylight Drive-In owner Kevin Marshall, who also owns the historic O’Brien Theatre in Arnprior, is happy to see the facility being used for something as ironically the provincial government has not given the all-clear for drive-in theatres to open to show movies. There’s also the hope that exposure to the drive-in setting and positive word-of-mouth discussions will lead more people to return to the Skylight once movies are again showing on the big screen.
“Any kind of advertising is good for business. I often hear from people, ‘I didn’t know there was a Drive-In in Pembroke.’ If the Drive-In can open before other outdoor activities, I think this might be a great season. (Currently there are) no new movies, but people are telling me they are desperate to just get out of the house, and do something,” Marshall said.
He hopes, beyond being able to show movies again and having new movies to show, to host a live music night at the drive-in later in the summer. Being at night such an event would permit the screen and projector to be used.
Wilson said while he has not done a drive-in service on a regular basis in the past, he has been involved in similar outdoor services from time to time and that the church he pastored before coming to Pembroke met weekly in a local theatre for services..
Wesley Community Church’s plan at this time is to do a service at the Skylight on a weekly basis, Sundays beginning at 10:30 a.m. The services will be recorded and made available online.
“The only issue we see would be the weather and then we can always do our online service for that week,” Wilson said.
adixon@postmedia.com
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