St. Joseph County Health Department recommends places of worship have virtual only services until March 2021

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.--- The St. Joseph County Health Department has recommended that places of worship have virtual only services until 2021. Churches have been able to host in-person services since May. 

Josh Fisher is the senior pastor of Hillside Missionary Church. He says he's all for churches keeping their members safe but this recommendation goes too far.

"In that regard, I think that them asking every church to go virtual only for the next six months is a little bit of an over reaction," said Fisher. "I do wonder why they’re singling out churches."

Fisher says his church has taken extra precautions to make sure his members can worship in a safe environment.

"We’ve shortened our service down so that people are only in our building for about 45 minutes, we’ve upgraded our ventilation to make that better," said Fisher.

Fisher says he appreciates the job the health department is doing in the midst of a pandemic, but his church will continue to have in person services unless the pandemic gets worse.