Each year churches in Billings hold Christmas Eve services. This year, due to COVID-19 churches are changing the way that the people in the community attend.
According to its website, Faith Chapel on Shiloh is holding all services online this year. The church will be holding three services, one at 3 p.m., one at 5 p.m. and one at 7 p.m. People will be able to watch each service by going to the Faith Chapel website where they will have the option to view the service online.
Harvest Church in Billings Heights will be offering people two options this year. Renae Scott, who handles communications for Harvest Church said Thursday morning that people will have the option to attend church in-person with limited seating or watch from home.
"We are having five in-person services today, we are requiring tickets for those services which have been available for about three weeks now. Those got filled up and taken quite quickly because of people wanting to come back to church," said Scott.
Scott said their ticket system was the best way for them to control capacity at the church and stay within the 50 percent guidelines. She said that 175 tickets were offered for each of the five services on Christmas Eve. These five services are scheduled for 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
If people were not able to secure a ticket, they will still be able to watch each if the services online.
"We will be streaming all five of our services today and in addition we put together a Christmas box," said Scott.
The Christmas boxes are for people watching the services from home, they include hymn books, glow sticks (for candle light service), scripture cards, hot cocoa, candy canes and greeting cards.
"Everybody and home will be able to participate just like they are here in service. Really the goal was to continue to reach our community and we are just excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus," said Scott.
Scott says they are hoping to see a good turnout of attendance for the online and in-person services this Christmas Eve.
For more information, visit the Harvest Church website.
