(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The village president of a northwestern Illinois community hopes a minister starts following the lead of other churches in the area and stops having Sunday services.
It’s estimated that at least 60 people took part in Sunday’s service at The Beloved Church of Lena over the weekend. The church had gone to federal court Friday asking judge to overrule Governor JB Pritzker's stay-at-home requirements for churches.
The governor’s coronavirus stay-at-home order limits any religious service to 10 or fewer people.
There have “been a lot of churches that are following the guidelines and, you know, ministering to the congregation in other ways,” Lena Village President Denny Bergman told WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya Monday.
Bergman says he’s been getting a lot of phone calls, emails and Facebook messages from people in the community who worry the church is putting the community at further risk of spreading COVID-19.
He said residents of Lena take the threat of COVID-19 seriously and have, for the most part, been wearing masks and keeping physically distant when not at home.
The Stephenson County Public Health Department reported abut 65 positive cases of COVID-19, which is up considerably from just a few days before, Bergman said.
Tom Green, the attorney for the village of Lena, says Lena police were outside the Beloved Church on Sunday just in case there were large numbers of people converging on the church and the community, possibly to protest.
Green says police did not take any action. He suggests any enforcement action of the governor's order is likely the jurisdiction of the Stephenson County Sheriff's Office.
Gov. Pritzker on Monday said it’s up to local authorities to determine how they will react when people violate the stay-at-home order. He said he prefers a soft approach, heavy on education, except in cases where people are being “persistently defiant.”