Patrick Beaulier (left) leads a meeting of the Kehillah Jewish community at the coworking space Gather. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Every Saturday morning, the members of the Kehillah Jewish community meet for Shabbat services. Sometimes they’re in Chesterfield, other weekends they’re in Richmond. They come together at festivals and farmers markets, in coffee shops and the coworking space Gather.
The one place they don’t meet? A brick-and-mortar synagogue.
Kehillah — the Hebrew word for “community” — was founded in 2018 by Rabbi Patrick Beaulier and Rebbetzin Stefanie Papps. The couple had long hosted Shabbat dinners in their home, while Papps volunteered in synagogues and Beaulier taught in different Jewish communities.
They moved to Richmond in 2016, when Beaulier took a position as the rabbi of a congregation co-founded by their friend. When the congregation closed down two years later, Beaulier and Papps started talking about their ideas for a new kind of Jewish community in Richmond. Over a glass of wine on vacation, they landed on the idea that instead of building a building, they would build a community.
“There’s a belief that religion is a thing you go do, in a place,” Beaulier says, “and we completely disagree with that understanding. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with geography. It has to do with values.
“So we decided, not that we would be a community that doesn’t have a building; we would be a community that chooses not to have a building.”
In addition to pop-up services and holiday experiences — such as a Passover festival and a Purim celebration at a local brewery — Kehillah also eliminated the membership dues required by many congregations. Instead, anyone who attends an event or who signs up for their email list is considered a member, while optional donations support Kehillah’s programs.
“When we started promoting that idea,” Beaulier says, “that’s when people got it. This was going to be a completely different model.”
Beaulier says their creativity and flexibility also gave them an edge when COVID-19 hit and forced many faith communities to adjust the way they delivered services and reached their members.
Ebenezer Baptist Church leaders turned to YouTube to air services at the start of the pandemic and say virtual offerings are likely here to stay. (Image via YouTube)
Adaptation and Reinvention
Like many congregations, Ebenezer Baptist Church responded to shutdowns in the early days of the pandemic by offering services via livestreams and video. The pivot wasn’t easy. The congregation, founded in 1856 in Jackson Ward, has a rich history and a thriving community built on in-person religious services, activities and community programs. They also lacked the technological infrastructure to record or stream.
In addition, the Rev. Adam Bond had only recently been elected as pastor. He delivered his first sermon on March 1, 2020; a week later, he was bracing for COVID-19 and preparing to suspend operations until further notice.
Bond says the church leadership had to think on their feet. He started with a YouTube video using his webcam, and soon after, members with more experience came out to help create worship videos on the platform. Bond also turned to Zoom for meetings and Christian education.
“It was a struggle, because we’re an older congregation,” he says, “but it was amazing how committed our senior members were to remaining engaged and involved in the life of the congregation, whether it was getting on a computer or dialing in from a telephone.”
In the nearly two years since Ebenezer first closed its doors for in-person services, the church has found itself using a hybrid model, with the majority of meetings taking place on virtual platforms. In November 2021, they held their first in-person Bible study, and a week before Christmas, they welcomed the congregation back to the building for Sunday-morning worship.
Still, Bond says, the virtual offerings are likely here to stay — especially for members with health concerns, physical limitations, transportation issues and scheduling challenges who have found new ways to integrate Bible study and other church activities into their daily lives.
“This is a great moment for the church to not only reintroduce itself but reinvent itself in ways that are aligned with the integrity of the faith that we proclaim,” he says. “Our structures and our ways of being need constant reevaluation, and the pandemic has mandated that we do that.”
Grace Baptist Church’s Soul Care Boxes provide materials for congregants to deepen their spiritual practices at home. (Photo by Justin Vaughan)
Need for Connection
Grace Baptist Church, located just west of Carytown in Windsor Farms, followed a similar path to Ebenezer by quickly turning to livestreamed services during the early shutdown. However, the Rev. Suzanne Vinson, associate pastor for congregational life, says they wanted to find ways to re-create the intimacy of sitting in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. In response, they shifted to pre-produced services, with congregants providing recorded readings and prayers from their homes or yards.
“Everyone felt the intimacy of seeing into each other’s spaces and lives more fully than we would have in a buttoned-up Sunday-morning service,” Vinson says. “That spoke to us and continues to.”
Vinson says that while the pandemic encouraged a number of changes aimed at fostering connection, Grace Baptist was already responding to shifting congregant needs with more intimate programming. For instance, through an initiative called Grace on Tap, small groups meet at local breweries for guided conversations. The church also organizes outdoor gatherings where congregants can discuss scripture.
These gatherings are all the more important as people seek to reconnect and rebuild relationships after nearly two years of living at a distance.
“The pandemic shone a light on what’s already there, which is we are creatures who desire to be in relationship with one another,” Vinson says. “There’s something about being in a smaller group where you’re eye to eye, heart to heart.”
“People want spirituality that is intentional and gives them a sense of presence.” —Rabbi Patrick Beaulier, Kehillah Jewish community
That need for connection is often at the root of why many congregations are reassessing their offerings and looking beyond weekend services. Instead, they seek to meet congregants where they are and provide what they need.
At Grace Baptist, that could take the form of Soul Care Boxes — funded by a Vital Worship Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship — that encourage creativity through hymn and liturgy writing, art activities and other materials for deepening spiritual practices at home. A kit might include an olivewood cross to hold during prayer or when practicing mindfulness, bath salts and candles to promote caring for the body and spirit, or journals and pens for writing and drawing.
“I often hear from folks that when they get together at Grace Baptist, it’s a time to actually be still, and to be quiet, and to find a space of reflection,” Vinson says. “If we were to learn anything [from the pandemic], it’s to slow down, to pay attention to our bodies, our minds and our senses, and to use these God-given gifts to take care of ourselves and to take care of others.”
The Jewish Community Federation of Richmond offers many programs outside traditional worship spaces. (Photo courtesy The Jewish Community Federation of Richmond)
‘Meaningful and Relevant’
Rachel Peters, director of community engagement at the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, aims to create spaces that are based on Jewish values, incorporate rituals and practices, and foster understanding and relationships among Jews of all backgrounds. Many of her programs, particularly for young adults and families, occur outside of traditional synagogue spaces, such as a Hanukkah party at Topgolf or a James River cleanup following a traditional tashlich service on the water.
“Parents and young adults are removing themselves from the dogmatic basis,” Peters says. “They very much still care about living a morally focused, value-based life, but they want to be a part of something that matters as well.
“By strengthening our community through these types of initiatives, we’re then strengthening the future of Jewish generations to come.”
Whether they’re organizing a Sunday afternoon at a brewery, hosting a Shabbat dinner at home or putting together a self-care kit, the voices of members and congregants are at the center of how these communities are adapting. One-on-one conversations help faith leaders uncover members’ needs and passions, look at what programs are a draw, and, sometimes, recognize when a new idea just didn’t resonate.
“We are not beholden to doing things a particular way, and that gives us a creative freedom, not just logistically, but spiritually,” Beaulier says. “We are a post-religion society, and faith communities have to work a little bit harder than they did in the past to express why spiritual communities are necessary to people’s lives.
“People want spirituality that is intentional and gives them a sense of presence. They don’t want to go through the motions. It has to be meaningful and relevant.”
