ACADEMIA Letters The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020 Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, Lúrio University- Faculty Of Social and Human Sciences Abstract This paper is about The impacts of Covid- 19 on the spiritual life of believers in Mozambique Island. This study was conducted at Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Nampula - Mozambique Island district. The main objective of this study is to explore the impacts of Covid- 19 in the spiritual area of believers. To achieve the objective, three instruments of data collection were used which are interview, observation and document analysis, and 5 participants were involved of which were 3 males and 2 females. The study employed interpretivism paradigm and qualitative approaches for data analysis. The participants were all members of the same church, including 1 pastor and 2 evangelists. All participants were interviewed and the churches were observed during this period to make sure that they did not practice any religious activity there. The results of the study demonstrates that the impacts of covid-19 on the spiritual life of believer are the decrease of spiritual level for not going to church and relaxation, the closeness of churches, suspension of religious activities done in in the church and ineffectiveness of activities done outside the churches. Keywords: impacts, spiritual life, believers Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 1 1. INTRODUCTION It is believed that the world is in terrible situation presently for the issue concerning Covid-19. The diseases’ threats have extended to the degree that led the many lcountry leaders/ presidents to decree State of Emergency/lockdown in response to covid-19 crisis. In Mozambique, the declaration of State of Emergency stopped many institutions including churches, according to decree no. 26/2020. Therefore, the study intends to explore the impacts of Covid- 19 in the spiritual area of believers of Assembly of God Evangelical Church in Nampula-Mozambique Island district. The choice of the church is due to the great devotion of the believers toward God and the frequency of church service during the week. So, the research findings will be helpful to situate the believers so as to help them be aware of their spiritual area during covid-19 period to strategically think of how to stand against this situation. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Concept of coronavirus Ahmad (2020) unveils that coronavirus also known as Covid -19 is a group of virus that can cause disease humans beings.” Additionally, Hopkins (2020, p. 1) believes that “coronaviruses (CoVs) are a family of RNA viruses that typically cause mild respiratory disease in humans.” It can be understood that coronavirus is a serious disease that cause a great difficult to breath taking to death very quickly. 2.2. Transmission ways Transmission is a process of passing something from one person to another (Walter, 2008). It is belied that corona virus transmission is very quickly leading to outbreak and eventually pandemic (Advisory, 2020). Moreover, Culp (2020) says that anybody, at any age can be infected Covid-19, and some people can be sicker than others. Thus, Advisory (2020, pp. 48-49) says some ways of transmission as follows: through close contacts, droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes and droplets land in mouths, noses or eyes of people nearby etc. Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 2 2.3. Symptoms and prevention methods According to Culp (2020) lists the following: Shortness of breath, fever, chills, headache, Muscle pain, sore throat, loss of taste or smell etc. As for prevention methods, Gennaro et al (2020) list some advised by WHO as appears below: • The cover coughs and sneezes with tissues; • Use masks • Use hands sanitizers • Wash hand with water and soap. • Social distancing • Refrain from touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands etc. 2.4. Spirituality and Believer Walter (2008) spirituality is the quality of involving deep, often religious, feelings and beliefs. So, term spirituality seems to have different meanings depending on context and peoples’ culture, however to our context it states the connectedness or devotion with God. Spiritual person is one that is seen to have a deep intimacy with God and understand divine things because of such intimacy. Moreover, Walter (2008) unveils that believer is the same as an spiritual person that professes a God or goes to a church. 2.5. Impact of Covid-19 in spiritual life of believers Egunjobi (2020) unveils, clearly, some impacts of covid – 19 in the life of believers as listed of below: • Absence gatherings in the church • Use of face masks as singing in the church. • Social distancing (2 meters apart) from a member to another • Obligatory use of sanitizers for proper hygiene. • No handshakes among members; • There is no evangelism, marriage celebration, etc. Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 3 2.6. Common Religious activities According to Royer G. L (1994) the following are religious activities: prayer, bible teaching, preaching, evangelism, crusade etc. 2.6.1. Prayer and bible teaching/preaching Royer G. L (1994) believes that prayer is an act of talking to God. this may happen at any time and any place. Though believers may pray alone, it is believed that the payer becomes strong when they are together in the church. As for bible teaching, Oliveira (1997) says that many new believers consolidate their knowledge about God and increase their faith through bible teaching. Additionally, it is through Bible teaching that they know things that please God. The Bible teaching happens in the church during the worshipping (Royer, 1994). 2.6.2. Evangelism and crusade Royer (1994) says that evangelism is an act of sharing good news of Jesus to other people and it can be massive or individual. This happens mostly in the field. Members of church preach to people in the street, house etc. in order to make them believe in Jesus. However, crusade is a special Christian event that consists of inviting people to hear the word of God that is preached by an evangelist or pastor so that people may believe in God. However, the crusade is preceded by house to house evangelism, choir singing gospel song etc. 3. METHODOLOGY The study employed the interpretivism paradigm. Moreover, this is a descriptive research design and it qualitative approach for data analysis According to Dawson (2002) this approach tends to explore and gets a profound opinion about experiences, behaviour and attitudes of a group. To reach the objectives, two instruments to collect data were used namely interview and observation. 3.1. Participants The study had 5 participants of which 1 pastor, 2 evangelists, and two members. and it used non-probability sampling technique. The selection of the members was due to the awareness of the situation that they hold. Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 4 3.2. Procedures and data analysis technique The data collection process for interview took place in one week. Each member was interviewed one day through Google Zoom application. The interview took 30 minutes for each member. However, observation was conducted every weekend (Saturdays and Sundays), in the both churches that are in Mozambique island. As da analysis, it used qualitative method. It was used to analyse the content of words from the believers’ interview, observation and document analysis. The believers’ responses were analyzed in a discourse analysis. 4. DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION This sections, presents, analyses and interprets the data from the interview with the belivers. The believers were codified in letter A, B, C, D and E. 4.1.1. Spiritual level of many believers at Estate of Emergence time. This question was administered to identify Spiritual level of many believers during Estate of Emergence time, the following are answers: A and B said that: “the spiritual level of many members is weak, because church members do pray together” SimilarlyC and D disclosed that: “it depends, for mature believer nothing is wrong, but for new ones, I believe they are weak because of relaxation.” E said the following: “Actually, many believers spirituality is low, three months without going to church” Therefore, scrutinizing data of the respondents, it can be concluded that the spiritual life of many believer became low during the State of Emergency, special of new believers due to not worshiping together and relaxation. 4.1.2. Religious activities practiced with closed churches through Estate of Emergency. A said that: normal activities such as mass evangelism, crossed are suspended, except home worship. as for B : we no longer do normal activities through the state of emergency. C dislosed so: “for sure activities that join people are paralyzed, according to the Presidential decree.” Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 5 E and E said that: “the religious are activities are being done, only if they adapted to period we are in, considering the established prevention measures.” The majority of respondent affirm that the normal religious activities practiced inchurch were stopped due the Estate of Emergency. 4.1.3. Effectiveness of religious activities during the Estate of Emergency. A said that: “we don’t go to church, worshipping alone, however we stay at home and worshipping alone for me is not such effective. B said that: there no such a good effectiveness of the practiced activities, Believer 3 said that: “The effectiveness is not the same as when we are free and in the Church” C said that: it is so bad; many brothers are not attending the way they did in the normal time, so it is not such effective. D and E said that: it is not as effective as the normal time in the churches, but we are trying to. The possible activities mentioned above such as the one which are done strategically and home worship done by the believer were not affective. 4.2. Presentation and analyses of data from observation The observation technique was used to observe two churches Assembly of God Evangelical to make sure that religious activities were not carried out. Therefore, the outcome is that every day that churches were observed were found closed with nobody (member) inside the church. So, considering the answers of the respondents in the interview, it can be believed that for sure the religious activities in the church were suspended. 5. DISCUSSION This subsection focuses on the discussion of the findings. The discussion obeys the following order: (1) spiritual level of many believers at Estate of Emergence time; (2) Religious activities practiced with closed churches through Estate of Emergency; and (3) the effectiveness of religious activities during the Estate of Emergency. 5.1. The spiritual level of believers during the Estate of Emergence Considering the spiritual levels of believers during the State of Emergence, the results have shown that many believers have become low spiritually, specially, new ones due to not worAcademia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 6 shiping together (lack of unity) in the church and relaxation of many believers at home. Moreover, the observation unveiled that none of believers went to church. by virtue of Presidential Decree (8 May, 2020 art. 16, 1) that suspends every religious activity in every church. Moreover, Oliveira (1997) says when the believers involve themselves in the church activities, they consolidate and edify their spiritual life, so, may have collapsed for not going. To avoid such a problem, they should read their bible and pray at home constantly. 5.2. Religious activities practiced churches during Estate of Emergency. Concerning religious activities practiced in the church during the Estate of Emergency, the findings shows that all religious activities were suspended due the Estate of Emergency. Additionally, it was observed that the churches were closed in the worshipping days. Activities such as prayers, bible teaching, preaching, evangelism, crusade etc. were suspended. Religious activities make people grow old in faith, being suspended can be concluded as the result of low spirituality of the believers. 5.3. The effectiveness of religious activities during the Estate of Emergency As for the effectiveness of religious activities carried out during the Estate of Emergency, first of all it is worth mentioning here that the churches were closed and none of the activities were practices in there. However, the results have shown that there were kind of activities which were done strategically such as prayers done at home, home worshipping, individual evangelism were not affective due some prohibition and measures which were strictly obliged to be observed as well as for not having the same sense as it has in the normal time. Notwithstanding, it is more preferable keeping on praying rather stay without doing anything because Royer G. L (1994) believes that prayer is an act of talking to God and it may happen at any time and any place. Conclusion Indeed, Covid -19 has actually brought a lot of impact in the in the different spheres of the world. Thus, the research under study has demonstrated that among many impacts that covid19 has brought on the spiritual life of believers were selected the following: the decrease of spiritual level, the closeness of church, suspension of religious activities done in in the church and ineffectiveness of activities done out of the church. Therefore, many believers’ spiritual level of devotion to God became low, for lack of not going to church, since the church is a place where they increased their faith through the unity Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Realito Adamugy Ussene Momade, realmomade15@gmail.com Citation: Momade, R.A.U. (2021). The Impacts of Covid-19 on the Spiritual Life of Believers: Case of Assembly of God Evangelical Church, Mozambique Island, 2020. Academia Letters, Article 3329. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3329. 7 and worshiping with other brothers, singing, learning the word of God. 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