Two churches in Southern California hosted indoor services despite a state ban on indoor worship, Newsweek reports.
Pastors at both churches acknowledged they could be fined $1,000 by local officials for hosting services inside. One pastor warned churchgoers they could be fined for attending, according to Newsweek.
"The first 1,000 people could feasibly tomorrow receive a citation," Pastor Rob McCoy with Godspeed Calvary Church in Newbury Park, California, said in a video message posted on Saturday.
McCoy said he received many phone calls from people who said they "couldn't wait" to be fined.
He added the church would follow its building codes and limit attendance to 1,000 people.
"Tomorrow's going to be crazy here," he said.
He cautioned his congregants to weigh the risks and rewards of attending services in-person.
One of the services held on Sunday was live-streamed over YouTube. According to Newsweek, people were crowded together and many weren’t wearing masks.
"I'm not being disobedient; I'm being obedient," McCoy told his congregants on Sunday. "God called us to open, and we opened on Pentecost, May 31, and we haven't closed since."
Pastor MacArthur also held indoor services at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He also faced a $1,000 fine for holding the services indoors, according to the Thomas More Society law firm that is representing him.
In a news release, the firm stated that the church and MacArthur were "the target of unconstitutional religious discrimination" due to both the state's temporary ban on indoor services and a cease and desist letter the city of Los Angeles sent MacArthur in response to his plans to keep holding in-person services.
"This illegitimate, over-broad, and unconstitutional order to indefinitely cease assembling, and exercising their religion and sincerely held religious beliefs, forced Grace Community Church to defy the order and continue exercising their rights, seeking shelter in the guaranteed religious freedom protections of the United States and California constitutions," the law firm's release said.
The church issued a statement about holding services on its website. The church said it followed orders early on in the coronavirus pandemic, but is now resuming services.
"We are now more than twenty weeks into the unrelieved restrictions," the statement said. "It is apparent that those original projections of death were wrong and the virus is nowhere near as dangerous as originally feared."
In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom put an end to indoor worship in counties experiencing a surge in virus cases.
Both Godspeed Calvary Chapel and Grace Community Church are located in areas where inside services are not permitted.
Both churches cited the First Amendment when defending their decision to keep holding in-person services.
In Thomas More Society's news release, attorney Jenna Ellis said Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Newsom were the ones in the wrong for blocking Grace Community Church's ability to assemble inside.
"Grace Community Church has every right to assemble without impossible and unreasonable infringement from the state, and the state has absolutely no power to impose the restrictions it is demanding," Ellis wrote.
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