How Sioux Falls church leaders navigated Ash Wednesday during this week's blizzard

In the midst of a mid-week winter storm that has disrupted day-to-day activities in Sioux Falls, area churches had to get creative for Ash Wednesday to kick off Lent season.

The multi-day storm, which brought dangerous blizzard conditions to the area early Wednesday and with conditions anticipated to continue into Thursday, had dumped roughly 8 inches of snow by 5 p.m. at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, according to the National Weather Service of Sioux Falls. Another round was expected to occur after midnight, with several more inches on the way.

But that didn't stop churches like, First Lutheran Church and Cathedral of St. Joseph, which were two of a number of churches in Sioux Falls that held in-person services despite the weather.

Cathedral of St. Joseph hosted three in-person masses on Wednesday: one at 6:45 a.m., noon and 6:30 p.m. During the early morning mass, about 75 people showed up, according to Father James Morgan. For the noon mass, roughly 100 were in attendance.

“Despite the weather, we’re always going to have mass. It doesn’t make any difference. People might not be here … But in the Catholic understanding of things, we always have mass daily, so even if we wouldn’t have had two masses, we at least had one mass,” Morgan said.

Live weather updates: Sioux Falls Regional Airport closed until noon Thursday, city issues snow alert

Jason Burggraff, senior pastor at First Lutheran Church, said about 50 people were in attendance at a service held inside the church at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday.

"It was quite a bit less, of course, as you would expect than we would normally have, but it was a good worship service and a good opportunity to proclaim God's word and bring in the Lenten season with God's word and the sacrament," Burggraff said.

What is Ash Wednesday?

Ash Wednesday, also known as the Day of Ashes, is a day of repentance where Catholics and Christians confess their sins and profess devotion to God leading up to Easter. At services, attendees are marked with ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads.

“There’s something about getting ashes on the foreheads that reminds them that they are called to during this season to a deeper spiritual, deeper prayer life and a deeper penitential life and their spiritual life,” Morgan said. “Also, just self denial and sacrifices in order to sort of unite themselves with the passion and death of Jesus.”

During the application of ashes on foreheads, priests often say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” or “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Burggraff said while ashes might not be the most important part of Ash Wednesday, they are a tradition and serve as a reminder of mortality. The ashes also tell the story of Jesus and forgiveness, Burgraff said.

"The importance of having some worship in person wouldn't be about the ashes, though I suspect for some people that is right up there, because that just happens that one day of the year, " Burggraff said. "But as far as the church is concerned, the importance of in-person worship is to be able to hear the word preached in person and probably more important than the ashes would be to receive the Lord's Supper. To be in person is really helpful and important for that sacrament."

More: What is Ash Wednesday? Here's what to know as Catholics and Christians begin Lent

Some Catholic churches go virtual as blizzard hits Sioux Falls

Along with holding the in-person service, First Lutheran Church had it streamed on KSFY.

While some churches went ahead with in-person services, others in Sioux Falls decided to go virtual, or postpone until next week.

Hope Lutheran Church was among one of those churches streaming services online.

Lynnae Sorensen, the church's pastor said she saw the 'apocalyptic almost' weather reports about two days ago, so they went ahead and decided to plan in advance. Similar to how they dealt with COVID, the church called up the choir, recorded a song, a message and an abbreviated service.

More weather: City debuts tracker showing what streets have been plowed throughout Sioux Falls

"What we say is that services are canceled, worship is never canceled," Sorensen said. "You can worship in many different places, in many different ways. So the way that we've discovered that works the best in situations like this, is something online."

Gloria Dei, a Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, offered three different services. That included an abbreviated worship service and two recorded services at noon and 6 p.m. on their website.

"We wanted to be able to offer people some way to worship and decided that was the safe way. We always do a livestream service at 9 a.m., so we have people who are used to tuning in. We do a chat with that, so we were still able to have that community feeling of members checking in with each other," Pastor Amy Martinell said. "... We know that God's love connects us even when we are not able to physically be together."

First Congregational United Church of Christ also streamed a pre-recored Ash Wednesday service on YouTube at 6 p.m.

More weather: Wind chills expected to drop well below zero, creating dangerous conditions after blizzard

Some postponed Ash Wednesday mass for a later date

With weather throwing a curveball for in-person worship services, some churches decided to switch gears and postpone it to a later date.

Asbury United Methodist Church announced in a Facebook post that it plans to incorporate the imposition of ashes into its Sunday morning in-person worship. Faith Lutheran Church also decided to push its Ash Wednesday services into its regularly scheduled weekend services.

Other churches, like Memorial Lutheran Church and Zion Lutheran Church decided to postpone their Ash Wednesday service and will host on March 1.

More weather: Have you lost power? Here's a look at power outage maps for Minnehaha and Lincoln counties

The Argus Leader attempted to contact a variety of other local churches, but not all were immediately available for comment or closed during the storm.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: How Sioux Falls churches navigated Ash Wednesday during a blizzard