IN what was meant to be his penultimate sermon to his congregations in March, Rev William Young referenced an essay by ‘The Color Purple’ author Alice Walker.

She wrote: “If we cannot give ourselves such a pause, the Universe will likely give it to us.”

Mr Young says the global pandemic is giving pause to communities – but also to his own plans.

He was due to fly back to his home nation, the United States, on April 1, to take up a new charge as pastor of the Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ in Washington DC.

But the shutdown across much of the world put his plans on hold, and kept him with his Clydebank and Drumchapel congregations – albeit at a distance.

The minister for Morison Memorial Church, in Clydebank, and Drumchapel’s Essenside United Reformed Church is going to use live-streamed services to connect with his new American community and its families.

“This should be our pause moment,” he told the Post.

“Who are the most important people in our society? Is it the nurses? The supermarket workers? The low-paid? Or the wealthy?

“It’s showing who we should honour in society. I hope every person on the planet, especially myself, will be able to make the changes we need in the way we think about each other and the way we treat nature and the way we feel.”

Mr Young said some of their older members are not on social media but family members are helping them connect to streams of services.

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Originally from Cincinnati, Mr Young first started work in Clydebank and Drumchapel as a student minister, then taking over as minister for both.

After nine years in the communities, he admits it is disappointing not to be heading to his new post as planned this month, but that everyone understands the challenges right now.

Covenant Baptist UCC was originally a post-WWII, all-white Baptist church.

But in the 1960s, as society and the neighbourhood changed, it came to cater to the African American community.

It has since become known as one of the more progressive churches, says Mr Young, with support for people living with Aids in the 1980s and one of the early churches to accept same-sex marriages.

His work in Drumchapel and Clydebank led to the Washington church inviting him to become their pastor

Since the lockdown began, Mr Young has been calling every member from his local churches to check on them and their support networks.

“It’s been helpful to know that people are living their faith in that way, by taking care of others,” he says.

“One thing I’m so impressed with is how accepting the congregations and the community here have been of me.

“I have been moved by the way they allowed me to do new things with them and I think we have grown together.

“We just continue to look forward in hope that there will be a vaccine soon and people will be able to return to some sort of normality in life.

“There’s a real sense in everyone that this is not the way human beings should interact with each other in such a distant way. There’s a real hope that things will get better.

“We have been so busy building walls that nature has reminded us that we are all interconnected.”