EASTER church services are going to look a little different this year.
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Normally a time of gathering to celebrate the birth of Christ, many Christians will instead be huddling around computer screens or turning on the television to hear the Easter message.
Uniting Church Reverend Geoff Barker said the church was organising three different ways to get the Easter message to its congregation: by YouTube, via a Zoom service on Easter Sunday, and by hand-delivering printed devotion material to members without internet.
"I will be talking about the Easter story when the women went to the tomb and found it empty and then were given the message that Jesus had risen and they left with fear and joy," Rev Barker said.
"If we trust in God that gives us joy and opportunity in our fear then we have an opportunity to make this a better world - a fairer, more sustainable and caring world when we come out the other side of this.
"This is our chance to make a better world."
Warrnambool Presbyterian Senior Pastor Reverend Ben Johnson said their Easter services would be delivered online.
"This Easter we will be reflecting on the fragile nature of the world, how at the beginning of 2020 we were going well then all of a sudden everything was turned upside down and inside out," he said.
"We will be talking about how important it is to anchor ourselves to a bigger narrative than that, and for Christians that is that God does love us and care about us in hardship and suffering, even in the Easter even when Jesus died on the cross and was raised again."
St Joseph's Warrnambool will be closed during Easter so that people can tune into the Catholic masses being streamed on Channel Seven, explained Father John Fitzgerald.
"The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney will be running a service on Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning that people can tune into on Channel Seven," he said.
"We don't desire what we have at the present, that being the coronavirus, but good can arise from it.
"It can bring enemies together, we've got a common enemy in the virus and it can bring nations together and bring out the best in people - I've read and heard about many lovely things happening in the community.
"The coronavirus has forced us to think not only of our own health but of the well-being of the community. It's quite paradoxical to say that the best way to care for others at this time is to isolate and stay at home, but that's what we have to do. Even if it does mean giving up that day of fishing or time with family, it's about the whole community."
Warrnambool & District Baptist Church Lead Pastor Paul Pallot said there had been a great take-up of the online church services.
His Easter message centres around finding hope in the darkest of places.
"The heart of my Easter message is the victory of Jesus over death," he said.
"Encouraging people to hold onto that and have hope even though death seems closer that it may have before, reminding ourselves that Jesus has the victory."
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