This past month I’ve experienced a growing discouragement as it’s become clear we’re not through COVID yet. It hasn’t just been the growing numbers, but Lisa has witnessed a growing sense of hopelessness and depression among many healthcare workers as once-shut-down COVID units are now back up because hospitals are running out of space.

At our last session meeting we discussed what the church should do as COVID numbers rise. Below are our current recommendations, what we might have to do, and what is more important to remember. 

Our current recommendations: 

• Don’t forget God is in charge of everything, even viral strains. We cannot forget to pray and trust God through times of difficulty. Please pray for our church as well as the other churches we are connected to.  

• If you haven’t been vaccinated, we encourage you to do so. The church leadership has all been vaccinated for some time without ill effect. 

• Feel free to wear a mask during the service. 

• We will not judge someone’s spiritual state by whether they wear a mask or not. 

• We will continue to have a seating section that will be socially distanced and reserved for those who want to RSVP to the service. We will add more socially distanced seating as necessary.

• We will continue to follow many of the protocols we’ve been following including opening the windows in the building to allow fresh air flow, sanitizing between services, etc.

• If you feel sick, even if you don’t think it’s COVID, please stay home and watch the service online.

• We will continue to have prepackaged communion as an option during our worship service.

• Please consider others above yourself in your actions and words, particularly those most affected by COVID. Personally, I think of the many healthcare workers in our congregation who have experienced incredible stress and even trauma as they were thrust into difficult situations and watched so many die. I doubt any of them are emotionally ready to go through that again, and yet, the hospital beds are already filling up. Please ensure that you are helping to bear the burdens of these brothers and sisters in Christ. 

What we might do:

Throughout COVID our practice was to follow the guidelines given by our local health officials. We plan to continue to do this. We hope it doesn’t come to this, but that could mean our services end up looking like they did last fall: encouraging everyone to wear masks, RSVPing to ensure social distancing, pausing our children's programs, etc. 

We hope our elected officials will provide updated health guidance during this COVID surge, but if they don’t, we may decide to follow updated guidance from the CDC or the State Health Department, both of which are recommending masks for more and more people. We hope it doesn't come to this, but it may. 

What matters more:

God was so good to our church this past year. Many churches lost people because they didn’t like how their church handled COVID, but to my knowledge, no one left our church because of this. (And it wasn’t because we all agreed on it.) Many people now find themselves in churches that fit their particular beliefs about COVID. God’s goodness presents a new difficulty for us. Can we continue to show unity and love to each other as we are again tested? I think it’s a net loss for the kingdom whenever churches divide along the same lines as society. Whether intentional or not, it shows to the world what our most important beliefs are, and rarely is it Christ and him crucified. One of the most rare, but needed, things today are churches that proclaim that the blood of Jesus has brought us together, and that blood runs thick. We will not lightly divide that blood which unifies us, particularly around issues that are not easily settled from Scripture or our historic creeds. You may have strong beliefs about what we should or shouldn't do regarding COVID, but I’d argue that, whatever those beliefs are, they are not as clearly prescribed by Scripture as our unity is. Consider Ephesians 4:1-6:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

My prayer--and I hope yours too--is that, whatever challenges we may face over the coming months and year, the above words will remain true of our congregation. Frankly, I feel a bit more worried this go-around; can we handle the storm again? I pray God’s grace will be sufficient, and we can emerge from round two with the light of Christ shining with greater power into our ever-darkening world. 

We’ll have more updates as the weeks go on, but we wanted to get you all thinking and praying about these things now.

In Christ,
Pastor Jon