Pastor's Blog: Becoming the Solution
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My father was a fount of wisdom for me. A successful small-town businessman, he understood the vagaries of everyday life and never expected anything to come easily for him. Consequently, he instilled in me from an early age how no one gets a free pass from life’s trials and tribulations so that when confronted by them, you always have a choice: “Will you contribute to the problem or will you work to be a part of the solution?”
What I didn’t understand at the time (and I’m not sure my father didn’t either) was the philosophical bent to his question. It wasn’t a choice simply to do something to bring about a solution as much as it was to become a positive presence in the effort to solve a problem. Only later would I be introduced to the priority of being over doing through thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century philosopher/theologian, who said: “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Approaching every problem from that perspective allows us to tap into a deep reservoir of resources that a merely utilitarian mindset could never do.
All of this has been front and center for me in the face of our current situation with managing ministry in the midst of a pandemic. As you know, COVID cases have spiked in our country after the Thanksgiving holiday and are projected to continue that trajectory throughout the Christmas season and into the New Year. At the same time, our church has planned the usual special services and other activities we do for Christmas and have cancelled nothing. So, the question becomes, “How do we make everything happen?” I think you see the problem.
My father would say, “You’re asking the wrong question.” The correct question is more, “How do we become a people who can experience the possibilities of such a season?” And the answer to that question is multifaceted.
We have been creative. We have engaged in “out of the box” thinking, which has allowed us to become more innovative in how we go about traditional offerings to our congregation and community – from music-based worship experiences to a “drive-in” Living Nativity to a greater choice in Christmas Eve worship. On one hand, everything looks different; but on the other hand, the message is still the same.
We have been responsive. We recognize that while some in our membership have an earnest desire to participate in-person at these special activities during the Christmas season, others are reluctant to do so because they are squarely in the center of the at-risk crowd. Consequently, we have planned to make every one of these special activities available online to our congregation and community through our church website and our church Facebook page. We want no one to feel pressured to be physically present at any of these services, and yet we want everyone who does to know that we’re doing all we can to accommodate you. Most importantly, we want to convey that however you choose to participate, know that you matter.
Lastly, we have been responsible, and for that I cannot give our congregation enough credit. Because you have been compliant with the guidelines and protocols we established back in the spring, we have been blessed over these last weeks and months not to have been the center of an outbreak, which would have made us a major contributor to the spread of the coronavirus, a growing problem now facing our society. Wearing face coverings, practicing physical distance, and using hand sanitizer get old pretty quickly, until you see it from the standpoint of being responsible, and then, being informs doing, and suddenly compliance with the guidelines becomes more of an act of faithfulness and not sheer acquiescence to seemingly arbitrary demands.
We will get through this time and be a better church for it, though I don’t know precisely when that time will come. Nonetheless, I am choosing to be hopeful, to be peaceful, to be joyful, and to be loving along the way, which is what this season calls people of faith to do. I invite you to join me in that journey of "becoming", so that together we might use this time better to live into our church’s mission of “Loving God and Living with Grace and Generosity.” That truly would be a most wonderful thing for us to become.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).