Pastor's Blog: Let’s Try This Again
|
If you’re like most folk, your life is marked by various interruptions. Rarely does any of us get the luxury of beginning a project and then working on it in undisturbed fashion all the way to its conclusion. There are phone calls and text messages. There are changes in plans and new variables introduced. Sometimes something more important comes up, or a need emerges we couldn’t have anticipated. All these developments require us to hit the pause button until we have dealt with the interruption, and only then can we pick things up and start all over again.
Such has been our life in this season of COVID. Routines have been erased. Traditions have been set aside. Plans have been put on hold. You’ve experienced all these interruptions in one way or another personally, and we have certainly experienced them together as a church. But the sturdiest among us will not allow any of them to get the best of us. Yes, we may have to adjust our affairs, but only for a moment, and when the coast is clearer, we are prepared to pick back up where we left off.
That’s how we at MBBC responded to the spike in coronavirus cases we saw in Jefferson County after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. As people got together over that five- or six-week period, the virus spread aggressively. I was shocked at how many people I knew who had contracted COVID and tested positive, and it was apparent to me that the most responsible and charitable act would be to transition our church’s activities to online only until the situation improved, lest we become a spreader site and be guilty of contributing more to the problem than the solution.
It now appears that we have seen enough of an improvement in the case numbers in Jefferson County over the last week that we will be able to allow in-person gatherings at the church, beginning the week of February 1, with February 7 being the first Sunday people may return to worship. In consultation with the infectious disease experts in our church, we have decided that we can resume in-person ministry activities, both large and small group, with the following guidelines: face coverings are required, physical distancing must be in place, and hand sanitizer liberally used. Of course, none of these guidelines are new; we’ve been practicing them since we resumed in-person activity back at the first of the summer. I simply emphasize them as a reminder that we are far from out of the woods with respect to COVID and we must continue to be diligent so that we might maintain our record of not being the source of a coronavirus outbreak in our community.
A few other considerations also apply. For example, if you are in the at-risk population and have not yet been vaccinated, you don’t need to feel any pressure to return. We will continue to provide all the online resources you’ve come to enjoy, and our worship services will continue to be streamed. Another change is that for the next several weeks, we’ll have only an ensemble and soloists providing special music, and when the case numbers decline even more, we’ll then revisit a larger choir. Lastly, space restrictions will continue to be observed and outside events, when possible, will be preferable to inside ones.
I know that the back and forth has been difficult for you, as it certainly has for the staff and me. But given what’s at stake, both the physical health of our membership and the spiritual health of our church’s witness, we must exercise extreme caution and approach this virus with the utmost seriousness.
Thank you for your understanding, your patience, and your faithfulness. We will continue to do our best to make ministry possible for as much of our membership as we can. With God’s help we will get through this season and make it to a better one, a season where “the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love” will be made stronger, even to the point that among us “perfect love and oneness will reign throughout eternity.” Now, that’s a vision worth pursing again and again and again.
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8).