What if...?

While taking care of the final details of my mother’s estate, I took a break each day to do one of my favorite summer time activities: floating on an inner tube (any body of water will do). Bobbing on the small waves of Peconic Bay was a perfect meditative exercise to ponder matters related to our shared ministry. I’ve had time to think about what we are facing and listen for the still small voice of God. I’ve reflected on online worship, the many reopening plans received, and the honesty we as a nation and church are having about race. I’ve spent time pondering the COVID-19 pandemic trajectory and the ways it will impact our lives for months to come. 

I began to wonder. 

What if we were as meticulous about combating the virus of racism as we are about the coronavirus?

What if, as we did a quick body scan (do I have a sore throat? A fever? Am I masked? Did I wash my hands?), we did a quick check scan of our racism and privilege (am I listening to the voices of siblings of color? Am I considering how I engage in micro-aggressions? What does my body feel and what emotions surface when I’m in conversations about race?)?

What if, as we implement plans to open the doors of our church for in-person worship, we aren’t paying attention to new ways we are being called to worship in the 21st century?

What if, instead of stressing on who can and can’t worship in person due to age, risk factors, or hitting the threshold for how many/few can be in the sanctuary at the same time, we fretted over who in our community we are not reaching with Good News and thought of new and creative ways be in relationship with them?

What if the hours we are taking to clean our building after each use was spent making sure hungry families in our community had something to eat?

What if we discovered that spirituality doesn’t just need an hour on Sunday but the daily disciplines that make our lives be a prayer and our actions a hymn of praise?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions!

Be well. Wear a mask. Stay safe.

Railside Redemption

Last week, I saw a former train station that now had a sign declaring “Railside Redemption”. Of course, I immediately wondered what kind of church had taken up residence there, only to chuckle to find out it was the recycle center for the region!

But it did get me thinking: where, in the midst of COVID-19, are the places where God’s saving grace found in Jesus Christ being experienced? If the church building is closed, where is the church as the Body of Christ now moving in communities, touching and changing lives?

When we go to the supermarket, are we attending the Grocery Store of Grace? When we get take-out from a restaurant, are we stopping by the Resurrection Restaurant? As we socially distance with friends on the porch, are we sitting at the Patio of Promise? Where, now, are you experiencing Holy Ground, that place where you are surprised by a God who shows up to offer new life in the most unusual ways in the most common of places? More importantly, how are YOU, as you move in the world, bringing the light of God to the forgotten corners of human existence?

The Holy Spirit has pushed us out of our church buildings and into our streets. We can no longer close the doors of our church buildings—or our hearts—to the sufferings of our neighbors. Our hymn singing can no longer drown out the cries of the poor. Our offerings no longer need to prop up a building that has had decades of deferred maintenance but instead can build much needed ministries that can transform individuals, families, communities, and a world as we seek to bring healing as Christ’s hands to a broken world.

Wear a mask. Stay safe.