Doing Faith Now

March 17, 2020

Beloved:
      
What does good faith require in the midst of a global pandemic?  Such questions are not on every person’s mind right now but hopefully on ours.  How do we do faith?  How do we do church?


Faith first:  each one praying for peace and discernment in the midst of fear and of too much information is first every day, but especially in times of trouble.  Before we can make good plans we must be able to think and act in peace instead of fear, in the terms of our faith instead of news cycle overload.


My own morning prayers are backlit by another Southern Indiana springtime, glorious and yet so ordinary. Lilac buds are on and daffodils in the woods are opening.  My three-year-old hens are meeting the egg quotas of a much younger flock.  A pair of house finches on my window sill, not two feet from my face, are discussing something earnestly, where to find their lunch maybe.  All this springtime business-as-usual reminds me I have a choice:  to tune my heart to their tempo, ground myself in the goodness and the grace of springtime bursting forth in this time and place, or give in to anxiety over a hundred things that haven’t happened yet.


How do we do faith in these troubling times?  By being here now.  By doing what needs doing here and now.  Which answers the second question too:  how do we do church in these troubling times?  Be here, now.  Do what needs doing here, now. 


The latest best reports from the Center for Disease Control predict no  decline in transmission until an effective vaccine is delivered, several months from now. Therefore, to that end our Life Together as we’ve known it will be different for awhile.  We won’t meet in a large group for Sunday morning worship for many weeks most likely.  Until then the necessary precautions against transmission simply must stay in place, and we will do our part as church.  If communities and countries everywhere will exercise the necessary patience and endurance, the number of people who get sick will be kept low enough that everyone gets good care. But we cannot confuse low transmission with eradication, so the need for endurance cannot be overstated.  It turns out that the very constructs of our faith are what this crisis most demands:  patience, courage and endurance.


To that end, I am thinking prayerfully and carefully about what our life together shall look like in the coming weeks as we forgo our usual meetings and meals together.  The two things we shall not give up are staying connected to one another and serving our community through the crisis.  How they shall take shape largely depends on how God leads each of us, but I will have some more organized suggestions soon.  For now, here’s what I have to share: 
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1. For the most part the church building will be closed.  If you have keys and come in for some reason, please use the disinfectant wipes to swab the areas that you touch.  You can reach staff people by email, leaving a message on the church voicemail or calling our cellphones.
   
2. I will continue to email you each Tuesday, again at the end of the week with details about the online service and you will receive a newsletter email with church family news and announcements.
   
3. The online service will be posted on Sunday morning - more details about this later this week.   We will also have a plan for friends without internet access to watch the service.
   
4. Assuming your own income remains steady, please send your offering to church by mail or bank transfer so we can maintain our financial commitments.
   
5. Please keep in touch with one another through prayer and through phone and email contact.  Remember our members who do not have computer access and reach out to them by phone.  I will deliver a more organized plan for this soon.
   
6. Watch out for your neighbors, especially the vulnerable.  Help if you can.
   

This is the time for which we pray to be faithful, friends, when we don’t have to figure out what to give up for Lent, but how to bear through the weeks of Lent with confidence that the God who brought us this far isn’t going to leave us now.  Keep the faith.  Reach out to somebody else today in grace and service.  And for heaven’s sake, go outside so as not to miss the glory of this beautiful early spring day.