New Beginnings in a New Reality.

It’s incredible to imagine that 4 years ago today most of the United States began their shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. As a sports fan I remember Rudy Goebert testing positive just a day after making a joke of touching the microphones of reporters. Then within days we were into a new reality, quarantine, hand washing, a new term “social distancing”, and everything else that came with this new reality of having Covid within our midsts.

For churches this meant new realities for us as well. We learned how to stream our worship services, so that congregation members could still experience the sacred rituals even if they weren’t able to safely attend in person. We wondered about what Christian community looked like as we tried to support each other, through phone calls, delivering groceries, mailing cards, or taping hearts to our house windows. The beginning of the pandemic created a new reality for all of us, on that we imagined would probably only last a few weeks or months. Little did we know…

As I reflect back on those new realities that were cast upon us as a society in those early days and weeks, I’m struck by how many of those realities still remain in this new reality that we’re living in today.

Our churches face new realities today, some that haven’t been experienced as a church for many generations. We now face a world in which those who choose the option of attending religious services are in the vast minority (70% of the US claims Christianity, but less than 36% attend church weekly). Church pews are emptier than they have been in a long time. Church buildings are facing closures.

We continue to ask questions about what a “hybrid” church looks like. Does online membership “count” to the work of what the church is doing? Can we do ministry with people who we may have never met in person? Does the model of “consuming church” (like so many of us shifted to early in the pandemic) count for real church ministry? Or do we need to gather in order to make it more authentic?

These questions are hard. But they’re not going away. And many of the early technical answers that we provided early in the pandemic are now needing adaptive answers in our cultures and our communities.

As we face these new realities we’re challenged with new problems and we must face them with a new imagination. I pray you join me for this journey as we explore together the ways in which God is calling us to imagine a new church in this new age.