Legos, Ezra, and Pandemics
I’m a little late with my blog post this half of the month because quite frankly, I didn’t know what to write about. I have so many different things on my mind that narrowing my focus down to one thing to write about seemed nigh impossible. But something I’ve been thinking about lately is this concept of “re-entry.” As the global pandemic continues and vaccines become more widespread (no, I haven’t gotten mine as of the writing of this entry) and we push forward through Lent towards Easter, I find myself wondering what re-entry even looks like. As folks come back to church (our church recently upped the limit of people allowed in the sanctuary), I wonder.
I always wonder if we’re doing enough to minimize the risk of sitting in our pews. We have set up a great ministry in our church called Faith Family Connections where we loan out wi-fi ready tablets or devices as hot-spots so people who cannot come to church can still connect to church. We have helped folks (especially older folks) connect to our church services and online Bible studies – folks who are not able to come into our sanctuary right now. And some of those people are people in nursing homes who wouldn’t be able to come to church anyway! It’s been an amazing ministry as a way to try and minimize the risk, but we do welcome people into our pews, too. We are building both a virtual and in-person community and I wonder: what does re-entry look like in way that does not undo the building we’ve already done?
We’ve done quite a bit to adapt the ways we connect to each other and we’ve grown in the ways we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. What I don’t want is for re-entry to be seen as “going back to the way it was before.” Because, as someone recently said in a virtual workshop I attended, the way it was before wasn’t working. And it won’t work just because we go back to it. I also believe “going back” is the wrong phrase because we can’t unlearn what we’ve learned. We can’t unsee what we’ve seen. We cannot ungrow how we’ve grown (cue the anaology about putting the tooth paste back in the tube once you’ve squeezed it all out). And honestly, I don’t want to unlearn or unsee. Some of what we’ve experienced in the past year has been extremely positive. I am proud of the ways my church community has thrived despite the pandemic. I think we learned a lot about what “church” looks like outside of the church walls.
And we wonder. What’s next? If re-entry means regular office hours in the church building again and in-person Bible studies, how do we not lose what we’ve already built? Can we build on what we’ve already built? We do plan to continue virtual options. Online live streaming our worship won’t go away, though I do know people are pretty comfortable worshipping at home in the outfits of their choice. We do want to keep the options open for people to attend meetings and Bible studies virtually. In a way, I think even I will struggle with that because I kind of like just shutting my computer off at night and not having to drive home in the dark after a meeting. Don’t get me wrong: I do miss seeing people in person, and I definitely miss seeing more than just the top half of people’s faces when we are in person. I visited someone last week and someone else in the office that I’ve seen a lot virtually lately said, “You DO have legs!”
Also, I must confess this as well: I have gotten very comfortable working in leggings. My jeans have not seen much daylight this year and sometimes I look at them in my closet and think, “Why did I ever love you?”
I think we all are figuring out for ourselves what “re-entry” looks like. Some might not be, because you never left. Praise God for all the essential workers who showed up to their regular jobs day after day and helped keep the world moving. For the rest of us, we will have to figure out what that looks like for us. We have to figure out what that looks like for churches. I like this image of building on what we’ve already built. It’s like when you’re a kid and you have to clean up your Legos, but you aren’t done building what you built. You want the floor to be clean, but you also don’t want to have to start over. So you put the Legos away as assembled as possible. Then you don’t have to start over – you build on what you’ve already built. I think that’s what re-entry looks like. We might decide a few pieces we built don’t work anymore with where God is calling us to next, so we’ll adapt again. And we might see things in our on-going structure that we just love and know are exactly the darlings we need to build on. And maybe we’ll make new friends who will help us envision different ways to build on what we’ve already built.
And there will be times when we step on a Lego and cry. Because let’s face it: building can be painful.
But I believe we do this together. I believe we’ve made it this far together, by the grace of God, and I don’t believe even re-entry can change that. I’m still wondering what it really looks like, and there are times when I feel like I’m making things up as I go (I highly doubt I’m alone in that!). But I don’t feel alone, and as we build on what we’ve built, that’s what really matters.
How are you facing re-entry?
Want to look at how another community came back and built on what they already built? Check out the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah to read about a re-entry plan of biblical proportions!
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