A Way Forward

This pandemic has been a time of reflection and focusing on the things that matter. For some of us, it has been a time to reflect on life both past and future. But just like any time of reflection or retreat, there is a time of returning to activity.

As more states prepare to lift the stay-at-home orders, this means entering a stage of a new normal as a culture. This will naturally bring up adjustments. But just like in a retreat, there are insights we have gained in this season. People have returned to a dependance on God. People have re-focused on relationships and the people that matter. And just like on a retreat, as we re-engage, there will be the temptation to lose those insights and try to return to life as it was before.

However, don’t we do a disservice to ourselves if we ignore the opportunity this season created to focus on each other? I believe we also have done ourselves a disservice if we have just not changed at all and just waited until things return to normal so we can focus on our own success and dreams. If this time has taught us anything, it is that we need to change from a culture of me to a culture of us.

This will also affect churches. In a recent article in the New York Times, the author mentions how the lockdown has affected the church not only for now but moving forward. This season has radically affected how church has been done. For those at home, nobody is creating spaces of worship for you. Even the online experience necessitates that people adopt their faith as their own. There is no incentive in lockdown of showing up to church as a social gathering or for any other reason for that matter. Therefore, relevance of this kind of faith is only viable if it matches the rhythms of our lives as we see them now. Non-Relevant practices have been left in the past. The church must take a new path.

But isn’t this what the church was supposed to be all this time? I think we have done a disservice in not helping people integrate faith in real and relevant ways. And we do a disservice to people if we, as church, try to exit out of this time of retreat and reflection to try to return to church as normal. If this is an invitation for anything, it is an invitation to be the church instead of just doing church.

Many are feeling the pressure of returning to normalcy. The church, however, needs to be a radical innovator. A generation that has largely seen church as un-relatable, non-relevant, and dated needs to see the church as those radical followers of Jesus who live, in whatever circumstance, the realness of God to all people at all times. If God is anything, God is not stuck in a church building but can meet us where we are. We don’t need to make God relevant. The encounter with God in the moments in our lives is what makes God relevant.

The invitation from this time of stay in place is simple, the way forward is to not ignore the invitation of God for each us and to not ignore the invitation of God for each other. God hasn’t stopped inviting us forward.