Moving Forward in a Pandemic

Well, that was fast. And just like that, everything changed. We have a whole new reality because of this novel coronavirus. And we’re greatly concerned about the people in the path or in the wake of COVID-19 and the effect it’s having on so many other areas of life.

Salem is closed and all in-person events, including in-person worship, are canceled. Our denomination’s General Conference that may have split the church has been postponed from May until next year. Now we know we won’t even be able to gather in-person for Easter Sunday.

Many of us are hunkered down in our homes. We’re practicing physical distancing. Some of us are still working. Some of us are going a bit stir-crazy, and some of us are anxious, depressed, uncertain, lonely.

How do we move forward with all of this change?

When my wife’s mom died in December 2018, Joy and her siblings began going through their parent’s home to get it ready to sell. Joy started bringing items to our home. Many of you have experienced this.

She brought home a fancy Japanese chest that got placed in an open spot in the kitchen against a wall. Later we also ended up with a nice leather sofa. We thought our daughter, Annie, could have it for an apartment but she hasn’t moved out yet. We had nowhere to put it, so it ended up in our kitchen—well, half in our kitchen and half in the family room. It sits in the doorway between the two rooms.

But our kitchen table is pretty large. It seats six. So we moved the kitchen table just a little bit but we tried keeping the room setup the same. Everything was so scrunched together you could hardly get around anything. We lived that way for a lot of months. Then one day I moved the kitchen table just a little bit by angling it and suddenly we had a little more room to move around the table. But it was still all scrunched together. And we continued to live like that for more months.

A couple weeks ago our daughter, Mara, moved home because her college, like so many, canceled in-person classes. Now there were four of us trying to move around the table in the kitchen. Between getting around the table to the kitchen sink or refrigerator and getting to the dog’s dishes in the corner, movement was restricted. Mara kept saying she wanted to rearrange the kitchen.

So now that we’re all at home most of the time, one day we decided we’d just start moving things around. We didn’t know what we’d do, but we just started doing something. We moved the nice Japanese chest out of the kitchen and set it down in the middle of the family room. We were able to clean behind where it had been placed in the kitchen. There was a huge dust-bunny under there!

Then I pushed the couch out from where it has been for many months so we could clean behind it. Now we really couldn’t move around. You had to climb over the couch or the table to get across the kitchen. But in this jumbled mess, my wife, Joy, could see new possibilities. 

All of a sudden Joy said, “What if we turn the table 90 degrees and push it into the corner against the kitchen cabinets. It would effectively mean losing two of the six chairs, but there are only four of us in the house. And we have a dining room table that can seat more when necessary.” With that one statement and vision, the rest of us could immediately see what she was proposing and we all thought it was a great idea. We jumped up to the table, moved all the chairs, and pushed the table into the corner. After taking two chairs away, we placed the rest in the remaining four spots. It was brilliant. The table works very well for us in the new location. We didn’t move the couch at all. We just slid it back where it had been, still half in and half out of the kitchen. And the Japanese chest found a nice resting spot next to the piano in the family room. And the best part? We not only have unrestricted, free-flowing movement in the kitchen, we have a large open space. It feels very open and lovely.

I love the new arrangement. I only wonder why we didn’t think about it sooner. 

But there’s a reason. See, you get used to living a certain way, even if it doesn’t make the most sense. If someone else walks in with fresh eyes, they can see immediately different ways of doing things. But we all just get used to things the way they are and we keep living that way.

The truth is, we were pushed to thinking about it in new ways. We had more people in our space and fresh eyes from Mara. And the stress level in our home was rising. It kept pushing us. So much that we didn’t even know what we were going to do, we finally just started moving the furniture around. And in the midst of doing that and cleaning, suddenly Joy saw a new way of living.

Rearranging our kitchen has given us a whole new outlook and experience. And I appreciate it and enjoy it. I don’t think I even want to let Annie have that nice leather couch when she moves out. It might seem weird to some to have a couch half in the kitchen. But I have to admit it’s pretty nice sitting on a couch in your kitchen. Okay, it’s nice to fall over on it and lay down after I’ve eaten too much!

Here’s the thing, because of the COVID-19 pandemic from the novel coronavirus and the shut down and isolation it as caused, Salem has been pushed to thinking about how we do church in new ways.

We’re not gathering in-person for worship or small groups or Staff or Leadership Board or anything. But I am truly grateful that we already had so many digital tools in place, especially for communication and giving. Long before this, we knew our culture was changing. We knew how important these tools would be. But we didn’t know we’d be pushed to change so much so quickly.

Of course, Salem has some history with that. No one was prepared for the destruction the Flood of 2008 caused either. And Salem changed overnight then but recovered and grew and built and has become very fruitful in the Kingdom of God.

Now we will change again. It’s been thrust upon us. So we aren’t just considering change, we’re jumping head first into doing things differently. In this new reality, change may be more permanent than we even realize now.

But in this new reality, we have a whole new opportunity to reach more people. Last year we averaged about 100 online views each week for our Sunday sermon. On March 15 when in-person worship was canceled and we met online only, we received nearly 700 views online over the course of a week. On March 22 we surpassed 1000 views online during the week.

We have such an opportunity to make an impact online because digital scales up in a much larger way than physical does. Think about evangelism. It’s so easy, if you’re online, to simply invite everyone you know online (which includes your unchurched friends) to gather with us for worship. If you watch our Facebook Live, you can start a “watch party” which automatically sends an invite to your friends. Or you can just share the video or the link to salemchurch.life. It’s such an easy way to share Jesus with others.

Now there will come a day when we gather in-person again. What a day of joy that will be for so many!

But this whole new opportunity to reach more people comes with a new reality that will likely change how we do church moving forward. As we reach people that have never been to Salem physically, that may continue. They may just continue to worship with us online. We just don’t know. 

But this isn’t a problem. God is in control. All we’ve done as we’ve been led by the Holy Spirit in the Church for 2000 years is love and learn and grow and change and adapt and do new things. That’s what God says in our scriptures: “See, I am doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19). 

Salem’s vision is to connect people and build community and transform lives through Jesus Christ.

There are all kinds of ways to do that. So let’s do it in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. This is an adventure. And there’s a lot of ministry to be done and in new ways, especially in an unchurched world and with so many in the path or the wake of this novel coronavirus.

Right in the midst of the flood in 2008, Salem’s pastor then, Linda Bibb, made a statement that gave great hope in the midst of disaster. She said, “We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.” We’re in God’s hands. 

May God make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.