Dear Friends,
Yesterday the government recommended that for the next 15 days, Americans avoid groups of more than 10 people, along with discretionary travel, and eating at bars and restaurants. We will all feel the loss of our in-person worship services along with most other church activities.
I want to encourage you to see these next 15 days as a missional opportunity. Use this time to build relationships; be present and facilitate support and reassurance. People are looking to us for security and hope, for some rationale for optimism. We are not trapped—we are making a choice to fast from certain liberties (imitating Jesus’ self-emptying) in order to serve the most vulnerable in our communities.
Use your time, gifts and passions to serve the community. For instance, start a prayer team. Create a Crisis Response team to serve the needs of the most vulnerable in your community who may not be able to leave the house. If you’re a teacher, consider creating an online curriculum for families, including a daily devotional and activities for kids to stay connected. Check out our web page for more ideas, and please share your own ideas and best practices to benefit the entire diocese.
Not only is this a time for creatively living out our mission, it’s a time for spiritual formation. During times of uncertainty, we are formed in areas that we would not be otherwise, and one of those areas is generosity. It’s completely normal right now to want to hunker down and protect what we have. As Christians, however, we don’t have to choose between security and love: We demonstrate love from the secure basis of God’s love for us, his whole creation and his intention to bring it to its telos. Love actually makes us safer, closer to the heart of God and centered in the kingdom now at work among us.
What if even during something as scary as a pandemic, we could secure ourselves in that kingdom, such that our fear would be engulfed by intuitive generosity flowing from us? I think of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians: “In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.”
With that in mind, I encourage you to continue supporting your church and clergy by giving online, as you’re able. If you would like to give extra to help clergy families, seminarians and church planters who are financially impacted by the pandemic, please click here and choose “Coronavirus Response” from the drop-down menu.
As a diocese, we are doing everything we can to stay on top of the shifting news. Tonight I have a meeting with our Executive Leadership Team. During this time of uncertainty, I am also in close contact with all of our Rectors, helping to facilitate the sharing of creative best practices.
We do our best work as the Church when we have genuine, intuitive confidence in the wisdom and love of God constantly at work in the world. God will bring his creation to the fulfillment of his Divine intention. This is the basis for our peaceful confidence, and enables us to see the Coronavirus as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Grace and peace,
Bishop Todd Hunter