Across Houston, churches are making different decisions about whether or not to have in-person services. Some churches have continued to have in-person services since May or even before, some started back only to close again either out of deference to pleas from local officials or because of COVID-19 outbreaks among their members or staff, and some churches have remained online only and are now considering dates to begin regathering in person.
Along with information gleaned from statistics, politicians, media, and what the church down the street might be doing, many of you heard last week that Andy Stanley of North Point Ministries announced that their church will not regather their large worship services for the remainder of the year.
One of Andy’s quotes stood out to me from a meeting with his senior staff, and I have heard Houston pastors repeat this line to me so often the last few weeks: “We knew we were not going to open August 9th because they punted school opening… Everybody decided, "Nope, there is no point in putting another date out there, if not August, maybe September, maybe October, maybe November."
If your church has a plan to re-gather or is executing it, fantastic. If not, I offer a different approach: pray toward conditions being met rather than a date to be set.
CONFUSING MILES WITH MINUTES
Anyone who has ever done a road trip has heard the question, “Are we there yet?” The longer the trip, the more frequently the question comes up. My kids quickly became keen to where my GPS was positioned and what all the numbers meant, including the length of the trip remaining. But even the magic of GPS can’t help them when the estimated time of arrival changes.
The problem of Houston traffic and the unpredictability of road construction has already impacted my children, and they don’t even have the hour-long commute that I do. But here’s the reality: my kids are rarely concerned with “What time will we get there?” They more often just want to know, “Are we there yet?” They want to know if they can get out of the car, change their scenery, unbuckle their seatbelts, and get on with playing wherever they want to be.
Especially in this season, we have to get out of the habit of answering destination questions with time-based answers.
Instead, we focus on the destination, measured in concrete miles. Every step taken toward our goal is a step we can account for. And for every set back… well, we can account for that too.
DESTINATION: PEACE
As Christians, we’re called to be good neighbors and good citizens. The word of the Lord through Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon was instructive on this point. God told his people to seek out and pray for the peace of the city where God had placed them into exile.
7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare [shalom] you will find your welfare.
So what does peace in our city look like to you? And who is helping to define that peace for you? I consume a lot of news, but there is rarely peace to be found there. I pay attention to what our political leaders say, but there is rarely peace there. I watch the daily statistics, and there is rarely peace there.
What does the shalom of Houston look like? I would say it’s a combination of factors that may seem daunting when written in a list, but when lived out day to day is just expressed by loving God and loving our neighbors.
Seeking the systemic, holistic peace of our city includes God’s people representing him well and working to get COVID-19 under control. Being the church means spreading the good news of Jesus to those who don’t know him and raising new disciple-making disciples, while also correcting long-standing injustices in our society. Caring for one another means that the church must be present and working to meet our societal and communal needs through the economy, healthcare, and education system.
CONDITION BASED-DECISION MAKING
What does this have to do with regathering in person for worship? Candidly, maybe not much if your plan is determined. But do any of these sound like you?
I’m frustrated by cases popping up in the church and the need for contact tracing.
I’m tired of being asked by people “when are we going to regather?”
I’m anxious about the church staff being at greater levels of exposure because they must be at every service while people have the choice to attend or not.
I’m just tired of the flip-flopping, the guessing, or the waiting for someone else to determine the local conditions for group size
I seem to hear conflicting viewpoints, and I’m not sure what the real conditions are.
Then may I suggest that you set conditions for regathering, not a timeline. In that event, everyone will know what the conditions are and be able to pray toward those conditions being met, without needing to wonder if it’s the whim of any particular leader holding back progress.
Here’s an example. One UBA church has determined that their phases of regathering will align with Harris County’s color-coded benchmarks and with each change in the county’s status, the church will add to the size of their groups, etc.
Another UBA church has chosen a simpler metric: a 14 day decline in COVID-19 cases and 14 day decline in COVID-19 related hospitalizations (since both of these are lagging indicators, meaning they are delayed results).
These are the two websites I use routinely to see how Harris County and the greater Houston area is doing: one is managed by the Texas Department of Health & Human Services and the other is from the Texas Medical Center.
SECOND MILE PEOPLE
Our quest for the peace of our city is exhausting. And when we’re tired, we’re prone to decisions we might not make when we’re rested. When we’re tired, we’re a little more agitated than we might normally be, a little more quick on the trigger, and a little less interested in the consequences of our actions. That’s human nature. All the more reason for some decisions to be more objective than others.
Finally, consider that after Jesus preached about being meek (strong yet under control) and peacemakers (intentional about bringing about peace), Jesus called us to go the extra mile (Matthew 5).
How far will we go? How long will we run, and through what will we endure to bring about peace in our city? The world is watching, so let the church declare that it will go the extra mile in bringing about peace in our city and may God bless us as we strive ahead.
Let’s put aside time and convenience to embrace a desperation for God.