Ministry life in the COVID days

Ministry is different these days. We are under COVID restrictions. We cannot gather in groups (mostly), and we we need to stay 6 feet away from one another. Yet, here at First Baptist Church we are soldiering on, trying to keep people connected to God and to one another in love the best we can.

These restrictions mean that most churches, including ours, are suspending our weekly gatherings in the sanctuary. We have been keeping our office open, although this week we did have a person who was potentially COVID positive in our office space--which made things a little nerve wracking for a moment or two. Thankfully that person was negative, and the moment has passed.

There are a few things, as I reflect on ministry right now, that COVID has brought to mind.

1. Ministry is about presence--I know this truth as a pastor, until you can't be present with one another. Then you realize how important being present, praying face to face, hearing one another's voices, and sharing embraces with one another really is.
2. Ministry is about touch--I never realized how much I touched people until I could not touch them any longer. On March 15, we had a service together that was very restricted in touch and in movement. It was so hard not to shake hands, give hugs, put hands on shoulders, and have conversations that were socially distanced.
3. Ministry is about rhythym--I don't mean that ministry has to have a good bass line in its worship sets. I think it does, and most Christian music fails in that regard, but that is another post. What it means is that most of us, despite the interuptions find a rhthym to how we do ministry. We get certain things done at certain times. We have part of our schedule routinized. We have time for study and prayer, and time for visits, time for community involvement, and time for leading meetings, studies, events, etc. And time to prepare for all of that. When COVID came, our rhythm changed. It forces us to be adaptable, which is good. But at times it feels like without a regular structure and rhythym, that my productivity and life-flow is messed up. My wife and I have been sharing, even with both of us working, that each week seems like a month or two when we are social distancing.
4. Ministry is about relationships--This is so much harder when you can't have your breakfast together as a men's group, or when you can't visit the homebound. 
5. Ministry is about Jesus--One of the things to begin to consider, and it is hard in a traditional church like mine, is just how much of our experience in faith is grounded in tradition and an attractional business model, and what we should take the opportunity to change to be more about knowing Jesus and making him known in honest meaningful relationships and personal connections. 

I still have hope that we will come out of COVID stronger. But it is, right now, a strange new world.