In the late fall of 2019, one of the churches I was serving began meeting with the Church Legacy Initiative of our Annual Conference. Attendance had fallen off and Sunday worship was down to a handful of faithful folks who dearly loved their church. The congregation had started a feeding ministry many years before, and every week there were four times as many folks at the Wednesday lunch as there were at Sunday worship. With a lot of prayer and honest conversations, the congregation made the difficult decision to close. What we didn’t see coming was the pandemic. Suddenly our plans to take our time to sort out the records and decide what to send to the Conference archives, to carefully sort through the old Sunday school classrooms to save treasures, throw out some things and pass others on to other churches, all those plans were interrupted. All my careful worship plans to help the church grieve and say goodbye to their beloved church were disrupted.
It was so early in the pandemic that we didn’t know much about the disease, all we knew was that it wasn’t safe to be together. Everyone was staying home. It wasn’t safe to be together in a sanctuary for worship, much less the hard work of closing a church building. Love – and loss – in the pandemic.
The church leaders had a vision for a new missional outreach program for their building. They wanted to use some of their remaining financial resources to start a different kind of church – one that served as a community center and a place where people could serve their neighbors. A church that gave people a way to serve first and foremost. But the vision didn’t fit neatly into existing models of what church looks like in the United Methodist system, and despite the developed business plan and existing support network in the community, there was a pandemic and the conference leadership couldn’t find a way to get on board with such a strange new way of being church. Love - and loss - in the pandemic.
So the closing worship ended up being just me and our excellent pianist in the sanctuary. We made a video. I had to do all the readings, preach the sermon, speak the entire closing litany, and sing the hymns. It was hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The Conference decided to let the feeding ministry keep using the basement space while they offered the sanctuary for lease. After another year or so, the Conference decided to sell the building. As I was on the board of the feeding ministry, I ended up doing another difficult thing – helping the feeding ministry as it discerned where to move in the midst of a pandemic. Eventually, they made the difficult decision to close and use their remaining funds to support other feeding ministries in the community. Again, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Love – and loss – in the pandemic.
The pandemic was a difficult season in my personal life as well. My mother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and was undergoing treatment when the pandemic closed down public transportation. I’d planned to fly home every couple of months to help my siblings, but suddenly I was not able to travel to be with her. She continued her treatment, got her vaccinations when they became available and she is healthy again – but her short-term memory isn’t what it used to be.
Professionally, the pandemic upended my work with short-term mission teams. The pandemic closures meant that short-term mission teams canceled their trips. The experiences of being in mission with others form the basis for my workshops and post-trip debriefing retreats, so those all came to a halt as well. Love - and loss - in the pandemic.
My work as a pastor in the midst of a pandemic meant that all of my focus had to turn toward learning how to put worship online and how to teach church members over 75 years old how to use their phones to call into a Zoom session. I recorded worship videos onto DVDs and made safe distanced porch deliveries. I created devotional packets for church members to observe Lent and Easter and feel as though they were still connected. I set up safe distanced outdoor communion. And then I was appointed to a new congregation and had to learn how to make that transition in a pandemic. Love – and loss – in the pandemic.
Throughout all of this, it was the love of Christ that kept me going. UM Hymnal #480 is “O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go” by George Mathison. This is the strong love of Christ that seeks us, that wants us to trust in his grace. The third verse describes how I felt as I relied on Christ through all those difficult decisions and transitions: O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee. I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be.
Love and loss in the pandemic. A quite difficult season.
Although the Public Health Emergency has ended, I know of at least three people who have been diagnosed with COVID in the past few days. The worst is over but this disease isn’t quite done wreaking havoc. I don’t know if short-term mission teams are back to traveling and working with folks. But I am hopeful that I’ll be able to connect with teams and churches again soon. My passion for working with people who love to be in mission still persists, and I see the rainbow of God’s love through the rain of disruption and change. I hope that you do too. I trust in the love of Christ in the midst of whatever loss each of us or all of us experience. May we all come to know that love that will not let us go no matter what we walk through in our lives.