Beyond COVID: Moving forward Together!

by Steve Matthews
Senior Associate Consultant with FaithX

It’s funny how fast our intentions and plans change these days. In a country full of planners and achievers and “do-ers,” there are not a lot of stable structures on which to build our agendas and long-range plans.  Sometimes it’s hard to feel like we are gaining ground because the ground keeps shifting.  We thought COVID-19 would be over by now (or at least under control), yet it is still alive and well in our communities.  Our “normal” lives are still disrupted.  People are still getting sick and dying.  It’s not personal.  The virus is just doing what unchecked viruses do… like all critters, they propagate.

So now what?  Perhaps, it’s time we stop living our lives in reaction to COVID.  We have adapted worship.  We meet on-line.  We gather in church parking lots. We have worked hard to adapt to the ongoing threat. While this pandemic will not last forever, it is here for now.  It is part of our global reality.   

As communities of faith, we could develop a bit of a victim mentality to this impersonal virus.  Even if we don’t acknowledge it, our actions and plans in the age of COVID can be in reaction to the newest threat or perceived threat of this pandemic.  The author and theologian Walter Wink wrote, “The greatest obstacle is simply the belief that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong.  That is the addict’s excuse.”  

At FaithX, when we talk about moving “beyond COVID,” we are not referring to our lives when COVID is vanquished.  We are curious and motivated to perceive this reality in all its horror AND in all its possibility, to name our values, and to live ever more authentically and prophetically as people of faith in the here and now.  We believe that God’s spirit is as active as ever in the lives of our faith communities and our neighborhoods.  We want to accompany faith communities as they embrace this reality in informed, pro-active ways – not just reactive ways.  

What is your reality these days?  How are you being called to be a beacon of God’s light to your neighbors in this moment… within and beyond COVID?  Please join us on October 14 for a community exploration of these questions as we seek to view our realities and God’s invitations with new eyes.  Register here.