COVID-19 Archives | The FaithX Project

Apr 22 2021

Navigating the Info Maze

One of my clients called the other day. The leadership of the congregation was trying to sort out how to reopen safely. Did people really need to register to come to church? How would they make sure they were staying 6ft apart? What would they do about people who didn’t want to wear a mask? How would they distribute communion? Every time they settled on an answer for one thing, another would pop up. They navigated their way through Sunday worship and then turned their attention to the upcoming list of long put off funerals. How many people could attend a funeral? Would it be live streamed? What to do about the traditional funeral lunch?

These are just a few examples of the many challenges facing congregations today. And, of course, congregations are made up of individuals who have a wide range of opinions, information, and experiences. My mother-in-law called a few days ago. She has some underlying health conditions and her doctor had advised her to wait on getting the vaccine. But she, like many of us, is anxious to get out and see friends, and to resume something like the life she used to have. So, she had just decided to get the J&J vaccine because there have been fewer side effects when the news came out that it was being paused because of a rare but dangerous side effect. She was devastated. On the other side of the spectrum, a business owner I know posted on Facebook that she doesn’t even own a mask; that we all need to overcome our fears and limitations in order to overcome this situation. Really?

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Dec 17 2020

New Year, Same Challenges. Follow the Light!

We couldn’t have imagined we’d still be here last March. No, we couldn’t have imagined then that we would still be here now but here we are physically distanced, doing drive-through worship, showing up on Zoom, Facebook Live, and YouTube. And, somehow, some way…by the grace of God, it’s working, it’s all working. And it needs to keep working for quite some time.

Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time talking with a public health expert. Someone who lives in the world of exposures and workplace safety. Someone who has no skin in the game except to keep people safe. He said hunker down. The worst is yet to come. We have another 9-12 months ahead of us before we can feel safe gathering in groups indoors. A year?! Another year? We definitely didn’t see that coming last March!

But maybe that news could be freeing. Rather than looking ahead for each corner we need to turn in order to go back to the way things were before, what if we let go of that and just focus on what’s ahead, focus on the new year? What if we dove into the next year with creativity, energy, grace, and adaptability without worrying about being in our buildings? Could this be our best year of ministry yet?

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Dec 03 2020

Announcing our 2021 Webinars (Part 1)

Co-sponsored by Gathering of Leaders and Episcopal Church Foundation

After ending 2020 on a high note (our webinar on Covid-19 Impact and Recovery Planning sold out!), we are announcing our webinar schedule through June and our webinar topics through April.

As always, we remain open to your suggestions and requests (submit to info@faithx.net).

Here is our webinar schedule through May 2020:

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Oct 22 2020

Advent During Covid: Thinking Ahead

By Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant

Ever since the first Christmas in my first call, I have had the urge to downsize Christmas. The hustle, the bustle, the ever earlier decorating and store sales always feel like too much distraction from the reason for the season. And yet, the Church has, for centuries, had a built-in time of prayer and contemplation to counter the commercialization of Christmas. Advent, started in the middle ages and associated with the second coming of Christ, was more like Lent for Christmas. Fasting, prayer, and silence were hallmarks of this pre-Christmas season. The emphasis of Advent has shifted to a time of preparation for Christmas, a time of holy waiting for the Christ child. We wait to celebrate the birth of Christ; we also wait for all that is yet to come. When we jump past Advent to rush into Christmas, we skip over the invitation to look deep into the darkness of our world, of our lives, before we embrace the light.

It’s okay to admit it, there is a lot of darkness right now. Nothing is alright and nothing is easy. Sending our kids to school is fraught with danger, going to work can put you on the front lines as an essential worker, and to think of going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house for the holidays is just about out of the question. Fights over mask wearing, racial tensions, protests, violence and counter violence. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. We are not alright. So maybe what we really need right now as we look to the holidays is less Christmas and more Advent. We need to take time out to acknowledge the darkness that surrounds us, we need to look deep into the darkness and own our part in it. We need to grieve – the loss of loved ones, the changes in our world, the chaos and the confusion. Not for the first time in our history but definitely for this time in our history, we need space, we need silence, we need time to mourn before we take time to celebrate. What if we didn’t push it all aside for the sake of Christmas but instead we embraced it and reflected on it because of Christmas, because of the reason for the season, because God so loved the world…that he sent his son….for us.

What does it look like to truly practice Advent? Certainly, Advent will look different for each community but here are a few ideas to get you started:

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Oct 08 2020

Engaging in Life and Ministry “Beyond Covid”

by Steve Matthews

What now? How long? What’s next? As a country we are in our 8^th month of this pandemic. We continue to protest/ explore/ address/ ignore our racial inequities. The west coast burns, and we round the alphabet on hurricane names in the gulf and Atlantic. Next month we will have a critical election for federal, state, and local leadership… and then there is the Supreme Court. There’s probably more, but suffice it to say, we have our hands more than full.

What does it mean to “be” church in the middle of all of this? It’s no wonder people yearn to get back into their church buildings and to return to “normal.” For many of us, these buildings represent a sense of belonging, beauty, safety, hope. These are places where we have experienced community and God’s love fleshed out. This is where many of us feel inspired and strengthened for the journey.

But here we are, and how are we as people of faith called to show up in this “now?” How do we look at our world in ways that help us move beyond reaction?

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