Dear Emmanuel Family,
This morning I have been thinking about the phrase, “The New Normal.” If the truth be told, it’s a euphemism we use when we are experiencing some kind of loss: The unknowns ahead that are being faced by someone who has just begun her cancer treatment, or the grief one is experiencing in the wake of the death of a loved one, or the dread one feels when he finds out he has lost his job, or the emptiness we know when we’ve been abandoned by someone who we once called friend, are all times when I have heard people speaking about their “new normal.”
Yet here’s the thing: we experience these new normals as being entirely abnormal. They are a sudden dislocation from what we had come to know as normal. It’s not normal at all; and it may not ever feel normal. But it is real and it needs to be dealt with in ways more meaningful than pronouncing it normal or worse yet, good. You know: “The dog died last week, my neighbor is filing a law suit against us, our son and his wife are divorcing, and on top of all of this I just lost my job, but . . . it’s all good.”
No! It’s not “all good” and it’s far from normal.
While the ever deepening isolation we are being called to as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic may be a reality we need to accept, it is not a normal to which I want to accommodate. I hope we are able to reconnect in person soon. But until that green light is given, we are working at finding ways to both join with the fight in preventing the transmission of this disease by keeping our distance from one another, and at the same time adopting new ways of staying in touch.
We’re well on the way with our new worship format. Over 70 virtual sanctuaries came together in the same place to worship this past week, and in many of those “sanctuaries” there were gatherings of more than one person using the same computer or tablet or phone. On Monday night our session used the Zoom platform for its monthly meeting. We could even break up into three groups in virtual break out rooms so that each of our session commissions could discuss their particular issues. So we are not neglecting to meet together, but we can get better at this and there are additional ways we can connect using Zoom.
What if we were to form groups of folks during the week to encourage one another through scripture, prayer and fellowship? It’s not difficult and it’s free on Zoom as long as you keep your meeting to 40 minutes. If you are interested in pulling together a group or being a part of a group that meets in this way on Zoom, shoot me an email (daver@epcbothell.org). I’d be glad to train folks to use Zoom and also prepare a weekly devotional for you to use as a group. The material I prepare will probably make use of the Psalms and be concise enough to both fit within the Zoom time limit of 40 minutes and allow for the needed time of informal conversation these groups would require. Of course you don’t need me to make this happen, but I want you to know that I am available and will help to “grease the skids” to get this going.
What is normal to me is being a pastor. I want to keep at that calling in whatever ways I can during this abnormal time. The tools I need to use to do this work right now are not normal. So bear with me, work with me, let me know what’s on your mind and let’s together find ways to meet together and encourage one another.
Dave
3/25/2020