Holding it Together

On Monday night I jumped on (yet, another) Zoom call. It is beginning to feel as though I will be spending more and more time on video-conferencing software in the coming weeks. The Monday night call was a time for clergy colleagues to come together and offer support to one another as we navigate the new ministry fields we were thrust into without much if any warning.

The overwhelming sentiment I heard from the call and that I have shared in other conversations is that social distancing, resulting in no longer being able to worship in the same building or gather around the same table for Bible study, has caused many to feel as though they alone are holding their community together. This panic has lead clergy, church workers, and volunteers to feel as though every single ministry and opportunity for discipleship and ministry that was offered before the COVID-19 pandemic swept across our communities must continue in this new online ministry field we find ourselves in.

I understand the sentiment. I really do. When I began working with teenagers I was a programming addict. I over-programmed my ministry and thus over-committed myself to the point where the ministry and I felt burned out.

My good friend, Rev. Drew Colby, made the observation that maybe, just maybe, this time of social distancing is an opportunity to set re-evaluate the over-programmed ministries and social programs our local churches have stretched to maintain. Drew is not suggesting that we end Bible studies or neglect those on the margins of our communities. What I think Drew was getting at is that the fluff, and if we’re being honest there is fluff in every church, we hold onto and maintain at the cost of others’ time with their families and responsibilities outside walls of the church might be able to be set aside during this time of COVID-19 social distancing.

Clergy, church staff, and church leaders have been working tirelessly over the past week trying their best to hold their communities of faith together - initiating a brand new worship service in a matter of days, figuring out how to conduct pastoral visits, on top of the day-to-day real-life stuff that happens in local congregations. This has led to many clergy to view themselves as being the one who has to do it all. The one to plan, record, edit, and publish worship. The one to plan, coordinate, and lead every Bible study. The one to do every single care phone call. The one to run errands for every person over 65 who cannot leave their home.

If we’re being honest with ourselves this is neither sustainable or fair the communities we are called to care for. It is not up to us, the clergy or paid church staff, to hold the church together. We can lean into one another, lean into the people God has called to our communities. This a chance for us to identify new leaders within the community and invite them, for this period of time, to step forward and care for others. This is a time when the church can be the church, setting aside the fluff we have added to the life of the church, and be a community that is caring for the least of these in a time when the least are the ones still going to work, stocking the shelves, and feeding our families.

All of this is done, not through anything we do, but rather in Christ and through God’s Spirit.

In his letter to the Colossians, Saint Paul wrote, “He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the one who is firstborn from among the dead so that he might occupy the first place in everything.”

Christ as the head of the church is holding us together. We can lean into Christ, knowing the yoke we carry as clergy is not ours to hold on our own.

There’s no holding together to be done. We are held together. Christ our Lord is holding each of us, each community, the Church universal, and all of creation.