Call for All Churches to go Digital This week
Over the weekend the global pandemic of COVid-19 intensified in the United States as it is in so many nations of the world. I know that many of our congregations pivoted swiftly out of an abundance of love and caution and made changes to weekend worship and other in person gatherings. Many of you were able to move to digital platforms, and the rest of you need to do so this week. It is better to migrate to digital spaces than to cancel if at all possible.
As Pastor of the East Coast Conference, charged by you with regional pastoral responsibility to care for all of our churches, and our witness to the world, it is my urgent counsel and recommendation that for the sake of love of neighbor and our witness as a Church that every congregation take heed to follow the guidance of the CDC, their own State Department of Public Health, and local municipal authorities guidelines.
In most places as of today this looks like limiting in person gatherings to 25 persons or less, with social distancing and sanitary protocols in place to mitigate risks of virus transmission. We do this for the sake of the most at risk among us out of love of neighbor.
Leveraging available and affordable digital meeting technologies, even for small groups, implies that many meetings between 7-25 persons can easily migrate to these platforms, and therefore should do so if at all possible.
It is my perspective that we will need to do this for the next few months, until we can “flatten the curve” as a society. For your church, at the present, I advise you to begin to think about creating a new normal platform that can serve your mission and congregation for at least the next 100 days – through June 30. If this is too long we can easily back out of it – but over planning will not have the same penalty as under planning may.
The Kingdom of God is advancing in the world, even in the midst of this pandemic. As agents of blessing, and as “salt and light” we serve with divine comfort and hope.