“What Happens When Americans Can Finally Exhale?” is an
article by Ed Yong in
The Atlantic magazine. He articulates what I have been advising for months: coming out of a pandemic can be more challenging and dangerous than going into one.
As vaccination rates increase and COVID deaths decline, public health and other civil authorities are relaxing the restrictions we have lived with for the past 15 months. As of July 1, all COVID restrictions regarding masking, distancing, capacity limits, and other safety measures will be lifted. Already, many churches and businesses are returning to full, in-person operations. But Yong writes that we aren’t returning to “normal.” It’s not like we can just push the “play” button after having pressed “pause” over a year ago.
The pandemic has changed us. For many, the experience has been traumatic in the clinical sense of the word: we have lost loved ones, or been victims of serious illness, or lost jobs. For others, the trauma has been less obvious but no less serious. After months of suppressing our feelings of anxiety and grief just to get by, reducing our vigilance can allow them all to surface: “People put their heads down and do what they have to do, but suddenly, when there’s an opening, all these feelings come up,” Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, the founder and director of the Trauma Stewardship Institute, says in Yong’s article. According to Lipsky, “As hard as the initial trauma is, it’s the aftermath that destroys people.”
According to other sources, the pandemic has occasioned spikes in divorce, depression, and teen suicide. These remain elevated as the pandemic eases. On a societal level, the pandemic has eroded the factors that help people cope with collective chronic trauma: confidence in authorities, a sense of belonging, and community solidarity. Instead, “It reduced trust in institutions, separated people from their loved ones, and widened political divisions. It was something of a self-reinforcing disaster, exacerbating the conditions that make recovery harder,” writes Yong.
However, the church is especially well suited to providing these very gifts and resources. We offer faith in God, and a community of belonging and care. But are we prepared to extend these to those outside our own fellowship, especially when so many in our fellowship are hurting too?
The equipping time at our Presbytery meeting on June 8 will be addressing the theme of “Congregational Vitality in a Post-COVID Church.” We will have a panel discussion featuring four forward-thinking leaders in our presbytery: Christina Jensen, Andrew Pomerville, Matt Schramm, and Chris Wolf. We will be asking questions like, “How has COVID changed us as a church?”; “What can we learn from the experience of pandemic for our worship and mission?”; “What has been the impact of COVID on pastoral and lay leaders?”; and “How can the Presbytery help churches thrive in a post-COVID ‘new normal’?” These are important questions for all our churches to consider.
The equipping time will follow our opening worship service and is open to all church members. Advance registration is required.
Faithfully,
Dan Saperstein, Executive Presbyter
