It’s been two years since this COVID-19 thing started rolling. Two years ago right now it wasn’t on my radar, because it hadn’t started to blow up yet … but it was lurking in the corner. When the pandemic really started rolling, it was a lot of sick people, and people were dying, and even though folks were admitted to the hospital, where miracles of healing were supposed to take place, it just wasn’t working like we all thought it should.

The medical and scientific communities were more surprised than any of us – and are still baffled – as this new mystery thing keeps eluding us! So we masked up and washed up and holed up. We took amazing steps to slow the train, and it just keeps rumbling along.

I am not proposing an answer or assigning blame, and I am not faulting either how this thing has been handled or pointing fingers at who did or didn’t do whatever they did or didn‘t do. The facts are that people got sick and people died – still are getting sick and dying. Not everyone has gotten sick – not even most of us – and not many of those who got sick have died, but it’s still significant, and it just keeps rumbling along.

The vaccine is here now, and masks are plentiful and toilet paper is always available, and fears and theories seem to be more commonly available than ever as well, and today I’m suggesting that the most far reaching repercussion of the pandemic has not been the toilet paper shortage or the false information that seems to be in no short supply, but in our disruption to community.

I know the powers that be have our best interest at heart – whether or not I agree with them and their conclusions – so we’ve cancelled sports in school, banned attendance at professional games, cancelled huge cultural parties and holidays, and quit hugging spontaneously. Weddings and funerals were anathema, family parties and dinners of any sort were discouraged, and I even read an extensive article on how to have COVID-safe sex… as if there’s actually a way to pull that one off.

And church took a hit. We followed the COVID directives at Cedar – not as closely as some wanted, and way closer than others thought was necessary – and there have been some really divided opinions on how we should have been reacting in the church community as a whole. Some think we should have totally and noisily bucked any government strictures on gathering, while some thought we should have totally locked our doors and waited until any threat of sickness abated – kind of like staying in the ark until the waters have totally receded before we venture back out again.

But we needed to be together, no matter what! And to prove this point – totally aside from church and sports and other large public gatherings – some reports tell us that people have resorted to addictions and suicide to cope with their separation anxieties. We need each other. We always have, and we always will. And when we’re separated, neither of us does well!

So let me focus on church, and here’s my thing: I don’t think our church community issues just started with COVID. I think we’ve not defined well, and then practiced well, for a very long time – longer than my lifetime – and COVID has only exacerbated our gathering issues. Forgive me as I make some broad generalities that are not meant to single out any individual or denomination.

I grew up in a fairly conservative church group with some fairly solid Biblical standards and teachings, and I’m saying that we’ve done two things with church – 1) we’ve made it too important, and 2) we’ve not made it important enough! By saying that, what I mean is that we’ve made “going to church” the important definition of church – we’ve made it about a building to be in and an event to attend, rather than a relationship to both contribute to and receive from. Our English word ‘church’ represents a Greek concept of hearing an invitation – the call to gather – and responding to that call by gathering. And the gathering has purpose beyond the building or the event being promoted or presented.

I enjoy a good show, and I’m turned off by a bad performance. But when the purpose of my gathering is for a good show and a great performance, I’ve missed the point, because, at that point, I’m all about entertainment, and where God’s concerned, that’s not the point! I suggest that we’ve gotten performing and showing off all mixed up with responding to the Holy Spirit as He calls us to gather with Him for some really great fellowship with God and our church family.

I’m planning to church in the Cedar Big Room on Sunday at about 10:40 a.m., and expand my churching to some folks on-line about 11:00, and I’m planning to church over dinner at Dinner Church on Thursday, and I’m hoping to church with some brothers in the man-cave for a few hours this week, as we challenge each other on how we’re following Jesus. We need each other, and I sure hope you get a chance to church as well!