Hello Church Family,
Seems like yesterday that we sent a COVID-19 update to you all. Time moves differently these days, or at least the way meaning coheres around time's passage. At our last communication in January we set some targets and timelines that need revisiting and clarifying, the most pressing of those being the practice of universal masking. Our COVID-19 Advisory Team met on February 20th and brings the following recommendations…
Our plan is to remove all COVID-19 restrictions on March 13th.
That is almost two years to the week since this plague started. Given the state of the virus, the arrival of vaccines and therapeutics, and the state of regional hospital capacity (taking into account probable trends heading into March), we believe our church community is ready to make the transition out of universal COVID-19 protocols. Masking will become optional for all adults and kids in all spaces, physical distancing will slowly shift as our comfort levels acclimate, and leadership will focus on helping our community adjust to these realities and the attending emotions they will elicit. Change is always destabilizing, even when it is potentially relieving. We can do this with low anxiety by staying curious about reactions to this shift and generous in how we respond to those reactions. There will be no definitive flipped switch or set of data that tells institutions like ours that the world is safe again (it never was anyway) or that COVID-19 is no longer a concern. Time has simply ripened, such that a confluence of factors has created an opening to act, to unwind restrictions, and to move back toward one another as embodied creatures.
Throughout this entire ordeal, we have all had shared trauma but with various levels of impact and suffering. Some of us are more than ready to shed masks and embrace again. Others will be more cautious during this emergence season. There is no right or wrong way to feel right now, and we each have our own risks and responsibilities that impact our decisions. We have been through a lot, and the residual effects will take time to understand and integrate. Life is different. We are different. We have nurtured curiosity and generosity as core postures for our church community as we continually discerned how to best care for one another. Curiosity has allowed us to stay present to one another through diverse experiences and reactions. Generosity has reminded us that we have something to offer in each moment. The gifts we each have carried and shared have sustained our church through this storm, and if we maintain these postures, they will guide us into the future.
I have borrowed an image of our church as an island of sanity in a chaotic world. Through each stage of this plague we have practiced our faith together, seeing what it is made of in these days of struggle. While the world fractured into feuding camps of antagonism and pride, we chose a different way. Because of this, I believe that unwinding our COVID-19 practices as a church will once again provide a sane community of practice. I would much rather get used to this awkward dance of shifting practices with you all than strangers in the grocery store or a PTA meeting! We have come to trust one another deeply. We will need that trust to navigate this next step together.
God made us for connection and belonging, values that cannot be fully experienced if the main concern is how our bodies might endanger one another. We have soul work to do, healing work to do, and that requires us to begin unfolding our arms and unlacing our hearts. We must become people capable of embracing one another more fully. I believe we are ready. See you on the other side.
Less without you,
Pastor John Jay in partnership with the leadership of First Baptist Church of Pasadena
*Special thanks to the COVID-19 Advisory Team for all of their hard work and prayerful wisdom these two years.