I am the fabled, unbridled optimist. For some reason, the sun always seems to be shining where I live. The grass appears green on both sides of the yard. The sky is perpetually blue. And the clouds have a relentless silver lining.

And yet, in full honesty, I’m feeling the loss.

It’s weird; I should feel fine, right? I haven’t lost a loved one, my job or my chance at an Olympic gold medal because of COVID-19. So, why do I feel the loss?

The loss I feel

I am feeling the loss of expression on everyone’s faces, now that the mask mandates have truly taken effect. I’m feeling the loss of nearness, now that even my close friends have been routinely socially distant. I’m feeling the loss of nonchalant shopping, without being directed by the not-so-subtle signs to sanitize my hands … again.

I truly wish these examples were all I’ve experienced, but there are so many more losses than these.

I’m feeling the loss of the 2020 graduation ceremonies for the recent graduates. I’m feeling the loss of once-common courtesies, like hearing “God bless you” after a sneeze, instead of hearing an unsettling silence followed by the shuffling of feet heading toward the exit.

I’m feeling the loss of traveling overseas. After all, we had to trade in our 15-year wedding anniversary trip for a stay-home order to shelter in place.

Some readers may think I’m just being a crybaby. And, maybe I am. But even for those of us who have not experienced extreme loss in this season of challenge, I think everyone is feeling a low-grade form of unprocessed anxiety.

Identifying and processing loss

We need to identify the losses we are feeling and process them in a healthy manner. We cannot make helpful modifications to our lives if we have not honestly come to grips with the specific areas of loss brought on by this pandemic.

One meme I recently snickered at on social media read: “Please check on your extroverted friends. They are not OK!”

The losses we feel are not all the same, but we all, in some way, are experiencing loss. Hugs for some may be optional, but hugs for another may be essential.

Counting your blessings before counting your burdens is a wonderful joy-giving practice, but we may all, eternal optimists included, need to sit down and clear the air on what really is bothering us about COVID-19.

An Old Testament model

Habakkuk, an Old Testament prophet, modeled this practice of honest assessment when he wrote: “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

Habakkuk was not unwilling to pinpoint challenges and face reality, but he ultimately recognizes God’s salvation as superior and chooses joy in the Divine instead of sadness in the situation.

It’s good news for us that Habakkuk’s, Jeremiah’s and the psalmists’ laments are included in the Bible. This tells us our laments are sacred, too, and are utterable to God. I encourage you to write down a list of your laments—the things generating anxiety and/or a sense of loss throughout these days, weeks and months. Then, ask God to sit with you as you tell God each one and how you feel about them.

Along with the psalmist of old, I ask: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 43:5).

Biblically, the feelings of loss we are experiencing because of COVID-19 are, in the end, insufficient to withstand the gathering delight all who “hope in God” will experience one day in Jesus our Savior.

In this season of difficulty, let’s feel the loss and see the Savior.

Joshua Gilmore is the director of Baptist Collegiate Ministries at North Greenville University in Tigerville, S.C. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

(RNS)—This summer one of my closest friends quit speaking to me. For decades we’ve leaned on each other, traded parenting advice and sung in church together. Now we’re at an impasse … over Donald Trump. She can’t understand how I can challenge her support for his re-election.

“I just don’t get you anymore,” she said when we finally talked. “We’ve always agreed about the important things. Can’t you see the Democrats are trying to turn us into socialists and make it harder for us to practice our faith?”

“I don’t get you either,” I responded. “Can’t you see that Donald Trump’s dishonesty and narcissism are the opposite of everything we value in a leader?

To save our relationship, we’ve agreed that for the first time in decades we won’t discuss politics.

Teaching my daughters

I’m having similar struggles with my children, but for the opposite reason. When one of my millennial daughters, who proudly displays a “Black Lives Matter” sign in her front yard, grew distant recently, I asked her, “Have I done something to upset you?”

“Yes, you have,” she said. “When we come over for dinner and discuss our passion about racial justice and economic inequality, you push back, focusing on what you think we’re missing. Can’t you just affirm the good things we embrace?”

Of course, I can, and I should. But I thought my children understood that one of the ways I’ve tried to protect them is to point out the lies and distortions I see in any political ideology.

When they were young and wanted to watch primetime TV shows, we had an agreement. “You can watch,” I’d say, “as long as when it’s over you play the truth and lies game with me.” That meant they had to develop the critical thinking skills to catch the deceptions woven through their entertainment.

“Do you really believe lasting love is born out of a lusty one-night fling?” I’d ask my girls after we had watched a sex-saturated sitcom together.

Or “Do you think it’s true that living in that big mansion with all those fancy cars will finally make those people happy?”

“Oh Mom,” they’d say, “you spoil all the fun.”

Learning to discern

“Truth and lies” is a game I taught myself as a young girl to survive the delusions of my alcoholic father and mentally ill mother. After nasty family meltdowns, I’d slip upstairs to my bedroom, close the door, and whisper to myself in the dark, “Someone in this house is crazy and I don’t think it’s me.”

In his bestselling 1978 book “The Road Less Traveled,” psychologist Scott Peck defines mental health as “an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.”

When I left home for college, I was determined to sort reality from lies, so I chose journalism as a major. For decades, I’ve been paid to dig for reality, expose hidden lies, and challenge the status quo.

Now, as lethal fights over political differences break out in our city streets, the stakes for “Truth and Lies” get higher and higher. It seems my circle of family and friends are digging in against their opponents, turning blind eyes to the poisons in their own parties. Caught in the middle, I feel paralyzed between two alternate realities. About the only thing we can all agree on is if the “other side” wins, the wheels are coming off the bus.

That’s what Trump and Biden told us in their conventions—that a vote for the other will send democracy down in flames. I watched both candidates and got a serious case of psychological whiplash. Sorting through the conflicting narratives left me exhausted, and whispering in the dark again, “Someone in this house is crazy and I don’t think it’s me.”

My conscience

The only revolution I’ve ever joined was in college: A group of student activists introduced me to its radical leader, Jesus, not far from the university tower displaying one of his best-known quotes: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

I still belong to this group, but a lot of my brothers and sisters seem to have pledged loyalty to Donald Trump. I don’t get it. I see little trace of our radical leader in Trump, who divides, enflames and stokes chaos in the streets. Under Trump’s leadership, a deadly pandemic has spun out of control and the center has collapsed.

Some Christians excuse his sins because he also throws bones our way and brazenly caters to our faith, like raising a Bible, upside down, in a photo op. I’m conflicted, because many of the policies he champions are important to me too: freedom of expression, protection of the unborn, limited government and now, “law and order.”

I’d still rather have Joe Biden over for dinner. He seems like an emotionally stable family man who genuinely cares for people who are marginalized. But the revolution he heads is being hijacked by what columnist Andrew Sullivan calls “mobs of wokesters” who demand the rest of us join their radical movement or risk being “cancelled” or re-educated.

My decision in this election might have been easier had Biden not made the dramatic shift with his party from making abortion safe, legal and rare to unrestricted through the second and third trimesters. You don’t even have to believe in a higher power to find that morally untenable.

Weighing my vote

As we barrel toward Election Day, I’m weighing each party’s values against the revolution I long ago pledged allegiance to. The Democrats elevate values consistent with my faith regarding race, justice and the environment; the Republicans on the sanctity of life and human sexuality.

Choosing between the lesser of two evils is such a struggle, that I’ve considered staying home November 3rd.

I ran that idea by some close friends from college several weeks ago after we had kayaked together.

“You mean you wouldn’t vote?” my friend Peter asked.

“I’m not sure I can without violating my conscience,” I said.

“That’s a total copout,” he shot back. “It’s your duty as a citizen. If you don’t vote, you should just move to another country.”

My children think opting out in November would make me a hypocrite. When they were young, at bedtime when I tucked them in, I’d ask God to shape them into strong women who would engage the world for good.

Today the youngest is a pastor in Dallas, helping people sort truth from lies. Her older sister became a federal public defender, fighting to move the needle on racism in the criminal justice system.

My millennial daughters and their husbands have so internalized the core values of Jesus’ revolution that now I hear echoes of it in their own words to their growing toddlers: “Don’t give up … be strong and courageous … be kind to your brother.”

If I do step into the voting booth this November, I’ll reflect on those words. I’m not confident my vote can slow the unraveling of the democracy I love. Maybe my greatest investment in the future is to teach my grandchildren how to play the game that saved my life.

Peggy Wehmeyer, a former religion correspondent for ABC NEWS, is a writer living in Dallas. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

An elderly man fidgets against the wrist and ankle restraints of his ICU bed, mentally “altered” and not comprehending what is happening in his delirium. No visitors. He pleads with me: “Can you stay? I wish I had someone who could sit here with me and be nice.”

Down the hall, a woman in her 80s cuddles a teddy bear as she recovers from a complication from brain surgery, cut off from her brother and sister. They are all that remains of her social support. She has been in the hospital for almost a month. “I’m running out of faith,” she says.

Working as a hospital chaplain on the gerontology team has given me another understanding of the truth God spoke in the beginning, that it is not good for people to be alone (Genesis 2:18).

I am not talking about a newly formed mud man yearning for a helper, but a whole demographic of society in desperate need of a host of champions to care for them in a unique isolation.

Social isolation and loneliness

Research among people aged 65 and older in our communities shows they endure multiple variations of loss—relationships, senses, motor function, cognitive capabilities, independence, etc.—and chronic diseases such as heart failure, kidney disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and dementia, arthritis and chronic pain, among others.

The suffering that stems from social isolation and/or loneliness often is not screened during routine clinic visits.

Social isolation often is defined as having minimal or no contact with other people in a physical sense and/or social sense, even if virtually. Loneliness is the perceived absence of meaningful or intimate relationships.

Social isolation and loneliness by no means are issues exclusive to older members of society. We all can empathize with the sting of feeling alone, even when in a crowd. The statistics regarding these issues in the geriatric population, however, are considerable.

Statistics and effects

Some studies have found as much as 15-20 percent of older adults experience social or emotional isolation from others for an extended period of time. Included within this statistic are those who live in skilled or assisted living facilities and retirement communities.

A study within a senior living facility found 60 percent of the residents felt like they lacked companionship some or most of the time.

Troubling correlations exist between social isolation and loneliness and a person’s well-being. A study in 2018 found “individuals who are socially isolated have been found to be at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, stroke, depression, dementia and premature death.” One poignant finding: loneliness is a predictor of suicide in people aged 65 and older.

Cultural factors concerning social isolation and loneliness are more complex. Many may not be willing to admit they feel lonely because of a negative stigma attached to loneliness or being perceived as “weak.” In addition, American and Western societies tend to fear or shun old age, adding to isolation and loneliness among older individuals.

COVID-19 as a reminder

Now, countless people are learning how prolonged separation from community affects their physical, emotional and spiritual health. In a time of social and physical distancing, creativity is a necessity in maintaining meaningful relationships.

Hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities designed to care for the sick and elderly are prohibiting visitors for their protection. For more than six months, my own family has tried to make do seeing my grandmother from outside her window. At multiple points during the pandemic, her situation, like many others, has been like living in solitary confinement.

Another way of looking at this situation is to see it as a reminder of what already has been there for decades, staring us in the face. Social isolation and loneliness did not crop up with COVID-19.

The isolation and loneliness of old age long has been expressed in questions like: “What legacy am I leaving behind? How have I spent my precious years? Am I now nothing more than a burden to my family? What is my purpose? Has God forgotten me?”

Pondering these questions is uncomfortable. Having even more time to dwell on them while quarantined can be tortuous.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I ask you to imagine yourself in the hospital bed or nursing home during this time. How would you want your church to relieve your suffering?

The challenge

It is time to stretch our creative muscles a little further. It will take more than a couple of people from the congregation visiting “shut-ins” every few weeks. The challenge before us demands relentless intentionality, stemming from the love of God found in each of us, in the effort of building a culture that lives and breathes inclusiveness found in true community.

All areas are fair game for change, including how technology, music, written word, social media and other mediums are used to establish hearty individual and group relationships. By so doing, we may gain a fresh understanding of what it means to live by the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31).

Why is this important? Because the “Silver Tsunami” is happening. This is the influx of Baby Boomers reaching geriatric age. Soon, the number of geriatric people in the nation will surpass those aged 18 and younger. No matter how strong a support system any given person may have, that is a lot of lonely people.

This pandemic provides an opportunity for us to step back and evaluate our situations in different ways. We still have a chance to alter the pattern of isolation and loneliness experienced by so many of our elderly loved ones.

Sara Long is a hospital chaplain, finishing a clinical pastoral education fellowship program at a level 1 trauma hospital and specializing in pastoral care to geriatric patients and their families. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

“Let the children come to me. Do not stop them. For the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it” (Matthew 19:13-15, Mark 10:13-16 and Luke 18:15-17).

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself in tears and on my knees, seeking the mercy of God to right a wrong. As a devoted mother and grandmother, I am in disbelief at the treatment of families and their children who come to us seeking asylum.

We know Jesus loves children. In the Gospels, we are reminded Jesus was displeased with his disciples and rebuked them for restricting the children access.

Advocates for children coming to America

Earlier this month, I participated in a virtual conference, Immigration Summit 2020: A Path Forward for New American Children.

The leadership team consisted of the organization’s CEO, Robert Sanborn, in addition to Yael Ross, the director of the Center for New American Children. The summit was hosted by Children at Risk, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to addressing the root causes of poor public policies affecting children.

The opening speaker was Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. For those of us working in or following immigration issues, she simply is known as “Sister Norma.”

I have had the blessing of visiting with and supporting Sister Norma’s work. I think of her as “Texas’ version of Mother Teresa.” She has spent many years working at the border, providing love and essentials to children and families seeking asylum in the United States.

Conditions in border camps

Sister Norma gave an account of the deplorable conditions in the camps south of the border following Hurricane Hanna in late July. Under the “Remain in Mexico” policy, asylum seekers have been waiting months for their opportunity for a hearing on their asylum request. Both the stories and photos were heartbreaking.

In her words, “It is horrible …” She described the destroyed camps and the invasion of snakes, rats, spiders and mosquitos. Mothers stood guard outside their zippered tents to safeguard their children from larger, more dangerous human predators. She also noted there is a growing threat of dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases.

A different kind of undocumented

Later in the summit, I learned of another unthinkable situation: unaccompanied children crossing into the United States, then taken to hotels by contractors of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to await return to their countries of origin.

It was shocking to learn these children never were recorded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department Health and Human Services. Nor were they allowed their legal right to apply for asylum.

I questioned if this was possible and permissible. Could children be taken alone and housed in hotels without appropriate and qualified supervision, such as a parent or a trained social worker? Surely, there are laws in place for the protection of minor children who present themselves to a border guard. Surely, this was a “one-off” case.

I pulled up a fact sheet from the American Immigration Council to make certain I had a clear understanding of the law.

According to the sheet, Customs and Border Patrol “must transfer unaccompanied children to the custody of ORR within 72 hours ‘except in the case of exceptional circumstances.’” CBP and ORR are required to document every person in their custody. Yet, this isn’t happening for untold numbers of unaccompanied minors crossing the border.

I learned, much to my horror, about a case of two cousins aged 16 and 13 who were kept secretly in a hotel. Joel Rose, a correspondent on NPR’s National Desk, reported their story. According to court documents, “unaccompanied minors have been held secretly in hotels for days, sometimes weeks,” until they can be returned home.

The reason given for this practice is “to protect public health during the pandemic.”

Where Christians can get involved

I understand immigration is an emotional issue. I am hoping Christians will read Scripture, pray and let the Holy Spirit guide their thoughts and address their fears.

Children love without regard to personal interests, color, creed or financial well-being. I believe that is why Christ says, “Anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

Please join me in taking the Evangelical Immigration Table’s 40-day I was a Stranger Challenge. Allow Scripture to guide us to learn more about God’s heart for immigrants.

Leviticus 19:33-34 was the Scripture that pierced my heart and drove me to repentance in 2009. See where Scripture lead you.

Brenda Kirk is the south central regional mobilizer for the National Immigration Forum and Evangelical Immigration Table. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

(RNS)—It’s a rough time to be a pastor. An election year, national racial unrest and a global pandemic each challenged the usual methods of ministry. Taken together, many church leaders are facing the traditional post-vacation ingathering season with a serious case of burnout.

But there’s another challenge pastors I spoke with say is on the rise in their flocks. It is taking on the power of a new religion dividing churches and hurting Christian witness.

Mark Fugitt, senior pastor of Round Grove Baptist Church in Miller, Mo., recently sat down to count the conspiracy theories people in his church are sharing on Facebook. The list was long. It included claims that 5G radio waves are used for mind control; George Floyd’s murder is a hoax; Bill Gates is related to the devil; masks can kill you; the germ theory isn’t real; and there might be something to Pizzagate after all.

“You don’t just see it once,” said Fugitt. “If there’s ever anything posted, you’ll see it five to 10 times. It’s escalating for sure.”

The rise of QAnon

Conspiracy theories—grand narratives that seek to prove powerful actors are secretly controlling events and institutions for evil purposes—are nothing new in the United States. But since 2017, a sort of ur-conspiracy theory, QAnon, has coalesced in online forums and created millions of believers. “To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion,” wrote Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic in June.

Named after “Q,” who posts anonymously on the online bulletin board 4chan, QAnon alleges President Donald Trump and military officials are working to expose a “deep state” pedophile ring with links to Hollywood, the media and the Democratic Party. Since its first mention some three years ago, the theory has drawn adherents looking for a clear way to explain recent disorienting global events.

Once the fascination of far-right commentators and their followers, QAnon no longer is fringe. With support from Trump and other elected officials, it has gained credibility both on the web and in the offline world. In Georgia, a candidate for Congress has praised Q as “a mythical hero,” and at least five other congressional hopefuls from Illinois to Oregon have voiced support.

One scholar found a 71 percent increase in QAnon content on Twitter and a 651 percent increase on Facebook since March.

QAnon shared by church goers

Jon Thorngate is the pastor at LifeBridge, a nondenominational church of about 300 in a Milwaukee suburb. In recent months, he said, his members have shared “Plandemic,” a half-hour film that presents COVID-19 as a moneymaking scheme by government officials and others, on Facebook. Members also have passed around a now-banned Breitbart video that promotes hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the virus.

Thorngate, one of the few pastors who would go on the record among those who called QAnon a real problem in their churches, said only five to 10 members are actually posting the videos online. But in conversations with other members, he’s realized many more are open to conspiracy theories than those who post.

Thorngate attributes the phenomenon in part to the “death of expertise”—a distrust of authority figures that leads some Americans to undervalue long-established measures of competency and wisdom. Among some church members, he said, the attitude is, “I’m going to use church for the things I like, ignore it for the things I don’t and find my own truth.

“That part for us is concerning, that nothing feels authoritative right now.”

Lack of trust in sources of truth

For years in the 1980s and ’90s, U.S. evangelicals, above nearly any other group, warned what will happen when people abandon absolute truth—which they located in the Bible—saying the idea of relative truth would lead to people believing whatever confirms their own inward hunches.

But suspicion of big government, questioning of scientific consensus—on evolution, for example—and a rejection of the morals of Hollywood and liberal elites took hold among millennial Christians, many of whom feel politically alienated and beat up by mainstream media. They are natural targets for QAnon.

There’s no hard data on how many Christians espouse QAnon. But Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, noted distrust of mainstream news sources “can feed a penchant for conspiracy theories.”

A 2018 poll from the Billy Graham Center found 46 percent of self-identified evangelicals and 52 percent of those whose beliefs tagged them as evangelical “strongly agreed that the mainstream media produced fake news.” It also found regular church attendance (at least once a month) correlated to believing mainstream media promulgates fake news (77 percent compared with 68 percent of those who attend less regularly).

Conspiracy theories affecting the church

Jared Stacy said the spread of conspiracy theories in his church is particularly affecting young members. The college and young adult pastor of Spotswood Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, Va., Stacy said some older members are sharing Facebook content that links the coronavirus to Jeffrey Epstein and secret pedophile rings. He says his and other pastors’ job is to teach conspiracy theories are not where Christians should find a basis for reality.

“My fear … is that Jesus would not be co-opted by conspiracy theories in a way that leads the next generation to throw Jesus out with the bathwater,” Stacy said, “that we’re not able to separate the narrative of taking back our country from Jesus’ kingdom narrative.”

Others are concerned the theories will become grounds for more mistrust. “Young people are exiting the church because they see their parents and mentors and pastors and Sunday school teachers spreading things that even at a young age they can see through,” said Jeb Barr, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Elm Mott outside Waco. He said conspiracy theories are “extremely widespread and getting worse” among his online church networks.

“Why would we listen to my friend Joe … who’s telling me about Jesus who also thinks that Communists are taking over America and operating a pedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant? … Why would we be believed?”

But Barr and other pastors I spoke with are reticent to police church members’ social media conduct. Instead, they try to teach broader principles. “Christians are meant to be agents of hope, to be peacemakers; the Bible says we’re not to be quarrelsome,” said Barr. “We’re not to be the ones spreading fear and division and anger.”

Barr also teaches critical thinking skills and encourages his members to read “boring news.” He will recommend news sources that are credible.

Combating conspiracy theories

But teaching media literacy isn’t enough, precisely because QAnon thrives on a narrative of media cover-up.

Fugitt said it’s not effective to tell conspiracy spreaders what they are sharing online is false. “Nobody joins a cult. I don’t think anybody shares a conspiracy theory either because they believe it’s truth.” Rather, he tries to address the dehumanizing language of QAnon theories that equate certain people with evil. History is replete with examples of where such language can lead.

“I can’t hate another person, but boy if I can make them less than human, that’s the Crusades, that’s Jewish persecution throughout history, that’s racial issues hand over fist there.”

In a fraught political moment, the pastors I spoke with worried taking on QAnon, by addressing politics directly, would divide the church.

QAnon as a religion

But QAnon is more than a political ideology. It’s a spiritual worldview that co-opts many Christian-sounding ideas to promote verifiably false claims about actual human beings.

QAnon has features akin to syncretism—the practice of blending traditional Christian beliefs with other spiritual systems, such as Santeria. Q explicitly uses Bible verses to urge adherents to stand firm against evil elites.

One charismatic church based in Indiana hosts two-hour Sunday services showing how Bible prophecies confirm Q’s messages. Its leaders tell the congregation to stop watching mainstream media—even conservative media—in favor of QAnon YouTube channels and the Qmap website.

And it’s having life-and-death effects: It’s hampering the work of anti-sex trafficking organizations. The FBI has linked it to violence and threats of violence. And its adherents are downplaying the threat of COVID and thus putting others’ lives at risk.

The earliest Christians contended with syncretism in the form of Gnosticism, which blended elements of Greek philosophy and Zoroastrianism with Christianity, emphasizing the good-evil spirit-flesh divide as well as secret divine knowledge (Greek: gnosis is “knowledge”). Early church fathers such as Irenaeus and Tertullian battled Gnostic ideas, rejecting them as heresy.

At a time when church leaders are having to host digital church and try to meet members’ needs virtually, the idea of adding “fight heresy” to their to-do list might sound exhausting. But a core calling of church leaders is to speak the truth in love. It’s not loving to allow impressionable people to be taken in by falsehood. Nor is it loving to allow them to spread falsehood and slander to others.

“Conspiracy theories thrive on a sort of cynicism that says, ‘We see a different reality that no one else sees,’” said Stacy. “Paul says to take every thought captive—addressing conspiracy theories is part of that work.”

Katelyn Beaty is a former managing editor of Christianity Today and the author of A Woman’s Place. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

One of my daddy’s favorite sayings was, “It depends on whose ox is being gored.”

To the assertion by Rev. Ramiro Peña in his July 30 Baptist Standard opinion article that “Donald Trump is protecting religious freedom in a perilous age,” I respond: It depends on whose religious freedom we’re talking about.

America was settled by people fleeing religious persecution in England, where the “established church” ruled. When they got over here, they set up an established church of their own and persecuted those who deviated from the “official” religion of their colonies.

But in 1644, Roger Williams—under the conviction that God wants free and not coerced followers—established the colony of Rhode Island, where all would be free to believe, or not believe, as their conscience dictated.

When the U.S. Constitution was being finalized, Virginia Baptist pastor John Leland negotiated an agreement with James Madison, resulting in the opening 16 words of the First Amendment, which ensured religious liberty for all Americans, stated in two co-equal clauses: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Free exercise

Peña’s article ignores the balance between the two clauses. In fact, it gives preeminence to the second while ignoring the first.

More than that, though, Peña is following the example of the colonists who wanted “free exercise” applied to their own tribe only, not anyone else’s.

So, Peña apparently applauds the president’s endorsement of conservative Christians and their agenda—such as hospitals and corporations refusing to provide employees with health care services mandated by the Affordable Care Act and bakers refusing to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples.

Yet, he turns a blind eye to the president’s immigration ban targeting Muslims, attacks on churches providing sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, and attacks on churches providing food and water to immigrants fleeing in the desert. Do these people of faith not have the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs?

Johnson Amendment

Peña repeats the president’s claim that he has “ended” the Johnson Amendment. But this is not true. The Johnson Amendment remains intact, though the president repeatedly has attacked it.

Further, Peña’s claim that the Johnson Amendment prevents churches “from freely exercising their First Amendment rights … to advocate for causes that reflect their values” is simply wrong. They still are free to preach on the evils of abortion, alcohol and same-sex relations, as well as racial injustice and poverty.

What the Johnson Amendment does is prevent churches from endorsing a political party or candidate. That’s it.

What is the effect of this restriction? To help churches keep focused on their central mission—to preach and practice the gospel of Jesus Christ. To protect churches from dividing over partisan politics. Do we really want the aisles of our churches to reflect the aisles of Congress, with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other?

It also protects church members from being marginalized by the “preaching” of partisan politics from the pulpit. Just imagine, for example, that you support the Republican—or Democrat—candidate for president, and your pastor uses a Sunday morning sermon to criticize that candidate and rain down a chorus of “boos” from the congregation every time that candidate’s name is mentioned. I’ve seen this happen.

White House initiatives

Peña cites the president’s White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative as if it is something new. However, Barack Obama had the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and George W. Bush had the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Each president puts his own brand on it.

The First Amendment guarantees the government will not play favorites when it comes to religion, and it will not interfere with the free exercise of religious beliefs.

But even free exercise has its limits, such as when it bumps up against a customer’s right to be served, an employee’s right to health care or, as in our present circumstances, a government’s right to keep its citizens safe in the midst of a pandemic. These are not always easy issues, and not every restriction applied to religion is necessarily a violation of the First Amendment.

The bottom line, however, is that the two religion clauses of the First Amendment are co-equal, and they should apply to all people equally and not favor one religious group—even conservative Christians—over another.

Bill Jones is the founding editor and publisher of the Weekly Baptist Roundup. He was the executive director of Texas Baptists Committed until his retirement.

I started working in child welfare 20 years ago. During the course of my career, I have received training and would consider myself very knowledgeable about trauma, behavioral intervention and building a secure attachment with a child from a hard place. I have shared this knowledge through training other social workers or foster and adoptive parents for many years.

When my husband and I started the journey of fostering four years ago, I told him he would have to trust the Lord to prepare us for the child he would place in our home. This was hard for him. He, like many husbands, wanted to control things for our family. My husband prayed he would be humble to trust God for the child who would be placed in our family.

I prayed for my husband because I knew what to expect. After all, I have worked in this field for two decades. I have seen almost every situation. I have seen all kinds of different children. I was the expert. I guided my family through the foster care journey with overall ease.

While we were fostering, I struggled with balancing all the appointments and having a full-time stressful career. I didn’t spend much time focusing on what the future was going to look like. I knew being a parent was hard, but I forgot how parenting a child with a trauma history is different.

When our foster son started exhibiting the symptoms of trauma, I was the person to whom he directed his frustrations. I cried at the end of the day because my expertise wasn’t enough. He yelled at me. He hit me. He kicked me. Our extended family was stressed, and I knew it was hard for them to have our son around and see what the stress was doing to us.

I realized I needed help. We couldn’t do it alone.

Needing and finding help

My husband suggested I join a support group. Nope. Not doing it. I can’t go to a support group. I used the excuse of my position and not wanting to interfere with the group’s ability to talk openly. But really it was about me not wanting to admit to other foster families I was struggling.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I was home with my son every day for three months. I cried every day because I felt so alone, helpless and not equipped to care for my sweet, rambunctious and loving 3-year-old boy. I didn’t allow people to help me. I was closed off because I thought I could do it on my own. I had to get on my knees and humble myself and ask for help.

I joined a virtual support group the next week, and we talked about “giving voice to big emotions.”

“Great, let’s talk about his emotions,” I thought. But the session began talking about my emotions. Ugh.

But this was exactly what I needed to hear. I knew I was not in a good place with God or with my child. And I was not parenting from a trauma-informed way. I needed to identify my triggers so I could manage the emotional response when my child pushed those triggers.

I listened and thought I really need to stop being a martyr and tag my husband in at times. I can be sarcastic and when I am frustrated, this can result in throwing fuel on the fire with my child.

But if I was praying continually like the Bible instructs me, then God can help me to build a healthy relationship with my little firecracker. I want him to see me as the calm one so he can learn to self-regulate.

Healing

The healing begins as a parent when you accept your child is different from other children. I need to work on reframing how my relationship with my son will look. I must view his strengths in a different way.

His challenges got in my way of building a relationship, so I needed to learn how to accept the challenges, but at the same time be his biggest advocate. My goal is to stay connected to him, for him to feel safe and secure.

Advice to others considering foster care

My challenge to other families considering foster care is to be humble. Be ready to trust God is going to develop you, but you have to be willing to let him work. He will bring the right people into your life to help you with the child he places in your home.

All children are made in God’s image, and all children deserve redemption in their lives.

Redemption looks different for every child. Redemption could be teaching them how to regulate their emotions, so when they are returned home to their biological parents, they successfully regulate their emotions and are not a trigger to their parents.

Redemption could be teaching a child to socially engage appropriately with other children, so they can live with their aunt and uncle and their two other cousins.

Redemption could mean you adopt them, and they have a new future with your family.

Redemption will occur if you say “yes” to God. Trust his plan.

Andi Harrison is the regional director for foster care and adoption for Buckner International in North Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. She has been employed with Buckner since 2012. She is married and has three boys. Her youngest child was adopted from foster care in 2018. This article is adapted from the Buckner International blog.

It was an icy cold, winter Sunday afternoon in January 1992. We were living in New England, when my wife gave me an ultimatum: “Continue to drink, or move out!”

Proceeding to open the kitchen refrigerator door, I withdrew the last remaining bottle of beer and hurled it as hard as I could into our backyard woods. The bottle made a violent, smashing sound as it collided with an old birch tree, tiny pieces of glass splattering into the cold snow-covered ground.

Alcohol, which induced loneliness, despair and depression, had become unbearable, and I became aware of my dark thoughts of suicide. I was at my bottom. I was physically, mentally and spiritually bankrupt and realized that continuing to drink meant certain death, jail or institutionalization. As a Christian, I was ashamed of myself.

I, like many of my friends, enjoyed drinking, but how much is too much? For me, there was no such thing as one drink. How could anybody drink just one?

It is not uncommon for people to deny they have a drinking problem.

Alcoholism oftentimes is referred to as a family disease, as it frequently is passed genetically among extended family members.

I did not—and you may not—recognize the signs of alcohol abuse in yourself or in someone else. If you have to ask, “Is my drinking a problem,” it probably is a problem.

What is alcohol use disorder?

The description of the disease of alcoholism has changed and now is referred to as alcohol use disorder, or AUD.

AUD is considered by mental health experts to be a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational or health consequences, such as death, jail and/or institutionalization.

My experience with abusive drinking

For years, I told myself I could stop drinking any time I desired. However, I discovered at an early age there was no such thing as just one glass, shot, bottle or can of anything containing alcohol, and once I started, I could not stop. My self-discipline and ability to manage my alcohol intake essentially had evaporated.

On too many occasions to count, I promised myself and others I would have just one drink. I ignored these promises, failing miserably in my attempts to keep them each and every time.

Trying to be funny and popular among my peers, I would announce to anyone listening, “I only have a drinking problem when there is nothing around to drink.”

My drinking progressively became more important to me than my church, my job, my wife, my children and my family and friends.

My alcohol-induced behavior included attending only those events where I could drink and socialize with others who drank like I did. I began not to trust people who did not drink.

My repeated attempts to stop drinking never lasted more than a couple of days.

Occasionally, I would drink only beer or wine, steadfast in my belief nobody could be an alcoholic if he or she drank only beer or wine.

I continued to use alcohol despite negative emotional effects, such as depression, anxiety and memory lapses. It never occurred to me alcohol itself was a depressant and that depression coincided with my alcohol abuse.

Toward the end of my drinking career, I was living to drink and drinking to live and had become sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Consequences of my abusive drinking

My abusive drinking eliminated any chance of what I believed to be well-deserved work promotions. This resulted instead in frequent job performance failures and numerous involuntary terminations.

My activity caused painful financial strife and difficulties for my family, creating seemingly unbearable stress and initiating darker and increased episodes of depression.

As my self-esteem deteriorated due to my drinking, I noticed simple things like my hands shaking and difficulty making direct eye contact with others in social and business settings.

My continued inability to show up for scheduled meetings on time and my loss of focus and concentration in social and business settings became progressively worse.

I began to isolate myself and found myself making excuses for not attending social and family gatherings, as I was spending more time self-isolating and drinking alone at home. I noticed it took me increasingly longer to capture my desired yet elusive alcohol buzz.

I constantly compared my drinking to others. I noted, with congratulatory pride that many of my Christian friends drank more than I did. I envied people who could drink without ever getting into trouble.

How things changed

I started attending local 12-step meetings and taking the advice of a former prep school classmate who suggested attending 90 12-step meetings in 90 days.

In hindsight, attending 90 12-step meetings in 90 days saved my life.

I have been sober for 28 years—or 10,220 days—and live a happy and healthy life, second to none. I like myself again.

If you, a family member or a friend can relate to any of my described symptoms and story and would like to talk, call me. You do not have to go through what I did alone.

Lawrence (Laurie) Traynor is a former national drug and alcohol treatment executive with 28 years of sobriety who now volunteers to help Christian addicts and alcoholics and their loved ones locate public and private drug and alcohol assistance resources. He can be reached by phone at (904) 553-1600 and email at RugbyTrayn5858@gmail.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Public education is indispensable. If we weren’t sure of that before the current crisis, we certainly are now.

I, for one, never have had a doubt. My mother was a third-generation public educator, and three of my four grandparents taught and coached. The grandfather who didn’t work in public education served on the school board. I got to be around teachers on the clock and off the clock. I heard stories and saw old photos and even the odd turn-of-the-century gradebook from my family’s work in the classroom.

My father was a pastor, and if I wasn’t at school, I probably was at church. On a given Wednesday or Sunday, there were teachers and coaches there too, because very often teachers and coaches are “church people.” So, perhaps it is natural for me that the institution falling right below my church in order of importance is the public school.

The church and school, while not identical in mission or allegiance, are natural co-laborers for the public good. Pastors know this. It’s why so many of us seek out partnerships with schools. Of course, a free church and a free state require a separation between them that safeguards the dignity of both. A public school cannot and should not become a church. But a wise pastor can recognize the place a child most likely will encounter an adult outside his or her own home who knows them well and loves them deeply is in a public school.

A web of human intelligence

There is a whole web of human intelligence in a public school capable of knowing how a child is really doing: Are they well? Are they flourishing? Are they safe?

Educators get to watch children with their peers; to see how they treat others and how they are treating themselves. Cafeteria workers know what and how often a child is eating. Coaches and fine arts teachers have unique opportunities to foster passion and confidence or to guide a student as they react to an immediate challenge. Public educators often know with certainty the features of a child’s day-to-day that even careful parents and pastors could only guess.

Even if a child never darkens the door of the local church, does it not stand to reason that securing this level of attention for every kid in every community is worth our best efforts?

What could be more important, especially during our present COVID-19 national crisis?

My cards already are on the table. My bias toward the public school system is plain, even inherited. However, there are facts we have to reckon with.

There are more school-age children in Texas than there are people in the commonwealth of Kentucky. And yet, Texas schools are funded at a per pupil rate well below the national average.

While Texas has grown over the last decade, the rate of spending per pupil has been little better than static, and the burden of funding schools quietly has been shifted away from the state to local district.

Money isn’t everything, but it does suggest many of our state policymakers may not fully appreciate that, in addition to a solid education, students in our public schools receive the care, concern and love essential to healthy human development.

How churches can benefit education

For pastors and people of faith, what response is required? Should we just be proud of the successful ministries we already have for students? Or bemoan the fact schools have the advantage of compulsory attendance or that students simply are beyond our grasp?

Is there a more excellent way? What if we were to become grassroots community advocates for public schools and schoolteachers? If pastors, youth ministers, deacons and elders saw their role to stand up and speak out on behalf of their community and neighborhood public schools, our children likely would have the funding they need to thrive.

Thankfully, ministers and faith leaders are beginning to do this. Groups like Pastors for Texas Children and others are mobilizing people of faith to come alongside school leaders in support and solidarity.

So many educators, people like my mother, grandparents and great-grandfather already are in our churches. My band director was a Baptist music minister, and my head football coach was a Presbyterian elder. We already know and love the people who know and love our students.

Let’s support them and petition the folks in Austin to do the same.

Marshall Cook is a minister and the son of a minister and a public schoolteacher. He is a graduate of Lorena High School, Baylor University and Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

“And he said unto them, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’” (Mark 16:15).

Lois is a secretary. She recently was laid off. She worked for a business that shut down because the government said it was “nonessential.” Because she lost her job, she barely can make ends meet. Her husband left her. She has a son in rebellion. Her life is spinning out of control. She cries out for help. We don’t hear.

Stan works in a local factory. Even though he has a job and is surrounded by people, he feels alone. The mask his employer requires him to wear makes him feel even more isolated. He longs for a friend. We are deaf to his cries.

Ed owns a gas station in town. His wife died last month. Because of COVID-19, the family couldn’t have a funeral. Ed has struggled with depression since his wife passed away. His eyes echo his loneliness, but we don’t see. He misses her listening ear. If only there were someone who would talk to him, but our ears are closed.

Hattie lives in a local assisted care facility. She has lived through so much in her 85 years, but she never has seen anything like what is happening in the world today. For the past two months, she has felt like a prisoner.

Hattie has been locked away in her room. Even her meals are brought to her. The only people she sees are the nurses and orderlies who come by two or three times a day. At first, a few family members and some friends from church called to check on her, but those calls have stopped. Secretly, Hattie longs for death, but we don’t care.

Seeing while not doing

We saw our neighbor, Lois, sitting on her porch across the street, but we didn’t say, “Hello.”

We saw Stan at work, but because of “social distancing,” we didn’t even speak.

We filled up the car at Ed’s gas station, but we were in too much of a hurry to chat.

Hattie is our grandmother, but who has time to call?

We had to hurry home to have the perfect ending to our self-centered day. So, we kick back in our chair with a bag of chips and binge-watch a streaming hit show as we pat ourselves on the back for “staying home and staying safe.”

Jesus told us to, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to everyone.”

However, we are in such a hurry to “go” that we miss the very ones God brings into our path. All around us are hurting people longing for a “cup of cold water” in Jesus’ name.

The problem we all have

This world has a problem much worse than the coronavirus. This world has a sickness called sin. Sin has a 100 percent mortality rate. Each of us has this disease, and it is killing us. However, there is a cure.

God was “socially isolated” in heaven where there was no sickness, but he came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus entered a pandemic—a sin-sick world. He was crucified and died on an old rugged cross. His dead body was buried, but three days and nights later, Jesus rose from the dead.

The cure for sin-sickness is the gospel—the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to “go” and share the gospel, but you don’t have to be a missionary overseas.

Open your eyes to the people God has put in your path. Speak to your neighbor. Be a friend to that guy at work. Pay attention to the man behind the counter. Call your grandma.

You could be the person God uses to change a life forever.

James Collins is the pastor of Fort Scott’s First Southern Baptist Church. This article was published first in the print edition of The Fort Scott Tribune and on Collins’ blog, The Point Is … . The views expressed are those solely of the author.

As a kid growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was pretty common during live assemblies—award ceremonies, recitals and educational presentations—to hear the phrase: “Please forgive us. We are experiencing technical difficulties.”

Technical difficulties were expected in the world I grew up in. Technical difficulties were everyone’s reminder that the world wasn’t ready for the digital, the virtual and the cybernetic.

And then along came COVID-19. In a strange way, the now well-oiled machine we call the “digital world” stepped up to the hot microphone and said: “Please forgive us. We are experiencing ‘natural world difficulties.’”

This is just one of scores of significant shifts that have taken place since March 13, when President Trump stepped up to the microphone and declared a state of emergency related to COVID-19.

Whether you desire for things to go back to normal or you’ve embraced the notion of a “new normal,” one thing is for sure: The world has changed.

Changes in the normal world

From my seat as a college minister, I barely can keep up with the personal and professional adjustments being required of me with each new hour.

If you had told me just this past February that “medical grade designer face masks” would be in everyone’s online shopping carts, I would have looked at you as if you had a third eye. Yet, here we are. An invisible microbial enemy has changed how we dress, gather and wash our hands.

I recently bought something from an online marketplace. I attempted to hand the seller, who was wearing nylon gloves, a $20 bill. She requested that I use Venmo to transfer her the money instead. Whatever happened to the “cash only” signs I used to see growing up? I guess they left town with the expression: “Please forgive us. We are experiencing technical difficulties.”

As eager as people say they are to get back to “normal life,” the world is changing. After working remotely for two months, what employees now will jump up enthusiastically and embrace their long and traffic-ridden commutes to work?

What patients, after being able to visit the doctor virtually without even having to change out of pajamas, will want to make a face-to-face appointment when they are feeling their worst?

What parents haven’t grown to love the convenience of a drive-by birthday parade as opposed to the drudgery of sitting through the traditional two-hour Saturday-killer, watching the birthday boy open 10 different Lego sets?

Going back to the past or the future?

A few months ago, we rarely, if ever, used phrases like “social distancing,” “sheltering in place” and “nonessential businesses,” but there is no possible way to put the genie back in the bottle.

Once everyone is done pretending to be a handyman and plundering the hardware store, or quits burning through their stimulus checks with online shopping, we are going to look around and notice a different world.

Maybe you are a nonconformist. Maybe you never once turned on a streaming service and fell in love with your couch during the quarantine. Maybe you can’t wait to double dip chips at the Mexican restaurant like old times.

Maybe you tell yourself each night, “Viruses are nothing new, stimulus packages are nothing new, and national states of emergency are nothing new.”

But once we finally emerge from our bubble-wrapped homes and step outside, we will see where we are.

The prophet Daniel taught that “[God] changes times and seasons” (Daniel 2:21). Daniel knew at his core uncertain times aren’t uncertain for God; they are scheduled.

As Christians, we need to be more like the Old Testament tribe of Issachar, described in 1 Chronicles 12:32 as a people who had an “understanding of the times.”

The world is changing, but, as believers, we are the ones most equipped to navigate the days ahead with competence and confidence in Christ.

Joshua Gilmore serves as the director of Baptist Collegiate Ministries at North Greenville University in Tigerville, S.C. Prior to serving at NGU, Gilmore was a youth pastor in the Chicago area, a professor and administrator at a small college of missions, and a music minister in New Jersey. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

In the second and third centuries, two different pandemics swept the ancient Roman world.

Many Roman cities were densely populated—by some estimates ancient Rome was three times more densely populated per square mile than modern-day New York City—which made them perfect breeding grounds for communicable diseases. And, of course, the Roman world lacked what modern medicine has taught us about microbiology and epidemiology.

The most reliable estimates suggest somewhere between one quarter and one third of the Roman Empire perished in the second century epidemic alone.

When the pandemics hit, the wealthy and powerful were able to survive far more easily. They had the resources to sequester themselves at home or, even better, to relocate to the country where they were not surrounded on all sides by the sick and dying. They didn’t know exactly what was causing people to die, but they knew staying behind likely meant death, and getting away likely meant living. So, they left.

Those who stayed

One obscure religious cult, however, seemed to defy the odds. There were all kinds of bizarre rumors about this particular cult: strange initiation rites, political subversion, cannibalism, just to name a few.

But when the pandemics hit, they not only stayed in the cities, they also survived in larger numbers than the surrounding population. The members of this obscure religious cult had a name for themselves; they called themselves “Christians.”

The leaders of the early church saw what took place in their midst in miraculous terms, and if you believe miracles are possible—and I do—then you can’t completely discount that idea.

It’s just as likely, however, that what those early Christians did without realizing it was make small contributions to the health and well-being of those around them.

Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, said many Christians “took charge of the sick, attending to their every need, and ministering to them in the name of Christ.”

Such care started a virtuous cycle. Simple kindnesses like a cold cloth on a feverish forehead or food provided to people too weak to feed themselves meant those people survived in greater numbers.

The combination of Christians surviving in larger numbers drew more people into the circle of care who also survived in larger numbers. Many then became followers of Jesus, both as a result of the kindness they could explain and their survival, which lacking a medical explanation seemed miraculous.

Seeing those affected most

I’ve been wondering lately what a virtuous cycle for the 21st century church might look like in the midst of this pandemic.

I watched the press conference for Governor Andrew Cuomo recently. New York’s location at the epicenter of the pandemic has given them a sadly high but statistically deep look at just who this pandemic is hitting the hardest. Just like the plagues of history, we can see this one also is hitting many of the most vulnerable among us.

As the statistics flash across our television screens, patterns emerge. The pandemic is hitting the poor harder—the homeless and the working poor who don’t have the luxury of staying home and doing their work from the comfort of their living room on a laptop like I do. It’s hitting senior citizens harder—nursing homes are in the highest risk categories—and it’s hitting minorities harder, particularly black and Latino populations.

Being like those who stayed

I currently am serving as the Transition Pastor for a congregation, and we are having the same conversations as your church about when we might return to worship, something we all want, and something we all need.

I think the most important thing we can do to worship God isn’t to gather in a building—as much as I want to—but to proclaim by our words and actions, “Jesus is Lord.” The early church did that, not by asking other people to risk their lives so they could continue to worship, but by risking their own lives to care for the sick, many of whom were among the most vulnerable populations of that day and time.

What would it look like for us to risk what matters to us to bring life to those at risk?

First Baptist Lee’s Summit is located about 20 miles outside Kansas City, Mo. Like a lot of churches, they started having conversations about the challenges the pandemic was creating for them. But they also recognized the most important thing for them to do in this moment wasn’t to hunker down into preservation mode but is to proclaim by their actions, “Jesus is Lord.”

So, on March 22, their second Sunday of online-only worship, they decided to give away half of everything they received that week to their neighbors who were being impacted by the coronavirus.

They gave half of receipts to a local nonprofit who helps the poorest of the poor in their community and the other half to employees of shops, restaurants and bars in their community who already were experiencing lost wages.

Imagine you’re a bartender, and the owner comes in and hands you a check and tells you, “It’s from the Baptist church down the street.” I bet that’ll get your attention.

In the way God leads us

I am not going to criticize you if your church decides to start gathering again sooner rather than later. I do wonder, however, if a socially distanced congregation that can’t hug or linger after worship is over really is the most powerful proof that the church is being the church.

I’m not hearing people complain about not spending more time in the building. I am hearing everyone—Christians and non-Christians alike—talk about the loss of connection.

People need to be seen and heard and loved. As terrible as this pandemic is, the witness of history is that the church truly being the church is exactly what the world needs in a moment like this.

Matt Cook is the assistant director of the Center for Healthy Churches, from whose blog this article is adapted. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

To learn more about how the Center for Healthy Churches is helping churches thrive, visit them at www.chchurches.org or contact Matt at mattc@chchurches.org.