Pastor John was recently asked by the Forest Lake Times about his reactions to the three years since Covid. Here are some of his reflections about how he felt and where he sees Faith growing through this time.

I remember leaving church on the Wednesday night before everything shut down. On the radio, the sports talk reported that Utah’s Rudy Gobert (before joining the Timberwolves) had Covid. The NBA shut down all their games in response. Quickly, the rest of the sports world did too. Including Spring Training baseball! That made it real. I wondered how long this would go. I remember LeBron James suggesting that sports without fans would never happen. That turned out to be wrong—do you remember watching Twins games and seeing the cardboard cut-outs of fans in the stands?

The arrival of the pandemic was traumatic for worshiping communities that rely heavily on fellowship and belonging to unite us. Funerals were put on hold for months (or longer) until we could partially gather. We were grateful for our existing technology as a church to quickly pivot to an online worshiping community. We were hopeful things would be back to normal in a month. Or Mother’s Day.

As a pastor, one of the biggest challenges I felt during the pandemic was the loss of fellowship, and with it, the post-sermon dialogue that comes with worshiping together. I would preach to a tiny red dot that told me which camera in the sanctuary was live. But, unlike sermons of the past, I wouldn’t get immediate feedback or conversation about whatever the sermon was about. Was the sermon spiritually relevant? Were people engaging with the message and wrestling with how they saw God through all of this? Were people emotionally affected—good or bad?

One of my favorite pivots (remember how much we used THAT word???) was a sermon series in which we talked about different people who made a difference or led from “inside the box”—leaders who were in captivity, yet their faith guided them to bring about change. We recalled the stories of Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John McCain. These examples gave us hope and courage to face the challenges set before us. We could do this, together!

Except when we didn’t. Our collective response as a society was clumsy and awkward. At Faith, we knew that being patient and offering different levels of engagement was the way to go. Some people returned as soon as possible. Some took their time (and some are still preferring to worship from home). We tried to lead transparently and offer kindness and grace in whatever decisions people made. 

We also leaned heavily into our shared goals to care for one another and care for our neighbor. We had traumatic responses to people who moved too fast or felt frustration at those who moved too slow. Our church still feels the effects of Covid and Long-Covid. What I’ve seen in our congregation is a grateful attitude to worship together again, but also the grace to know how to worship from home or far away.

I also appreciate how the church continues to seek out the needs of our neighbors—from food and housing insecurity to partnerships with Afghan refugees and Community Helping Hands. I see how “the church” provokes many reactions in the national conversations regarding assumptions on how Covid was dealt with. What I see Faith Lutheran doing is rising above any political party, social justice position, or parroting talking points of pundits and emphasizing our shared responsibility of loving our neighbor, no matter what. Walking through that was stressful, but now emerging from the other end, I’m grateful to know that this approach was right for us.