Coronavirus Detox

Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

 
Notice that freedom rising in your soul as you detach from shopping out of habit for things you don't need.
Notice that relief as your schedule slows, realizing you were addicted to the adrenaline of rushing and pressing on.
Notice that deep joy as you sit with your children, seeing them for who they are, not for what they need to accomplish next.
Notice how you SEE people in your neighborhood now, not as demographic categories to be avoided.
Notice how we used the busyness of church activities as excuses for avoiding involvement in what matters.
Notice the peace settling into your spirit.
Coronovirus Detox. God is using this time to show us what's real, genuine, and worth our lives.
Consumerism, Materialism, Racism, Political Divisiveness....
Now we have the eyes to see the spiritual barrenness and false promises of those idols, and we don't want to go back.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ came to liberate us, setting us free to live in the beautiful Way of Jesus.
No going back, we aren't going back.
Coronavirus Detox

During a clergy gathering on Zoom last week, I found myself saying, “I don’t want to go back.” What I was noticing was the profound liberation from excessive and compulsive activity resulting from social distancing. I realized this Coronavirus was serving as a detoxing experience, detaching me from unhelpful and unhealthy ways of being in this world.

In a way, we are experiencing the same regarding church activity. Remember all those sacred cows; those activities we were hesitant to change though they lost their significance years ago? Remember the excessive number of meetings we believed were necessary to accomplish ministry? Remember the busyness which prevented us from being involved in significance? Remember how we were too busy running church to love our neighbors down the street?

Well, if that’s what church is, many of us don’t want to go back. Now that we taste the freedom, we don’t want to lay it aside. Now that we actually experience Sabbath, we are discovering spiritual well-being like never before. Now that we are engaging our neighbors, being salt and light in the world, we like being on mission with God. Do we have to go back to frantic church, believing more activity is the indicator of robust spirituality?  

Many churches are in a detoxing time, shedding what’s no longer useful and helpful nor mission-congruent. Our toleration for busyness and ancillary activities that drain our ministry energies has hit bottom. At the same time, so many of us sense God’s Spirit rising in us, with a growing hunger for being part of God’s mission to bring the kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. We are excessively interested in churches who are focused on that kingdom, ready to partner with God in robust and life-giving ways.

So do we have to go back? Are we willing to go back? Can we work it up enough to go back?

Who says we have to? Perhaps one of the great gifts of this Coronavirus Perspective Corrective is church detox. Maybe we are on the threshing floor, with the harvester scattering the chaff so that we can claim the grain. This is our opportunity for a cleanse, shedding the insignificant and unhelpful. Let’s keep what’s essential, what’s good and pure and life-giving about church. But the overly scheduled, overly-busy, driven church culture of Pre-Coronavirus…we aren’t going back.