Crossing The Threshold Into Post-Pandemic Church

by Rev. Mark E. Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

In one way, all moments are threshold moments. God, through Christ, is always making things new, leading us into becoming new creatures inhabiting a new creation every moment of every day. Simultaneously, there are some threshold moments uniquely involving nearly the entire human population here on planet earth. There’s not been another on this scale (Covid-19 Pandemic) during our lifetimes; rare indeed. Because our world is so interconnected through technological advances, this pandemic was a worldwide event. When discussing the “state of things” now, people are using the words “pre-pandemic and post-pandemic,” to mark time. Clearly the Covid-19 Pandemic was a threshold experience for us.

But what do we mean by threshold moments? The word “threshold” became associated with the spiritual practice of crossing over from one distinct reality to another out of its roots in Celtic Christian history. In the Hebrides, Western Scottish Isles, women would give birth on the threshold of their homes. Most lived in one room dwellings, including a solid frame for the doorway. When the time for birthing arrived, the one giving birth would kneel on one knee in the threshold, bracing herself with either hand on the sturdy doorframe, gaining leverage for pushing down, delivering the newborn babe. The midwife would be positioned on both knees below, assisting the baby crossing from the womb into the outer world, crossing the threshold so to speak. (John Philip Newell describes this in his book, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, published in 2021. Newell draws this threshold concept from his extensive study of ancient Celtic history and Christianity, including this specific text: Brian Wright, Brigid: Goddess, Druidess and Saint, Stroud: History Press, 2014, p. 40.)

Celtic Christians began to see this literal threshold experience as a fitting metaphor for much of their faith journey, moving from one place in this spiritual journey to another, crossing thresholds. Since publishing the first edition of ReShape: Emerging Church Practice In A Volatile World (August, 2020) much has happened. As we are engaging with churches, their leaders, and denominations, common themes are rising to the surface of church experience. Clearly, there is no rewinding time, snapping back to pre-pandemic church. We have travelled over and through a threshold that’s giving shape to adapted expressions of church.

I’m imagining those ancient Scottish women bracing themselves in the threshold of their homes, delivering pinkish wailing new babes into waiting midwife hands below them. Though I’ve never literally given birth, I saw all three of our children delivered, clearly remembering the heroic struggle and effort of childbirth. Fortunately, many of the threshold crossings of the post-pandemic church do not involve that level of pain, while discomfort is certainly inherent in these transitions. Simultaneously, plenty of churches are experiencing the joy of birthing something new as they move ahead.

So if your church senses the ground beneath them has shifted, they are a perceptive bunch. The Second Edition of ReShape coming out in January, 2024, describes ten thresholds churches are or have crossed over. I may be able to share a few in these E-News articles as we go. The churches involved in the Reshaping Church Initiative will certainly have opportunity to reflect on their progress toward maximizing the transformation opportunities this side of the threshold. Regardless, may you and your church live into a greater expression of the body of Christ as we move over the threshold into 2024.