HELP! I’M STRUGGLING TO CONNECT WITH MY CHURCH FAMILY DURING COVID by Megan Hill for Core Christianity
GNN Note – Going out on a limb and proclaiming you were struggling before, it’s just that now you have an excuse to walk-away. /END
Breaking Bread
Last week, I took the leaves out of our dining room table. When we moved to Massachusetts five years ago, we hunted for a house with a dining room—a unicorn in our price range, as it turned out—so we could have church people over for meals. In the end, we did get a dining room, and if we position the table diagonally, we can seat ten in a (literal) pinch.
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For nearly a year, though, our dining table hasn’t hosted a single Sunday lunch or Friday night supper. It hasn’t groaned under a baby shower buffet or held notebooks and pens for a book discussion group. COVID-19 has reached its long fingers even into my century-old house, largely precluding indoor hospitality.
And so, with a heavy heart, I decided to take the leaves out of the table and store them in the closet. The table now fits much better in the room, but removing the leaves felt like one more admission of pandemic defeat. At least for now, we won’t be breaking bread with God’s people.
The Loneliness Pandemic
Whether extra places at the table or the fifteen-minute coffee break between church services, the pandemic has stripped away many of our opportunities to connect with the people in our congregations.
Zoom Bible studies and live-streamed worship services are useful tools for our time, but they erect a literal screen between us and the members of our church family. Even when we meet in person, we are prevented by wisdom and state mandates from sitting together or exchanging handshakes or hugs (our version of the “holy kiss”). The six-foot space between us echoes like a chasm.
