Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions, reflections, church news, and book studies. Today is Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on Friday, March 13, 2020? Do you remember that day, Friday, March 13, 2020. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. That morning, I was waiting to get a haircut from my barber in Lexington, Virginia, and I received a text from Dave Rochford, who was my district superintendent.
Dave texted me, “Joe, in the next 20 minutes, the bishop is recommending that our conference churches suspend worship this Sunday and next Sunday to slow the advance of the virus.”
That was the text and that was the day that changed our churches. We stopped in person worship not just for the last two weeks in March 2020 but for several weeks and for some of our churches it was months before we were worshipping in person again. I learned how to create an online worship experience for Trinity where I was the pastor, and I know the staff and worship leaders at Peakland did the same as well. Most of our essential church meetings were held through zoom and as the whole world closed, we in the church had to improvise and recreate our ministries and our lives together.
Today, just over three years later, we at Peakland are prayerfully considering how we forge a new path in a post covid world.
Forging a new path just happens to be the name of this book that I am reading and discussing on Monday nights here at Peakland. I’m eager to share my insights in this book not just with those in person in the class but with you online as well.
This book was written by Rev. Rebekah Simon-Peter, a United Methodist pastor who has created a church leadership program called Creating a Culture of Renewal, which I have been participating in for two years now.
In the opening chapters of the book, Rebekah lists three persistent questions that she has heard again and again from congregations in our post-covid world:
When do things go back to normal?
How do we get people back to church?
And (3) How do we do more with less?
Rebekah draws from her own experiences and what she has seen and heard to provide some answers to those questions.
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