Now What Are We Gonna Do?

  Now what are we going to do?  Living amid COVID 19 pandemic shifted what normal looks everywhere including worship and even summer block parties. 

Now what are we going to do? Living amid social unrest elevated hurt, angry voices as many cry out against racial injustice within our nation. 

Now what are we going to do? To even ask this question counters the temptation to wait for the “next bad thing to happen”. 

First, I choose to pause mid-pandemic and give thanks for God’s faithfulness during this crisis. My gratitude abounds for faithful lay and pastor leaders who conquered huge adaptive challenges to continually comfort and lead their congregations through this time.  I am even grateful for blunders because those missteps deepened discipleship growth. 

Second, I choose to respond to racial injustice with a pivotal learning from my COVID 19 experience. While the faithful have been separated during our quarantine; my appreciation of how important all God’s children are to God and to the Beloved Community (which is Church) was amplified. Being present together matters.  A hurt on one part of the Body of Christ impacts us all especially as life here is practice to live eternally in heaven. 

So, what will I do with this learning? As I seek Jesus’s help to undo the damage which the sin of racism causes in me and others; I choose to intentionally invest in relationships, partnerships, and friendships with folk not like me.  Yes, I can learn from what I read, hear, or watch. Yes, I can unlearn behaviors as I journal, reflect, and pray about my blind spots and missteps. Relationships, as the Trinity models, are the best crucible classroom for repentance, forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation.  “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18).

Your path to answer the question might be different.  But, dearly beloved, let us together seek to the answer; now what are followers of Jesus going to do? 

**This article appeared in the Hendricks Co ICON: Brownsburg/Danville Edition August 7, 2020