Rev. Melinda Giese, Min. of Discipleship & Pastoral Care
In the beginning months of the pandemic, many of us experienced huge changes to our schedules and routines. Our regular groups and activities stopped meeting. Schools, non-essential workplaces, and church buildings closed. Many annual vacations and family gatherings were cancelled. Depending on life circumstances, some people found themselves with an overabundance of free time, while others found themselves stretched thin with new responsibilities at work and home.
As pastors, we also experienced major shifts in our ministry responsibilities. The pandemic paused some of our regular tasks while also creating new kinds of work. Phone calls and emails replaced hospital visits and in-person pastoral care. Saturday morning video recording and Saturday afternoon video editing replaced Sunday morning worship. Administrative and team meetings, communion, and special worship services moved to zoom. We eventually found a new pandemic rhythm, just as many of you also found new ways to structure your time.
Throughout the pandemic, we have relied on this mid-week pastoral reflection as a place to connect with our congregation around our shared faith. During this period when all of us struggled with feelings of disconnection, we hoped that these regular messages might help. As pastors, we also received the unexpected benefit of your email responses back to us. Your email notes about the mid-week reflection helped us feel more connected as well, and we appreciated hearing your thoughts and feelings as we navigated this pandemic together.
Currently, we are working out a new pastoral rhythm once again. Some of our previous responsibilities are now possible again, such as in-person pastoral care and hospital visits. We also are preparing for in-person small groups during the summer months and simultaneously planning for worship in the fall. As we add these new responsibilities, Pastor Cara and I decided it was time to end our mid-week reflections. The mid-week email containing information about upcoming church events and activities will continue; only our mid-week reflections will end. At the same time, we look forward to more opportunities to meet with you and have meaningful conversations in-person.
The book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens: a time for giving birth and a time for dying, a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). If we only plant, our fields quickly turn into an overgrown nightmare of weeds. On the other hand, if we only uproot, we are left with nothing but bare soil to tend.
A full life involves a balance of these two complementary activities. We plant seeds, try new things, and say yes to new responsibilities. But if this is all we do, we quickly find ourselves overcommitted. It is often much harder for us to choose where we uproot, step back from activities, and say no, but this is essential to creating balance. In its massive uprooting of our regular routines, the pandemic showed many of us the value of a less hectic and overscheduled life.
As we find our way into new rhythms, we hope that you also will consider where you would like to plant and where you would like to preserve open space in your lives. What elements of your new routine have you come to love? Which parts of your previous schedule do you miss? As we slowly move out of this pandemic, what have you learned that you will take with you? How will you choose to shape your life based on that new knowledge?
It gives us great joy to be learning with you on this journey. For all the ways we have grown together in faith and love as individuals and as a congregation, we give thanks to God. And may God bless our efforts to find balance in our lives, resting in the knowledge that “for everything there is a season.”