It’s the new year, the preacher and his family are down with Covid. (Not me, but the preacher who’s giving me a break.) The music team leader and tech person also have the virus. So do others. Many of our regulars are away and our towns have swelled with holiday-makers from everywhere, some bringing Covid with them. So, what do we do?
As our government is lifting restrictions, opening borders, and ‘getting things back to normal’, Salt Community Church in Bonny Hills takes a step backwards and goes on Zoom. Well, for three weeks anyway. Why so? Why aren’t we meeting? Some might say we are giving in. What are we thinking? What are our reasons?
At Salt we’re sorting out who we are and how we do things. We’ve embraced some core values that shape the decisions we make. They’re values that find their home in Scripture. Our reasons for going back to Zoom for a few weeks are linked to values 4 and 5.
Here are Salt’s values:
Gospel Priority
Bible clarity
Praying humility
Loving community
Adaptive flexibility
Simple hospitality
Cheerful generosity
Value 4. Loving Community
We want to love our community. Salt is comprised of babies to octogenarians, with every decade in between. We have people who are immune-compromised, people with cancer, weak lungs or hearts, people with asthma. We have people who have chosen not to be vaccinated and many children who have not yet received a dose. So, for a few weeks over the school holidays, it seemed best to keep things safer by meeting virtually.
Value 5. Adaptive Flexibility
We believe that God calls us to put others before ourselves and for us to forego our rights for the sake of others. We live in times of rapid change and we have the means to pivot and adapt. Through the pandemic, we’ve remained connected, grown in number, and added some new followers of Jesus. We know that God can and does work through any and every situation and circumstance.
Salt Community Church is seeking to be a loving community that is flexibly adaptive. Meeting over Zoom is not ideal. It’s not church in its fullest expression. But it offers us help in proclaiming Christ and building one another into maturity.
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