Don’t Go Back: A Plea for the Church Coming Out of the Pandemic

Photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash

This article is published in Spirit & Truth’s Firebrand Magazine.

The news is currently headlined by the first batch of vaccines being administered around the globe. The calendar will thankfully soon leave 2020 behind. Given these realities I find myself thinking about what comes next for the church on the other side of this life-shaping season. There seems indeed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel might still prove to be rather long. I am under no delusions that the current pandemic realities will end as swiftly as they began. There is no quick fix. And yet signs of a previous normal are on the hopeful horizon. So as we look toward the eventual end of church life so utterly dominated by this virus, this is my plea to the church: don’t go back…