Professional magician and retired children’s minister David Garrard is famous for his ability to combine slight-of-hand, humor and faith in his performances. His new YouTube video, titled “At Home,” features world-class magicians performing tricks and promotes the message of safe practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sacrament of not touching: a gift of grace made literally a matter of life and death
As congregational separation and virtual worship persist, I find myself longing for the healing touches consistently dispensed in our home congregation – sacraments of grace I’ve taken all-too-for-granted.
Even limited to screens, COVID-19-era virtual church is fostering fellowship believers need
More than a month into virtual services, ministers are finding ways to engage with their congregants, even if services are watched in living rooms amid real-life distractions.
Self-care as political resistance – or how (not) to sacrifice humans to ‘save’ the economy
In the face of economic collapse, Americans are being invited to become sacrificially collectivist in their willingness to strap life, limb and vulnerable loved ones to the altar of our hyperventilating economy for the good of “everyone.”
Now what? Some thoughts about what’s next for the scattered and gathered church
Like retailers, universities and hospitals, churches will be having conversations around this question: Are buildings a necessity for delivering our services and ministries? In our new normal, physical location may be only one of many expressions of church.
Will our common vulnerabilities in this moment lead us to unite for the common good?
Perhaps this global pandemic will gather in each of us a calm assurance, having become so weary of our vices, we finally embrace our cure – by embracing one another.
The ‘tie that binds’: fellowship is disrupted and distanced, but not destroyed
Social distancing has disrupted our habits of work and worship. We can adapt, whether adeptly or awkwardly. We do not, however, have to let social distancing disrupt or destroy “the tie that binds” and “the fellowship of kindred minds.”
At home or detained, immigrants face extra challenges in time of pandemic
“There are other ways that they can allow people to move about in their communities, to go home and isolate with their families and shelter in place.”
Earth Day’s 50th anniversary: eerie similarities between an environmental crisis and a global pandemic
We must begin NOW to create a “new normal,” refusing to go back to the world before COVID-19. Our experience of resurrection and death transformed into new life – even one with the scars of our woundedness – can guide and motivate us.