Faith, the church and coronavirus

also become more real with one another and before the God we love and serve.

In some sense the external limitation we face in terms of whether or not we can or can’t enter our church buildings is irrelevant – God is still God and our job as a church is to follow God in whatever reality we find ourselves in. Across our churches, we have had the most fruitful and creative season I have experienced in my time as bishop. I am so proud and truly grateful.

The response of most people of faith is a quiet and practical response to the needs around us, which goes largely unsung and unnoticed. Our church exists in each community and followers are often local responders of hope and companionship – creating street registers, doing shopping, collecting prescriptions, checking in with phone calls, building new relationships, volunteering with social justice groups. You don’t have to be a person of faith to do these things of course, but I believe that in many of these small acts of kindness you will find someone following the way of Jesus.

This week we held the latest of our leaders’ Zooms – a couple of hundred of us meeting together to share ideas. Each local parish has been encouraged to pause and reflect in this season, about what God’s spirit is really calling us to in our communities and where our best energy should be placed.

What needs to stop? What needs to start? What needs to change? Everybody is doing something slightly different, reflecting diverse and beautiful expressions of what it means to follow Jesus in different contexts.

I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Francis of Assisi which seems appropriate in this season: ‘‘God give us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’’

So what does this mean at an individual level as we reflect on the season that no-one wanted? For me, the risk in my own life was just to fill my diary up again, ‘return to normal’, and jump back in the car. The braver thing is not to leap back into the driver’s seat but instead discern and live actively into a new understanding that we are not the ones in control. As we move from level 2, the goal for all of us should be not to go back to what we knew, but to go forward. And I want to make sure I keep meeting my neighbours, and not to allow my housemates to do their own haircuts.