Sidewalk Theology: Questions I Get Asked a Lot #3

Q: What's the Bible good for?

The influence of the ancient Hebrew scriptures and New Testament on visual arts, literature, social structure, worldviews, criminal justice, benevolent institutions, history, education, music, family structures, social order, race relations, economics and nearly everything else in the Western world and a lot in the non-Western world makes this a bigger question than is usually jammed into five short words. 

Face it, the Bible is a big deal. This sometimes unwelcome scriptural juggernaut with it's enormous shape-shifting pressure has been shoving it's weighty pages around for a long time. It's had colossal influence on how we humans have been doing life. You can like the Bible or skip it, be a friend or critic, but this crazy-quilt library of sixty-six books, by forty authors written over sixty generations has been about as influential as controlled fire or the inclined plane. You don't have to like it, but the Bible has had a significant impact on a significant number of communities and billions of people. Smart kids now tell us its cultural influence is diminishing, but it looks like the Bible's massive fingerprints will be detectable for awhile yet, even without crime scene dusting and Sherlock's magnifying glass.

Our short, superb question necessarily begs further questions: in this thousands years long  human experience, how helpful has the Bible been? How harmful? How much of what's praiseworthy can be laid at the feet of behavior motivated by a correct understanding of the Bible?  How much blamable Bible influence in history comes from silly or accidentally flawed explanations, impressions or interpretations? National and personal tragedies, even horrors and genocide have been perpetrated because of cravenly deliberate distortions by friends of the Bible.  Balling it all up with our seemingly simple, original Earth sized question presents us with a puzzler the size of thirteen expanding universes. It's too big for my feeble brain for sure.

But . . . I can tell you how a lot of people misuse the Bible. I can also tell you where I am right now on best practices for how it's supposed to be used.

As a Bible consumer, I'm to use it primarily to judge myself. Scholars talk about a 'canon of scripture'. A canon is a standard or measuring rod. The Bible is to be my touchstone or reference point, informing me about my behavior toward God and other humans. The way I read it, the Bible tells me pretty directly that God's two great purposes for my life are,  

1) that I be in right relationship with God and 

2) that I be in right relationship with other people. 

Borrowing from the Jewish holy book we call the Old Testament, Jesus distills it all into two great relationship commands: First, with all you've got, love God whom you can't see, then with the same fervor, love the humans you can't help but see. Those two high purposes can't be divorced. 

Bible Pop Quiz - what is the one, honest-to-goodness, legitimate use of this 1700 page tangle of miracle stories, palace intrigues, prophesies, biography, love poetry, history, laws and unreasonably long lists of people who should have changed their name at Ellis Island and spared us all? I'm to use it to examine me and how well I'm doing with the Bible's catch-all commands to love God and love people.  That's how I should use it, but when I aim the Bible at other people, I weaponize it. To weaponize it is to deform and distort it.

Oddly enough, both those who believe and defend and those who don't can be guilty of weaponizing the Bible. Sneering believers have been guilty of rifling through its onionskin pages, skipping the calls for self examination while gleefully seizing on phrases that pin a scarlet A or equivalent on the less believing crowd whose deeds cause the gasping believer much sputtering and pearl clutching.  That's repulsive but the real problem is they've turned an ancient and beautiful repository of documents from another time and place into a present day cudgel. 

The person approaching the Bible with neutrality or even hostility also weaponizes it when they demand the believing enemy live by the unbeliever's/non-user's understanding of it. They've also put themselves in the screwy position of beating someone with a club they don't believe in.

Some legalist eagle may say, "What do you mean the Bible isn't a weapon? It calls itself a sword!" True, but notice in Ephesians 6 the sword is to be wielded against ugly supernatural world powers of darkness described as evil principalities, powers and rulers. In Hebrews 4:12 it's to be used in performing delicate and restorative soul surgery. It's not to be used to trash gay people, annoying religious types, political opponents, flag burners, flag wavers, lawyers, televangelists or even telemarketers. I'm afraid the 70x7 forgiveness thing is still in effect even for chirpy people who clutter up our phones with stuff we don't want.

If you read the Bible, my advice is, go slow and read it to yourself. For yourself. Once you do, as a favor to me, please don't write a book about how it's shot with holes and damaged your life or given you the vapors. Resist too the opposite temptation to publish those dandy Bible revelations known only to you that got you the car, cash, spouse, two-and-a-half kids, and house in Malibu you always wanted along with the full name and shoe size of the Anti-Christ. 

I'll end up with the vapors.

Sidewalk Theology: Questions I Get Asked a Lot #2

 Q: Does God get anything out of prayer or is it just a bunch of noise for Him?

From your good question I can tell you suspect prayer is a personal thing for God. Your suspicions are a direct hit on an aspect of prayer that has been missed - even by those who see value in it and have done a lot of it. 

From the Bible and a little bit from experience, my impression is that God loves prayer because it's a relationship thing. He loves being in relationship with His creation, especially when it's with others, like Himself, who can make real, free decisions that have real consequences. 

Within Himself, God is a thriving, vibrant relationship of Father, Son and Spirit and recasting the familiar first words of the Bible, "In the beginning, God" as "In the beginning, Relationship" isn't far from the mark. It's a Relationship of perfect love and harmony that only gets better with the enlarging of the relationship circle. The more free beings who are in it, the better it gets. Jesus' request in John 17:21 meant something, "Father . . . let them (you and me) be in Us." Wow! We don't become what God is - don't get carried away, but we are included in that Relationship somehow. Double Wow! That's why all the New Testament talk of being "in Christ" and also why God prefers calling us children over servants and there's more Bible talk of adoption and family than justification and duty.

"God is love" only makes sense if we first recognize that God is a Relationship and not as a solitary. A solitary could not not be described as love because love needs an object and the best kind of love is mutual and fully reciprocal. Remember junior high crushes on someone who didn't crush back? That stunk, didn't it? You can't experience love that's worth much if you're a stand alone. It will only drive you crazy and make you write bad words on somebody's locker.

"God is love." Since love is God's nature and He loves relationships, God finds prayer/conversation useful, meaningful, interesting and consequential. He wants to participate.

One more thing: God is a one-of-a-kind Relationship who can simultaneously carry on billions of consequential conversations with people in every imaginable developmental, emotional, intellectual and spiritual state - pristine saint to debauched, boozing lech - and remain fully engaged with each one, actively arranging the best possible outcome every time for everybody. In most cases He is more fully engaged than the earnest saint or much more earnest boozer could ever hope to be.

The temporal outcomes of His involvement with us in prayer are better than can be imagined in many cases and the eternal outcomes are better in all cases. He does it all flawlessly even if our comprehension and perspective is blurred by bad information, irritation, fatigue or inferior, misplaced expectations, He flawlessly upholds His end. Now, here's the kicker, kids. While carrying on a thriving, loving, completely satisfying Relationship within Himself, He never takes His hands off the wheel of an ever expanding universe, all the while caring for you and me and Aunt Minnie. And the sparrows.

That is our God. Amazing.

Sidewalk Theology: Questions I Get Asked a Lot #1

 Q: If God already knows everything, including what I need, why do I still need to pray?

This one has been a consistent favorite from young and old. The old are  a little embarrassed to ask and sometimes have to work up to it. The younger folks just blurt it out. I like it when people blurt. Here's an email answer, pretty much as I sent it about a month ago to a young enquiring mind. 

Dear Curious George (name changed),

I'll take a stab at it.

First, I'll be referring to God as 'HE' but not because I think He's a boy with boy parts. God is no more male than female and we know that's so because we're told that men and women are equally made in the image and likeness of God. Both are equal imagers because God is equally both. I could use 'IT' but that sounds so impersonal and since God is intensely personal, is actually false. God is in fact not a solitary being but is an eternal, personal relationship. Because of our language, I'm left only with 'HE' or 'SHE' and 'HE' is merely historically more familiar though not more correct.

Part of the premise of your question is spot on: God knows everything and where a thing, being, truth or event is placed in time is no barrier to His knowing it. Of course He knows the outcome before we ask since it's His nature to know everything. He can't help but know.

Here's the thing though: from all I just said you can't assume or infer that God causes everything to happen as it does at the time it does. Prayer is an independent initiative on our part and plays a role, as do our actions or inactions. The universe we live in isn't closed or totally predetermined. It's in a state of becoming, if that makes sense. I think there's more wiggle room in reality than some of the old preachers have told us. They were kindly gents who should have looked a little more critically at great grandfathers' theology and at least attempted to better square it with the craziness of life tumbling all around us.

Now, it's true that God will accomplish a BIG PLAN, but within the plan we are permitted by our actions/inactions, prayers/no prayers to have some effect on the outcome of the BIG PLAN. It's going to happen but maybe, within limits, we affect the timing or the clarity with which we or others see the outcome.

If every activity, word, syllable, prayer, movement, response and counter response that ever happened or will happen were a direct decree from the mind of God, that would be an amazing feat requiring a super intellect beyond imagining. If we once grasped the size and scope of it, awe would be involuntarily wrung from us and properly so. BUT, if His plan becomes a reality while also allowing us some part in making real decisions with real consequences, good and bad, that is an act of sustained wisdom, variable coordination and chaos management that is light years beyond mere decrees. That is our God. He's worthy of much more than open mouthed awe, but I'm not sure what it's called really.

So, yes, God knows what will happen before we pray, but it doesn't automatically follow that He directly and personally makes it happen. We have some effect and that gives us motivation to pray. We  also have a monstrous responsibility to learn how to pray because it's participation somehow in what God is up to. I think He allows us tremendous freedom and latitude - it's called human life - while still accomplishing His ultimate plans. Simply because He is aware something will happen doesn't force us to say He makes everything happen. It's the difference between what theology calls foreknowledge and foreordination. I don't feel like dusting off the theology books, but you're nibbling at something pretty amazing Curious George. Tossing orders is celestial child's play. God is way beyond that.

Spending quality time reflecting on the nature and activities of God is mind expanding really. Our minds can entertain nothing bigger or grander. I think that makes it a very healthy thing.

A Question Only a Shepherd Could Hate

 

One day last spring every church leader in America was slapped in the face with several new realities: an unusually nasty virus was loose and it was sneakier than most. It seemed to prey on the most vulnerable though no one had guaranteed immunity. If people who normally travelled different paths got together it was easily transmitted and you didn't even have to make physical contact. Like Pig Pen's dust cloud it was in the air around us. Oddly, you could pass it on without knowing you even had the awful thing. There was no cure and it killed people. A lot of people. Nobody liked it, but we all adjusted.

Did I miss something?

The only difference between then and now has been the fast development of a vaccine, but outside of  a few people on television with underdeveloped biceps, almost nobody you know has gotten it yet.

So, why are many church leaders rushing to put people back into buildings? The plague is still in the air and it's still very dangerous to humans, even an endangered and diminishing sub-species like church going humans. 

Here's part of our shared national experience over the last nine months: getting tired of the routine, flaming failures of pagan politicians to follow guidelines dictated to us little people, First Amendment split decisions from the Supreme Court on the legality of closing/opening churches, garbled messages from various well compensated, self appointed experts. We've seen it all and we're tired of it all but none of it changes the lethality of the virus for some nor how it can be spread by us all. 

Nothing has changed. So why the push to re-open churches?

Every church leader at every level has a pastoral role. Pastors are shepherds - remember the rod and staff? They aren't for decoration. The primary job of shepherds is to protect. Fail at that and the rest of it doesn't matter.

Is making a statement, securing the brand, raising money, keeping a staff busy or making people feel safe in a familiar worship environment worth risking those we promised to protect?  The swelling tide of re-opened churches currently being body surfed by a lot of pastors indicates somebody is putting something above protecting the people. Under pressure from somewhere it appears many pastors have thrown down the tools of the trade. When the wolf shows up, a staffless shepherd is just a guy in a field. He or she has got nothing and the sheep are toast.

Here's what we know about church culture in America: it's not working. It's certainly not growing. Churches gain or lose at each others expense, pretty much, without making a dent in the larger culture. Bright girls and boys tell us that only 30% of adults will consider entering a church. That shrinking pond is the one most churches are fishing in and the competition is starting to get fierce. The growing 70% who will never enter any church no matter how sincere the people, sharp the pastor, beautiful the sanctuary, tight the worship team or aromatic the coffee, are saying loud and clear that what most churches have been doing lately isn't working for them. Our mandate is to "go into all the world" but the world is yawning in our faces.

Rather than joining a mad rush to get back to business as usual, opening buildings and organizing people once again into nice neat rows with a close-up view of the back of a bad haircut, wouldn't it be better to use this time to reflect and strategize, to pray and search the scriptures and develop a plan for re-starting rather than merely re-opening? Perhaps we could be better positioned to finally take a big swing at long term change in the hurting communities where the Holy Spirit has placed us. We can prepare get to kill a lot of giants without abandoning our primary role as protectors.

We've been handed  a sealed crate of rare, mountain fresh air capable of blowing several decades of sameness, staleness and spiritual sterility out of the sanctuary. That's a re-start. Or, we can take the easier route of simply re-opening and go back to what wasn't working before.

Covid Lessons for Pastors: What I Learned on the Way Through a Pandemic

 "He who dines with the devil should have a long spoon".  

                                                                                        

Both Chaucer and Shakespeare borrowed from this 14th century French proverb. When approaching combustible people or hot topics, they saw it as a clever word of caution and a necessary caveat. Watch yourself around certain folks! Duly warned, I wade into the feeding frenzy over the opening/shuttering/navigating of California churches during the Covid crisis. From my modest perch as just a pastor I've kept my eyes open and here's what the last seven months have taught me:

1. Shepherds can get eaten too. The first job of a pastor/shepherd is protecting the flock. False doctrine, well groomed but snaky TV religion hucksters, dirty demons, a sickness inducing culture all try to scatter and feast on the sheep. There's also the ever present lions and tigers and bears. Prolonged isolation, loneliness, anxiety, months of numbing uncertainty, restricted human contact, along with an uptick in the circulation of silly ideas have all been part of the everyone's pandemic experience. The increased presence of well funded spiritual predators, topped off with the extra craziness of an election season, adds layers of difficulty to the pastor's already difficult primary responsibility of protecting the sheep from harm. The importance of the pastor's protective role is not diminished but is probably heightened by the unusually taxing, unprecedented life altering challenge we are living through. You can be a smart pastor, eloquent, well connected, innovative and respected but if you fail to protect the people you've been entrusted with you won't even qualify as an also-ran. You don't deserve to. Protecting others is hard work.

All church leaders know that the wounded never wait, but the Covid experience increases the risk of  pastors and other care givers also joining the ranks of the wounded. Adhere to health directives and close the sanctuary or creatively, cautiously try to maintain healthy smaller groups and somebody won't like it. Try Zooming a Bible study and somebody will balk. Responsibly cancel indoor services and step cautiously into re-opening with outdoor services. Some won't return until the building opens. Choose mandatory masking or optional masking, singing or silence. Weighing it out in the most careful, granular fashion possible won't save a pastor from criticism. Selecting any option or no option means there will be discontent from somebody, predictably followed by voting with the feet and maybe hostile mud slinging from armchair generals, both in and outside the church. The brilliance of the generous generals' advice is matched by the stunning absence of their skin in your game. No matter what you do there will be plenty of losses and even your wins will carry an asterisk. Years of work and prayer, hours of emotional investment and trust building can evaporate with the easy second guessing of one misunderstood move. It happens whether you're closing or opening the church. It's rough out there and the toll taken on shepherds trying to protect the sheep they love is unlike any other.

Daily, even hourly, heaps of statistics on the economic and physical damages of the pandemic have buried everyone in America, but the emotional, psychological and spiritual price we've all paid and will continue to pay is largely unreported and unknown. Maybe it can't be known. What is certain is that some of Covid's bills haven't even been opened yet. As interest compounds on these unpaid expenses they could become a shadow casting debt-curse bringing harm to the next generation and beyond. This thing isn't finished with us.

Pastors, by nature a breed that absorbs a lot while disclosing little, aren't immune to Covid's non-viral side effects. Pastors, this thing has hurt us. Just as many small businesses will not survive, I suspect many church leaders, especially in smaller settings. will also not survive. As casualties of the upheaval, some excellent shepherds will get out and find something else to do.

2. To some people, you're a big fat nothing.  Some pastors, along with legal eagles eager to represent them and smiling public figures happy to slap backs in hopes of votes, sense that our churches have been singled out by health officials, office holders and bureaucrats for harsher shut-down treatment than other enterprises where people gather. 

I don't think government leaders targeted churches so much as ignored them. 

In the initial shut down orders in March, it's unlikely that a malevolent, religion hating cabal saw an opportunity to strangle the baby in its crib by ordering places of worship closed. It's closer to reality and maybe more painful to imagine that people in charge simply never thought of churches or church goers. Unfamiliarity with the church universe was evident in the very wooden, byzantine, old timey sounding California church guidelines released in May and June. They aren't picking on us. They don't know us. We aren't on their radar. Let that iodine sink into the wound.

Don't let those rare but much photographed election year church appearances from candidates or their out-of-context Sermon on the Mount quotes fool you. Ambitious politicians and their more ambitious handlers don't give churches or church leaders much of a thought unless it's election time. Hey, don't get offended that you're not invited to the table and for sure don't be surprised to see highly placed pagans acting like pagans! Cheer up, that's a sandbox you don't want to play in anyway and the Bible is clear that God prefers to tabernacle in our weaknesses, not our strengths. That's where He does His best work.

3. Some churches cheat.  Some restaurants cheated. I noticed that some gyms and hair salons never really closed. Same for some churches. While most of us struggled, they cheated. Currently in our area, the local Public Health Department allows indoor church services at 25% seating capacity or 100 people, whichever is smallest. Not largest. Smallest. Masks and distancing are also required and congregational singing is not permitted indoors if you care more about protecting people than protecting the brand. Even if you don't care more it's still not permitted. If you want more people you have to endure the hassle of moving it outside and braving the elements like the rest of us. Still, some churches quietly open without regard for the guidelines. Guidelines are for chumps. 

There's a bunch of church cheating going on. More than sneaky, it's dangerous. We're dealing with an unusually transmittable virus that has no cure and kills people. In despicable fashion, cheating churches have cast the lure of having greater faith or the patina of brave defiance of godless government to attract fish from other ponds. Remember the first rule of shepherding? Protect people? Oddly enough, that gets tossed when your first concern is larger groups of people and not individual humans. I can't do much about the church cheats, but I've been watching and at the next ministerial breakfast, I'm bringing the longest spoon I can find. Maybe I'll stay home and read a book.

4. Obstacle or Opportunity?  My thinking about ministry has changed in the last seven months. I now see what a great tool has been handed pastors in the goofy world of social media platforms. Prior to the shut down of churches, live streaming was something I had little appreciation for really. It was something cool kids and tech nerds touted because it was the newest shiny object the magpies were squawking about. I was dead wrong. For months the use of live streaming, Zooming and staying connected via social media have been our only options. We have been forced to make them work and the results have been surprising. We are getting pretty good at it and many people are being reached. Whatever the church looks like post pandemic, we will continue to put at least as much time and effort into our online presence as we are currently. Live streaming can never replace an in-person experience with God and His people, but it may be the new, welcoming front door of the church opening into a very broken world. Other pastors have discovered what we have and some are finding more and better ways to stay in touch that we haven't touched yet. The quality of life in their communities is being enhanced in ways that makes much of Christ. There's more than one way to be His body.

It's a much published fact that the church in America has been losing impact for some time. Many prominent and not so prominent pastors are demanding Covid restrictions be lifted so churches can get back to normal. Doesn't that strike you as odd or short-sighted? Why would we want to return to what wasn't working before? If church leaders learn nothing during this forced shut down about better ways to do church, it's clear the decline will continue. If we only want to get back to our failing, tired, deck chair shifting way of handling Jesus' transforming message of good, decline is what we deserve. 

I'm not in favor of merely reopening churches. Let stuff die that deserves to die. Instead, let's restart churches, refashioning and re-launching them by throwing overboard the bloodless, tedious, 'new' ideas that are only repackaged failed ideas. We have a chance at making space for an infusion of genuine spiritual power and Presence. We don't need something new but something very old. 

Book of Acts anyone?

Here's What You Do With Racism

Last night some church friends sat on our back porch and briefly explained, as their three young girls squealed and did cannonballs in our pool, why they had changed schools.

Bigotry. Prejudice. Racism.

Daily the girls were forced to acknowledge the obvious fact that their pretty skins were slightly darker than most kids in the school. At their tax payer sponsored school a daily dose of bigotry came with classwork, quizzes, lunch and recess. They also got to hear classmates call them names coined by long dead buyers and sellers of human flesh - names meant to degrade, subjugate, humiliate and psychologically rape earlier generations with dark, pretty skin.

There were rounds of meetings as mom and dad sought the school's help. After all, it was enlightened Bakersfield, California in the twenty-first century, not backward Birmingham, Alabama in the nineteenth. Lots of promises came attached to little action. School staff seemed unsure of how to do the obvious right thing.

The difficult sessions ended and the matter was happily resolved when the parents requested and received a transfer and the girls began attending a more diverse school with a wiser, better equipped staff. The problem magically went away, saving school officials awkward confrontations with bigot moms and dads who had done a stellar job passing on their callousness, unkindness and bigotry.

A seamless and happy partnership of bigot parents and seemingly feckless educators made certain the soul corrupting bacteria of ignorance had found a next generation host and would thrive a few more decades. A sanitized version of it all now sits quietly in an already forgotten file folder.

How long is this stuff going to go on?

Almost sixty years ago, as I began to read, I asked my mom why different color people had to drink at different water fountains. Almost that long ago, a family friend died from a stroke because police found him incoherent in  his car and jailed him for being "just another drunk n***r." I've seen it in schools, stores, restaurants, the workplace, in tasteless jokes told by people who assumed I was an insider and fellow traveler. I've seen it repeatedly in a sport I love and in the church world I know too well. The mouths and offices of squeaky clean church leaders and the board rooms of prominent churches alike have been too often filled with the vilest vomit of bigotry and willful hatred. It's not hearsay. I've heard it myself. We've drawn a line in the church I'm part of that's cost us as people put out for repeated ugly racist jokes and name calling have continued to cause grief.

How long is this stuff going to go on? When will it end?

Jesus gave a good answer in Luke 10 with an original and intentionally racialized story. The humanity of two men was tested when one of them was savagely beaten and left dying in the street. They were from very different ethnic backgrounds and the Bible claims that in their everyday world, the animosities ran so high that they "had no dealings with each other". At great expense, inconvenience and with social stigma attached, one man crossed a great divide and saved the other man's life.

Jesus said, "Go and do the same." To all of us.

Thinking about what three beautiful little girls lived through in my city has kept me up all night, feeling sick inside. I've seen some variation on this theme my entire life. When will it end?

It ends the day we set aside our own agendas, stop waiting on somebody else to do something and start initiating mercy like Jesus said. Put yourself out there. Let it start with you. Stop talking so much and do something for somebody.

Initiate mercy.

Re-Opening Alta Vista Assembly

Re-Opening Alta Vista Assembly
A word from Pastor Pete Baker to the church family
 

What has happened to us:
 

• We never stopped being the church. During the shut-down our leaders have set the example and stayed in contact with many in the church family. Many have continued to encourage, reach out and pray for one another even without the Sunday services, Thrive meetings and mid-week outreaches and activities. A lot of good prayer has happened and relationships have deepened. We’ve continued, in smaller form, to get food into the homes of those most in need. We’ve significantly helped the orphans in Bukemebe, Kenya during a particularly severe season and have continued to honor commitments to our many missionaries around the world. Viewership of the daily Face Book video encouragement by our good leaders, the Face Book/You Tube Sunday services and mid-week Zoom Bible studies is often 5-6 times the number of people who would be in our sanctuary on Sunday. Alta Vista Assembly has continued to have an impact, fighting above our weight class,  and other churches have closely monitored what we are doing and saying and have sometimes taken cues from us. This has not been lost time for our church.
 

• Our last Sunday service was March 15. Even before the California Department of Public Health issued a statewide stay-at-home directive on March 19, Alta Vista leaders wisely decided to close the buildings to all activity following the March 15 service.
 

• On Tuesday, May 26 the state released guidelines for church re-opening earlier than anticipated. Our actions will be based on that 13 page document.
 

What we cannot do right now:
 

• We cannot resume our normal schedule yet, nor have large gatherings in the sanctuary. We are allowed 25% of capacity - that’s 22-24 people for us.

• We cannot have public singing or responsive readings.

• We cannot pass communion plates.

• We cannot shake hands, hug, hold hands or lay hands while praying.

• We cannot have meals, serve food or coffee.

• We cannot pray at the altar.

• In recent gatherings where churches ignored these practices, there have been outbreaks of the virus. Several pastors have died. We all have to do our best to stay healthy and keep each other healthy as we re-open, that’s why we will carefully follow the guidelines. We can do this!

What we will do:
 

• First, just know that for now, church will look different. We will offer a variety of small group meetings in the sanctuary on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday evenings at 6:30 PM and Sunday at 10:30 AM. These will be led by different leaders, dealing with different topics taken from Right Now media. Video and discussion format will be used each night. A short message will be given on Sunday mornings. This is church for now, but YOU MUST RESERVE A SPOT by going to the Alta Vista Face Book page and choosing the time you wish to attend. Sorry, but reservations are essential to avoid violating capacity guidelines and possibly creating a health risk.

• Sessions will be 45-60 minutes.

• Family members may sit together. Non-family members are asked to maintain a distance of at least 6 feet.

• Each person should bring a face mask

• Hand sanitizing stations will be in the foyer. Everyone should sanitize their hands upon entering and upon leaving. Disposable gloves will be available for those who wish to use them

• National and district Assemblies of God leadership are not requiring us to re-open. As a sovereign General Council church in good standing we are free to chart our own course in compliance with guidelines.

• This is the first step in a gradual re-opening. After 2-3 weeks state health officials will re-evaluate the numbers and may offer different guidelines. Our intention is to continue the nightly small groups and decide what is best for our church family.

Precautions we will take:
 

• If you are sick, have a compromised system or underlying health risks, please stay home.

• Activities will be limited to the foyer area and sanctuary. Fellowship hall and classrooms are not to be used for any activities or meetings. Except for a children’s activity on Sundays, no exceptions.

• We are encouraging families with children to make reservations for Sunday mornings. It will be easiest to accommodate them all on one day. 

Timeline: We want to begin this schedule on Monday, June 8 at 6:30 PM

What informs our gradual re-opening:
 

• A lot of information has swirled around us the last three months. Here is what we know for sure:
 

1. The virus is easily transmissible and a carrier may be unaware she/he has it. Doctor friends have told me it’s the perfect virus.

2. Some people get seriously ill and it kills some people.

3. There is no cure at this time

4. It’s still in Kern County

5. Distancing, mask wearing and hand washing are excellent ways to avoid spreading it.
 

• As a shepherd I want to keep you safe. Re-opening in small numbers and with precautionary practices in place will do that, even if it’s uncomfortable or different. We aren’t trying to be trendy. Using what we know for sure we are trying to be wise, keeping everyone safe and honoring Christ at the same time. Again, we can do this! 

• You are aware that other churches are taking a more aggressive stance. Here’s the awareness that guides my thinking: if we are careless and one of the church family were to contract the virus in an Alta Vista activity and become gravely ill or die, I would never recover from that. Defiance is simply not worth the risk of losing a valued member of a very special family that God has put together.

What I think is happening:
 

• God may have given this three month interruption to His church as a gift. Could this be a dress rehearsal for a future, more extended time when we will be unable to meet as we are accustomed? For some time I’ve talked with you on Sundays about a time when we may not be able to do church the way we always have. We now know what that’s like and may experience it again. I believe churches have been singled out for unfair consideration and treatment by public officials. Negligence and oversight or intentional? I don’t know, but having happened once increases the chances of it happening again. Pushback should not be our response. Continued prayer and preparing for how we do church in the future should be.
 

• This is an election year and you probably saw it coming: the virus and response has become a politically polarizing struggle. I mention it to say you were right if you did and, as your friend, to remind you to be careful who you listen to. Don’t let other voices drown out the gentle voice of God. Go deeper in the Word and prayer. During difficult times, let the gentle, trusted, nail scarred hands of Christ shape your heart.

A final word
 

We didn’t waste the shut down and we aren’t going to waste the re-opening. Let’s treat it as dress rehearsal for a future challenge. It’s time for everyone to step up and show support for what your church is doing. Our online presence has reached hundreds and hundreds of people who never walked through the sanctuary doors. Online preaching wasn’t my first choice. Clearly I was wrong. Is it possible that God has engineered it so we would launch into doing church in small groups for now?

“Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage each other, especially now as the day of His return is drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25)
 

For now, a small group is the only way we can safely honor God’s command to gather with His family until larger groups are allowed. For some people it’s fashionable to avoid church and others may have gotten used to staying home. That is an error of disobedience that could have unforeseen consequences. Look again at what God has stated so clearly in scripture. This isn’t the time to let others shoulder your responsibility, waiting until large Sunday morning gatherings are allowed. Small groups are all we’ve got and that’s not such a bad thing - in fact it’s very scriptural. It’s the era of the shared burden for our greatly favored church and if your health permits, jump at this chance of exploring a different way of doing church. 
 

Make a reservation for the small group of your choice today.