Sometime in February of this year, I had stumbled across this quote that summed up many of the aspects of life under COVID-19: “Everything takes longer than you expect, and then happens faster than you expect.” Those words were truly prophetic. The pace by which the world has been coming back to some semblance of normal since mid-May has been rapid. I’m no social butterfly, but I’ve been to indoor dining, an indoor music venue, and several outdoor celebrations in the past few weeks. Most days (unless I’m visiting a hospital or clinic), I am not conscious that life has been different. However, I know that the changes were massive and costly (and someday we will need to reckon just how beneficial those costs were in the long run, but that’s more territory than I want to cover now).
As we find ourselves in the process of ramping things back up, I want to repeat something I’ve mentioned a number of times: shutting things down is easy; starting things back up is harder. That said, I can see a time in the near future when life in the church will have all of the elements of worship, education, and fellowship that we had before March, 2020. Putting the pieces back together will take some time.
Yet, there will be more to that process than just plugging in the old pieces: we will need to extend the invitation to the people in our church community and the larger community to come back. People have been in certain habits for over a year. Participation becomes a habit and so does non-participation. We have some work to do in the months ahead. It will be a different kind of work than challenges we faced keeping our ministries going in past sixteen months—challenges that were daunting, to be sure. We will need to pivot to the next phase in the weeks and months ahead.
Speaking of challenges and changes, our church office staffing has settled into an arrangement that I believe will serve the needs of the church in an effective and faithful way. I am pleased to inform you that in mid-June, Linda Bosman joined the support team at Salem and she and Sandy Rabe will be working together to serve as Church Secretary. Linda recently retired from Lakeland University and, having expressed an interest in working in the church office, we gratefully turned that opportunity into a chance to expand the office coverage slightly and a job-share was born.
The office team approach allows us to broaden coverage so that the revised church office hours are: Tuesday and Wednesday 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Friday 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. The office remains closed Mondays and Thursdays. We are grateful and welcome Linda onboard in this capacity. Linda is a member of Salem and currently serves on the consistory.
Things in the life of the church are moving forward. Please pay note to your email and other correspondence from church, as changes in programming and schedules will be shared there and on the website. May the upcoming days of summer provide you with opportunities for rest and recreation.
Shalom aleichem—Peace be with you.
Rev. Jim Hoppert
