Guilt

I feel guilty. I am not organising food banks or supplies for people during the Covid crisis. Am I reverting to type – my fundamentalist conversion during the tail-end of the Jesus movement overflow in Lancashire? Other churches seem to be doing so much – large ones like KXC starting up a brand new food bank, and smaller churches like Angel Baptist, and Notting Hill Community Church, feeding over 200 people every day with hot meals.

Dreaming with no future

The uncertainty of these days makes life feel like a dream. We drift through the empty streets of the city, floating in an air of unreality. London’s deserted avenues resemble De Chrico’s depopulated Italian squares, skirted by forsaken modernist-classical buildings.

One friend spends his days walking through unexplored areas of London, past unfinished housing developments, redolent of J. G. Ballard’s Drowned World. His is a singular expression of our collective pilgrimage - a postmodern Childe Harold; our own peripatetic, Anglo-Saxon, aboriginal, dreamtime.

Kierkegaardian Covid Christianity

We are beginning to consider how we might structure our return to the church building after lockdown. It’s possible the government may allow “public gatherings” in July. So, we’re thinking through social distancing and hygiene, with reduced numbers at multiple services. But while there is an economic pressure, pushing people to return to work as soon as possible, church has a different ethos. We can afford to take our time, to be safe, caring for people not profits.

Roofworks

‘Roofworks’, in a church context, usually means repairing leaky roofs. But under conditions of quarantine, it sometimes takes a more creative turn.

Sacrifice!

Jesus often asked, “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of heaven?” It’s a common task of theology, apologetics and preaching, to search out new metaphors, analogies, to explain Christian truth, in ways that communicate to cultures far-removed from the first century.

One notion, unpopular these days, is ‘sacrifice’: the idea of someone dying for another, an innocent person assuming someone else’s suffering. It seems unfair, a case of cosmic child abuse, which has been used to justify oppression and exploitation, political and personal.

The Trees. The Trees.

The government permits one hour a day for outside exercise. But it sometimes feels more like a compulsory command. Nevertheless, it guarantees that I leave the house each day. Otherwise, on a Sunday afternoon, like today, when the weather turns cold, I might be tempted to stay inside all the time. And I do need that head-clearing, mind-refreshing, wind-blowing, it brings.

Pastoral Theology for the Pandemic

I’ve talked with a few pastors about how they’re coping with the lockdown. For some they’ve had a crisis of faith, finding it hard to even believe in Christ, because of the pressure. Others experience the pain of physical separation from their members, and wonder how to do evangelism when you can’t talk to people. 

A Covid Revival? (This should come with a health warning to whoever reads it!)

Apparently there is an upsurge in British people reporting that they’ve prayed during the epidemic. Others have joined online-services. The trend has even been noticed by secularist, left-wing, media, like New Statesman and The Guardian. Among Christians, there is consequently much rejoicing, as they/we seem to identify signs of an impending revival, a nation returning to God.

Dark Energy: The Psychology of Ministry in the Time of Covid

The surprising thing, for me, is that the Covid crisis hasn’t made me depressed. Stressed, yes. But that’s a different feeling, with an obvious cause. However, while I pretend to copy Paul in his concern for the church (2 Co. 11.28), there is a danger of burnout. According to John Sanford, ministry burnout occurs when we use up our ‘fuel’, the spiritual and emotional resources, needed for pastoral activity. But where to find new fuel? My spiritual director recommended once that I look for where I find ‘energy’ during the day, suggesting this would be a sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life.