New Expressions of Christian Community

Beloved in Christ,

This past weekend, the New York Times published an opinion piece by the Reverend Tish Warren, a priest in one of the breakaway Episcopal/Anglican groups, which has generated a great deal of discussion and reaction. She argues that, as we continue to move through these late stages of the pandemic, churches should discard virtual worship options and return to in-person worship only. I believe her conclusions are deeply problematic and misguided. At the same time, she makes a few points worth repeating, and like any opinion piece should, it has sparked the right kind of conversation.

In the first place, Warren is exactly right to claim that human beings desperately need embodied community. That’s particularly true for followers of Jesus, who we affirm as God enfleshed. Jesus’ incarnation reminds us that we encounter God not just in ideas but in bread and wine, in hugs and handshakes, in full-bodied laughter and running children with whom we narrowly avoid collisions. As worshippers of God incarnate, we will always hold an incarnate community as the highest possible value.

She is also right about how the calculus around risk mitigation has changed dramatically in the past year. In the early days of 2020, we knew almost nothing about how a new and deadly virus was transmitted or how to mitigate the spread, so it made sense to pursue a full-scale lockdown to try to stop transmission at nearly any cost. Two years later, we have widely available and effective vaccines, clear understandings of how the virus spreads and how to mitigate risk, as well as a latest variant that poses far less risk of serious illness or death. Those factors, combined with a growing awareness of how extended periods without embodied community pose a serious threat to our social, spiritual, and mental well-being, as well as the vitality and integrity of our communities, means it makes sense for churches to be cautiously returning to some version of in-person worship (the hopefully short-lived disruption of the omicron surge notwithstanding). 

But the conclusion that churches should eliminate virtual worship altogether is dangerously and unfaithfully misguided. There have always been, and always will be, people who cannot for any number of reasons be physically present in the worshipping assembly. To insist on in-person worship as the only faithful option is to endorse a physical ableism that pushes back to the margins so many whom virtual worship has connected in ways they may have never known before. It also demonstrates a callousness to the reality that, while vaccines and good health protocols make it possible for many to gather in person with minimal risk, there are still numerous people in our faith communities who are at particularly high risk who cannot. The long season of virtual worship has allowed so many homebound members, people who have moved away, or new seekers for whom walking through the doors of our buildings poses a serious barrier to connect in ways never before possible. While we need embodied community, virtual community is real community, and it expands the circle of who can be on the inside. It would be a grave loss if we were to toss aside what we have been forced to gain. 

Virtual worship has also taught us we have what it takes to do the hard and adaptive work in front of us in the years to come. In February of 2020, none of us would have believed our church was capable of existing almost entirely online for a full year, and yet here we are. We are smaller, maybe, and there is considerable uncertainty over who will still be with us when this has all passed, but we are still here. The Holy Spirit is calling us, through the voices of our neighbors and the cries of the world’s pain, to discover new expressions of Christian community. If we can worship virtually or outdoors for more than a year, then we can certainly move beyond the idolatry of church buildings and traditional ministry models. Holding onto virtual options helps us keep exercising the innovation muscle, as well as witnessing to what we are capable of when necessity and the Spirit challenge us. 

I made three visitations to faith communities last week. One was entirely in person, one was hybrid with about 50/50 in person and virtual attendance, and one was entirely virtual, with just the smallest group present for a livestreamed liturgy. All three followed the best COVID mitigation protocols. All three were places where the Spirit really showed up, and real connections were formed or strengthened. All three reinforced my confidence in our lay and ordained leadership. 

I imagine my week was a good preview of what will become normal in the coming years. If we think there is only one right way to form community or conduct worship, or one right decision on how to worship in a pandemic, we will be doing ourselves and our mission a profound disservice. 

In our anxiety and exhaustion, we can be quick to critique the decisions others are making under impossible circumstances, and quick to suggest that there is only one right way to navigate the complex topography we travel. It’s past time to put that all down. It’s time to leave off the virtue signaling that online worship is the only responsible choice if we love our neighbors. The human need to gather in embodied community is real, and when there are reasonably low-risk ways to do so, that’s a value to be honored. And, it’s time to put down any false belief that in person worship is the only viable and faithful option for followers of Jesus. It’s time to recognize that there are those for reasons of health or physical ability who simply cannot join us in person. Love requires us to act for the good of the other and assume good in the other. There are manifold ways to pursue both. Emotional and spiritual maturity involve the capacity to hold multiple, often contradictory truths together at the same time. This is a moment when many things are true and valuable at the same time, and we are being invited to grow more fully into the full stature of Christ. 

As I’m out in the diocese every week, often several times a week, what I see beginning to emerge are the outlines of a church that is ready to meet the challenges in front of us, a church that will likely be smaller and poorer, but more faithful, more vital, more agile, and one that will look and act more like Jesus. For that I say thanks be to God. I’ll also put that in the chat for those of you online. 

Grace and Peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop
Episcopal Church in Minnesota