As this year’s Pentecost celebration approaches for congregations, the Spirit arrives as a yearlong pandemic hopefully draws towards an end. But emerging from the pandemic can be even more complicated and controversial for churches than their first responses to it.
While much worry has been expressed about whether people will come back to church in general, we probably should be concerned particularly about whether people will come back to small groups at church. Read full piece
The last eighteen months or so have been difficult for pastors. Already stretched with the day-to-day concerns of running a congregation at a time when organized religion is on the decline, they’ve increasingly found that the divides facing the nation have made their way inside
Traumatic events are, at their heart, crises of meaning that cause people to question assumptions about their lives, including their spiritual beliefs. The years 2020 and 2021 certainly fit that bill.
The wave of vaccinations in recent weeks is bringing some back to experience fellowship after the pandemic upended their spiritual life Read full piece
Resistance is widespread in white, Republican communities like this one in Appalachia. But it’s far more complicated than just a partisan divide. Read full piece
During the pandemic, coffee fellowship time at churches disappeared. That time of socializing is one of the things that churchgoers have missed most about meeting in person.
Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on preachers spreading anti-vaccination messages amid a continuing COVID pandemic. Kaylor also highlights the medical and biblical wisdom of Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health.
Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health and an outspoken evangelical Christian, urged his fellow evangelicals, many of whom have resisted the COVID-19 vaccine, to get the shot and encourage others to do the same.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened the agency’s social distancing recommendations on Tuesday, announcing that fully vaccinated people who wear masks can safely attend many indoor events such as worship services.