Dear sisters and brothers,
I have a brief update and encouragement for you today.
First the update: the CDC has issued new guidance on Covid-19 precautions, and now has a 3-level system called “Covid-19 Community Levels“. Because Marion County’s Community Level is currently “Low”, starting this Sunday, face masks are optional for those who are fully vaccinated. Two caveats, though:
- Because our hosts Broadway have so many different groups that meet in the building, please continue to wear face masks when walking through the hallways.
- Also, adults who work with children who are still ineligible for vaccination will continue to wear face masks when working with the kids.
This doesn’t mean we are “out of the woods” yet with this pandemic, so please stay up-to-date with vaccines and boosters as they become available, always get tested if you experience symptoms, practice appropriate isolation measures, and report to anyone who may have been exposed.
Finally, a word of encouragement: We are three weeks into our Confronting Mammon With Jesus series, and as we’ve learned more about the subtle power of Mammon in our lives and society, many of us have been troubled and uncertain about what this all means for us in practice. What should we DO about this? we wonder.
It’s normal to have these kinds of questions, and it’s normal to not know what to do. It’s okay for us to sit in the tensions these questions create and learn to welcome them as friends instead of quickly trying to resolve them or escape from the discomfort.
As Jesus reveals the ways we’ve been asleep under the spell of Mammon, and wakes us up to the gift of life together in the abundance of God’s kingdom, it’s very normal to feel uncomfortable, because there really are no easy answers.
So let’s continue to pray that God would give us a new imagination for how to inhabit the places in our lives where we feel this tension most acutely, trusting God to continue to free us from the dominion of Mammon.
I continue to thank God every day for you, beloved! What a gift to have companions in this journey who are willing to ask such difficult and probing questions about our life together in Christ. We learn more every day about what it means to belong to one another and to follow Jesus together.
In Christ,
Fr. Ben
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