News sources are calling it a fourth wave. Hospitalizations are up. The Washington state Department of Health reported 4,267 new Covid-19 cases and 36 deaths on Friday. There are 39 counties in Washington. Every one of them has at least 100 active cases. 30 of those counties have more than 1,000. The Delta variant of the disease, which accounts for nearly all of the new cases, is more highly transmissible than the variant we were seeing a year ago. The governor of our state has resumed the mask mandate for indoor locations. The Whatcom County Superior Court has postponed jury trials. The governor has asked all people in our state to “take it outdoors” in an attempt to decrease the infection rate.

The mitigation efforts seem to be paying off. The state’s infection rate is lower than the national average. But this is a serious matter. People are dying. Hospitals are running short of resources.

After 18 months of restrictions and changes in lifestyle due to the virus, people are getting tired. Despite the fact that there is no vaccine available for children under the age of 12 and despite the increase in infection rates, schools will be opening this week across our state and enrollment rates are expected to be up significantly from 2020 levels. Parents are getting tired and burned out from the double duty of having children at home and trying to provide home education. Parents and children are eager to resume schooling and, from what I can tell from the conversations I have had with parents, there is little sympathy for the pressures that schools have experienced.

Of course the situation is very complex. Public schools funding is based on enrollment. With enrollment down across the state and across the nation during 2020, schools are experiencing decreases in state funding. Now they are facing a surge in enrollment with parents becoming burned out with home education and funding is falling short. Children seem to experience fewer serious symptoms from the disease than adults.

In the midst of all of this there is a strange, yet powerful partisan political controversy about vaccination. Despite the solid science behind the vaccines, despite the fact that the Pfizer vaccine is fully approved by the FDA, the rate of vaccination is low. About 60% of Washington citizens are fully vaccinated. While this is ahead of the national average, there are still a lot of unvaccinated people out there.

Back to school seems to have an onerous tone this year. People are afraid of what might happen. They don’t know what to expect. Will schools start and stop as happened last year? What is the effect of the “on again, off again” schooling on children? What are the risks of in person schooling?

The Covid advisory committee at our church is taking a conservative approach. In-person worship is suspended once again. Gatherings of more than 5 people are not permitted in the church building, with the single exception of 10 allowed, widely spread throughout the sanctuary and balcony, for worship leadership. Services are live-streamed from the sanctuary. The planned outdoor events for families set for the traditional in-gathering Sunday have been suspended. We are scrambling to put together ways to connect and build community online.

There is no way that I would have been able to imagine this phase of my career when I began as a pastor. I’m spending more and more time in front of the computer, talking with church members, participating in meetings and worshiping online. Even though most weeks I am one of the ten allowed in the sanctuary for worship, there will continue to be weeks when I stay home and participate online in order to make room for others to lead the time with children, and participate in different ways in worship leadership.

Compared to others, I have it easy. Susan and I are fully vaccinated. We have so far not had any days when we experienced symptoms. We are able to walk outdoors every day. Our children have been raised and are out of our home. They and our grandchildren have not been infected. Still, we are aware of the stress that this pandemic is placing on all of our family and friends and the strain it is putting on the institutional church as it continues to adjust to some of the most dramatic changes in our lifetimes. We can feel the exhaustion of leaders and parents in our congregation.

Fall programming will be spooling up at the church as it has every year since its founding. And our position as Ministers of Faith Formation is a program position. We have been hired to plan and lead programs. So far, however, we are restricted to online programs. We are putting together a catalogue of events and classes and activities and small group gatherings that will occur primarily over Zoom. Another Zoom meeting tomorrow will bring our Board up to date with our plans. We should have a fairly complete calendar put together within a week.

None of this feels normal to us. Our careers have been about being with people and serving people. We have built our ministries on face-to-face interactions with the people of the church. We struggle to feel connected with all of the online activities. We feel as if we haven’t had an opportunity to meet the children of the church. We don’t know the families and parents.

Back to school is anything but normal for the families that we serve. They are in desperate need of community and it is hard to know the right way to provide community in the face of fear and exhaustion.

Of course, ours isn’t the first generation of the church to face pressures. We aren’t the first to have experienced pandemic. The stories of our people contain accounts of attempted genocide, of defeat and exile. Parents have faced the loss of children and there have been times when it seemed like our traditions would be lost. Yet we have continued to be a people of faith in each generation. So we continue to work and proclaim our faith. In our church this is the year of extravagant welcome. May we continue to discover new ways to extend that welcome to others.