This was written by a friend of ours, Peter Veysie, a Methodist priest in South Africa. It resonated with me, as I hope it does with you too.
Andrew Gready
I am not sure if you realise what it feels like to be a pastor right now with a church community online, but for me the word is humbling and deeply challenging.
I have done many sad and lonely funerals in this last year and shared special birthdays, anniversaries and weddings online. We have sadly said goodbye to many colleagues and friends who just went too soon and way too early leaving loved ones and families and friends. We have been there to feed and care for those desperate in need but it’s just a drop in the deep dark ocean of despair in their lives. I love to care and hug and share with people at their moment of crisis and so many times I have had to just be there on the line!! I have had to counsel and care for doctors, nursing sisters and frontline workers totally exhausted and ready to almost give up having lost another mother, father, sister, brother or friend to COVID-19.
A whole new perspective on what it means to be church
We are churchless right now for our safety and care of each other (which sounds rather strange as I write this!!) but it’s meant a whole new perspective on what it really means to be church. It’s an opportunity to live creatively and find fresh expressions and ways to be present. I really sense that a new season is birthing of really going back to the basics. We are in for a rough ride and it will mean navigating together in community like never before. Our empty doctrines and divisions will be forgotten as we stand together and walk with each other. We are called to refocus on Love, acceptance forgiveness and care for each other and our beautiful earth before it and we are all gone!! We will reap a raw harvest of lives in need of hope and we need to be there: just present and open to the next move of our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
A pastor not by title
I am a pastor not by title but by calling and my prayer is for healing and restoration but not without a deep understanding of what this really means. I have no plans or major goals for the first time in my life other than to be there for others day by day and to as the old song says: “See You more clearly, Love You more dearly and follow You more nearly day by day. “
Love and hugs and prayers for you all in this difficult time of our lives.