10 Guidelines for Churches Considering Reopening

1. Make a full plan and ACTUALLY GET all necessary supplies before going public with it.  First of all, if you make a good plan, go public with it, and then find that you can’t get any of the gloves or Purell your plan depends on for another four weeks, your good plan just evaporated.  Furthermore, if you can’t get masks, then there’s a chance your dentist can’t either.  If you can’t get Clorox wipes, then there’s a chance the Dermatology office is also waiting in line.  If you can’t find hand sanitizer, then think about the local restaurant owner that you appreciate so much.  Only these peoples’ very lives depend on the speed at which they can get back up and running.
2. Know the plan for businesses/activities in your area… you are not a modern-day Martin Luther [or MLK Jr] if you have not taken the time to hear the other side.  Ignorant antinomianism is not civil disobedience in the cause of justice.  Know the criteria that are being used by your Governor, Mayor, or County authorities.  Take the time necessary to hear their thoughts and understand their approach.  It may not be as crackpot or Draconian as that guy on Facebook made it out to be.  Have you done your due diligence?  Start with the Johns Hopkins Guidelines to Governors for Phased Reopenings.  It’s a great, reasonable resource.
3. Know the plan of other churches in your area … don’t be slavishly bound to it, but don’t be too proud to be aware of and informed by what others are doing.  Like me, you might learn a thing or two from others in Christ’s body nearby.  There is also a strong possibility of an increased testimony from Christian unity as well as potential legal protection if you are able to act in concert with other churches in your local community.
4. Continue livestreaming – it is either disingenuous or unkind or both to give your high-risk folks “permission” to stay home during the uncertain transition-back period, and not continue to livestream for them during that time.
5. Consider Polling – finally a good reason for a congregational poll! … I’m almost always against church member polls, but in this case, there is a lot of value that can come to Church leaders by knowing where folks are – how many are comfortable returning?  How many would prefer to stay home another month?  How many would wear PPE?  How many would insist upon it?  How many would object to it?  This is really good information for those whose planning depends on willing participation from their folks.
6. Take Attendance – if you have multiple services, be specific.  The doctors are telling us a ‘cure’ is likely a long way away.  If someone in your church tests positive four months from now, it would be helpful to know which service they attended that week and who was near them.  For some techie churches, it may be as simple as a mid-service, wide-angle snapshot.
7. Eliminate high-touch surfaces as much as possible.  Passing offertory plates or communion trays from row to row, each touched by a hundred hands before making its way into yours… that shouldn’t be happening right now.  Consider going to bulletins or a projector as opposed to hymnals and prayerbooks [the traditionalist in me cringes to say it, but as a temporary measure, it’s worth considering.]  Put bulletins on chairs, rather than on a common pick-up table/basket.  Most churches don’t have automatic doors.  Consider propping doors open at start/close of services.  Our deacons are forming cleaning teams to wipe down arm rests, door handles, light switches, thermostats, bathrooms, etc. between services.  And our facilities manager just purchased an HVAC air purifier.  Lots of churches are investing in hand sanitizer dispensers by entry/exit points.  Don’t forget trashcans.  There will be lots more wipes, tissues, masks, and gloves than normal.  Where are these going to end up?
8. Think in terms of households.  Hey, it’s a category all over the New Testament! :-)  Medical guidelines suggest at least 6 feet of separation [more if singing btw] between households, not individual members.  The assumption being, everyone in the same household already shares the same level of exposure.  They don’t need to be separated from one another.  This may or may not help with seating.  Many reopening guidelines are based off of seating capacity, rather than a total number anyway.  Lots of churches are temporarily resuming service attendance on a sign-up basis.  Once the sign up list is full, assigned seating is arranged according to households.  A strange but effective approach for this unusual season.  Whatever your plan, be sure to have something in mind for those who might show up without signing up first [the same for those who arrive visibly sick or symptomatic.]  Even the most callous Calvinists among us would have a hard time turning away visitors at the door. :-)
9. Children’s ministries are in a different category – kids have zero concept of personal space and social distancing.  You know this.  So do our authorities and policymakers.  Kids’ activities are the last to resume.  If your church operations are interdependent so that you can’t restart regular worship services without children’s church going simultaneously, reopening will take longer.  In other words, the bigger your church, the slower your restart will likely need to be.
10. Expect big changes – Lowes, Walmart, McDonalds have all had to make big changes.  So will you.  Going out in public feels different now.  Church will not be an exception. Remember to manage expectations [theirs and yours] by communicating this.


One extra – if I may humbly suggest:
11. Make vital mental distinctions – Brothers, remember that this is not the Church being persecuted or singled out unnecessarily.  Again, read the Hopkins Guidelines. Church activities are being reviewed alongside every other community activity and rated according to very rational criteria for risk vs modifiability.  Church services are potential superspreader events.  It’s just a fact.  Be patient as our authorities try to reopen the right way.  Good grief – they are talking about cancelling the NFL.  If that doesn’t show you how serious this thing is across the board, nothing will!  Be willing to wait in line and recognize that there are lots of folks in line ahead of us whose lives and livelihoods depend on them restarting before we do.  We are not being told to stop preaching in Jesus’ name [Acts 4.18].  We are being asked to continue doing so online for some number of weeks more.  Recognize that while we are doing this, everyone else around us is sacrificing.
Also, be willing to do the nearly impossible work of mentally distinguishing personal political philosophies you hold from truly Scriptural Convictions based on plain Scriptural Commands  [IOW, do not confuse the traditions of men, even good, Conservative, Christian men, with God’s Words and God’s Commands!]  As much as we may hold them dear, “don’t tread on me”; “no king but Jesus”; “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; or “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble” are not phrases we got from the Bible.  They are political concepts we might hold, I hope for good reason, but I also hope not with the same degree of zeal or affection that we do the tenets of our most holy faith and commands of Scripture.  Be self-aware enough to recognize this.  And for Pete’s sake – stop the spread of misinformation and specious arguments!  There are reasons Walmart and liquor stores are allowed to stay open in times of public crisis while church buildings are closed.  It’s textbook civic management.  Be patient with your authorities.  It is no easy thing to run a city [let alone a county, state, or nation!].

photo credit: Vatican News

Judges as Umpires

[Folks, here's an old piece I wrote for my students several years ago when we were studying government and history.  I'd probably nuance differently today, but the basic thesis holds true and is quite timely.]


Thurgood Marshall once admitted that his judicial philosophy boiled down to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

This is exactly what we mean by the phrase ‘judicial activism’. A man [or woman] in a black robe takes it upon himself to change a state or country whether or not the Constitution gives him that authority.  It's a quiet coup.

This is the heart of the issue. We all want to change the country, but the ultimate question is this: which side is attempting to do so illegally? It’s that simple. The Constitution lays out what our judges are and are not authorized to do. Any actions they take beyond those found in that document are, properly-speaking, illegal.  As Justice Scalia helpfully points out, if you want to change the nation, pass a law.  Don't appeal to the Constitution or its interpreters [judges] because Constitutions are adopted to impede change, not facilitate it.  Stability is their whole purpose.

He uses the analogy of being a referee or umpire in the legal system.  A judge is umpire.  He doesn’t agonize about whether the rules are fair or right or good for the future of the game.  He makes the call to the best of his ability by applying the rules. That’s all. He doesn’t have the power to make or alter the rules based on a preferred outcome! He’s just an umpire. They’re just judges.

"In the system which says that the Constitution changes and it’s up to the judges to say what it means – they really have no answers. There is no criterion for when it changes and how it changes. Every day is a new day. Some of my collegues have said that they agonize a lot. I don’t agonize at all. Sometimes it’s hard to follow and find the record in history, but you know, I don’t agonize if there’s a right to this or that. But with these guys – every day’s a new day. Last year the death penalty was constitutional and I’ll have to worry about whether it’s still constitutional next year."

Your Duty NOT to Vote!*

Because I haven't heard anyone else say it, and I believe it needs to be said, and because I have a number of former students who are now 1st-time voters, I'll go out on a limb and say it: You have an ethical and patriotic duty NOT TO VOTE unless you have taken the time to know what you're doing. DON'T VOTE unless you know a good bit about the candidate you are selecting and why he is IN FACT better SUBSTANTIVELY and QUALITATIVELY than his opponent. This does not mean better commercials, better looks, cooler party, better more presidential-sounding voice, friendlier-looking name on the ballot, or the like. Don't VOTE unless you've taken the time to research the ballot - ESPECIALLY ON LOCAL ELECTIONS WHERE VOTES REALLY MATTER! And lastly: DON'T VOTE if you've never read the constitution. But hey - we've got 24 hours left. Don't let this stop you. It doesn't even take 24 minutes to read the U.S. Constitution [hint ... small constitution doesn't equal big gov't.]. So - go ahead and VOTE. But do your homework first, please.

Amend or Defend

Unpopular law

by | Janie B. Cheaney [abridged] World Magazine

  

… last month when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg suggested, in a visit to Egypt of all places, that the document she has sworn to uphold is approaching its sell-by date. "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012." Other models might better serve, such as South Africa's: "That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights [and] had an independent judiciary."

It may be the first time a justice has actually said this, though the Court has been stretching the document for at least 80 years. Ginsburg's comments indicate that the elastic is shot, a notion seconded by Adam Liptak of The New York Times.

Liptak argues that nobody wants to model their sparkly new constitution on ours because it's "terse and old," with "relatively few rights," and is notoriously difficult to change. "Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years."

FROM, not BY!!!

Today, the central question Americans ask is 'How can we be more protected BY the government?'  Our Founders engineered the Constitution by asking 'How can we be more protected FROM the government?'

"I cannot help thinking that of late years, measures have been adopted and opinions sanctioned in this country, which have an evident tendency to stretch to the utmost the constitutional authority of our Executive, and to introduce the political evils of those European governments whose principles we have rejected."

-Thomas Cooper, 1799

[photo:flickr.com]

3 Basic Questions from the Right [for Democrats AND Republicans]

Every time a new bill is launched from Washington in response to thousands of upturned palms, there are three basic questions we, on the right, find ourselves asking all over again.


1. Is this action moral … is it ethically defensible?
2. Is this action practical … will it even work in the end?
3. Is this action legal? … with the Constitution as our standard [novel as that idea may be], the answer to this question is often “no”. When this is the case, we need to revisit question #1, because many of our DC officials have sworn public oaths before God and their nation to obey and defend this constitution and so consequently have reintroduced the question of immorality.

A Heritage Worth Celebrating

Dangerous Creatures and Grasping

"I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, “Give, give!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances."

- Abigail Adams [by the way, that 'give, give' quote is from Prov 30]

Book List [what I've been reading lately] ...

You are what your mind eats ...

A Black-robed Oligarchy

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy… The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots … The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. "

--Thomas Jefferson, in letters to William C. Jarvis and Spencer Roane, [1820. ME 15:277; 1819. ME 15:212]
photo: zazzle.com

The Unconstitutional Separation of Church and State

It is often noted that the so-called “Separation of Church and State”… is not found in the Constitution. In fact, it is an UNCONSTITUTIONAL notion. After a discussion yesterday with some friends, I've decided that from now on, whenever I hear that phrase used in conversation I am going to politely interrupt in order to assert this. What the constitution says on the subject [in one of the parts before the "in the year of our Lord" line...] is – and I quote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”


So, out of the 5 words – “Separation of Church and State” – not a single one is actually found in the text of the constitution. If you insist on keeping the terminology, the Federal Constitution establishes the  “Separation of Church and CONGRESS”,

On TSA Scanners, Speed Cameras, and Big Brother's Boot

"If Orwell were to come back now, what do you think he would be more shocked by -- the number of cameras all over the UK or the number of people who had read his book and yet did not see any connection?"

-D. Wilson

Happy Ratification Day!

“The more you read the Constitution, the more you will begin to understand that we are not living in ‘Post-Christian America’, we are living in ‘Post-America’.”


-attributed to Historian, John Whitehead

POP U.S. HISTORY QUIZ:  Q: Today is December 7th … besides the bombing of Pearl Harbor, what great even of American history took place on this date?

Appropriate Backlash



4th Amendment undergarments are now being sold by several online retailers.  Sadly, this may be the first time many of the airport military personnel have read a section of the constitution they've sworn to support and defend. 

The 'T' stands for 'Thomas' ... and 'Total Depravity'

"In questions of power...let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

--T. Jefferson
Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

Happy Constitution Day!

Take the time out and read the Constitution today.  It will surprise you how small it is, in stark contrast to our government ... which is supposedly regulated by it!

What I LOVE about the Constitution

Though leery of bumperstickers, I recently tattooed my car with the one pictured above.  Once I'd done so, it occurred to me that I should probably spend some time preparing an answer for anyone who might happen to ask me why I love the Constitution.  After quite a bit of thought, here's the response.

For starters, I love that it's short, separates powers, contains the rule of Law rather than men, and that its primary aim is the limitation of the government, not its citizens.

Contrary to what most people think, the US Constitution doesn't purport to catalog the rights of citizens [or states!].  Rather, it restricts government officials and specifically defends the citizens' rights which are most often violated by tyrannical rulers.  In short, while it calls itself the 'rule of the land' it is more accurately thought of as the 'rule of our land's leaders'.  It is not the law I have to follow.  It is the law that Obama, Pelosi, and Roberts have to follow.

But my real, one-word answer is this: DEPRAVITY.  It's been said that more than anyone, America has John Calvin to thank for her gov't.  And this leads to my answer.  Ultimately, it is because the US Constitution takes the idea of human depravity seriously.  Political power inflames a man's radical depravity and corrupts him.  So the best forms of government will limit that power. Here is how James Madison, the 'father of the Constitution'and devoted Calvinist,  put it in one of his better known Federalist Papers:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
[photo: I heart the Constitution by Liberty Jane on zazzle.com.]

It's CONSTITUTION WEEK!!!

At the heart of the Constitutional crisis we face as a nation is this paradox:
There is such a thing as an illegal law.

And then this question:
What is the proper response [read: duty] of individual citizens and then the county, city, state, and federal office holders who work for them?

I believe the answer to this question is our roadmap home.

Classic!

Exactly ...