Looking Back…
Looking back, it was exactly a year ago that our leadership team decided I should make two versions of the same video knowing only one of them would be sent to our entire church. The first video would say that we were sticking to our normal schedule with 26 services at multiple locations across Chicagoland. And the second version would inform our church that all our facilities would be closed and that we were moving everything online.
After I finished recording the two videos I got in the car with Sue and headed to O’Hare Airport to fly to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were going to see my youngest son, Caleb, compete in the NCAA DIII Indoor Track and Field Championships.
About half-way to the airport Sue gets a call from our oldest son, Josh, who lives in Cincinnati telling us that Twitter is saying that the NCAA meet had been cancelled because of COVID.
With that information we called Caleb who was already in North Carolina with his team to tell him we were so sorry about the cancellation. But when he answered we found out he didn’t know the news. Twitter knew even before the athletes that everything they had trained for months and years was suddenly cancelled!
With that very sad news we turned the car around and headed home.
When I got back home we sent out the second version of the video and we transitioned everything at COMMUNITY to online!
It was then that all of Chicago and the whole state of Illinois were given the “Stay At Home” order.
Looking back we have suffered through a pandemic that took 500,000 American lives. A have faced a much needed racial reckoning that brought protests and riots to both the city and the suburbs. We have endured economic challenges that left many of us wondering if we’d have enough or have a job. We struggled through political turmoil that divided friends and family in a country whose first name is United!
This last year has been hard. And the last year has often been very sad.
Looking back, the last twelve months have consisted of daily praying James 1:5 asking God to give me the wisdom that he has promised. One of the first pieces of wisdom came in the form of a slogan we adopted at COMMUNITY, "Where fear sees a crisis, faith sees opportunity." So, while today is a time to pause to lament and mourn, I am grateful for God's faithful guidance and the tremendous opportunities ahead he has shown us during this time of crisis.
