January 8thPonder Anew
-by Fred Redekop
The church closed on Sunday March 15, 2020. The church was not prepared for the Covid pandemic. Public health told us it was too dangerous to meet for worship. The sound guy and I met on Friday evening to audio tape the service. He posted it on our website. I had been writing a blog called, PONDER ANEW since early 2008. It was in response to my heart attack, and the congregation wanted to know how I was doing. I wrote a Friday edition of the blog all the time through March 2020.
Since March 2020, I have written a blog to the Poole Mennonite Church almost everyday . We could not meet. I could not do visits to their homes, or to the hospital. We all remember those difficult days. The blog offered me the possibility of doing pastoral care in a new way. I thought the pandemic would last just a few months. We opened and closed four times during COVID, and I continued to write daily to the church and others.
I am type B personality, so order and discipline are low on the list of my pastoral gifts. But the pandemic offered me an opportunity to change the way I do things. I write in the early morning, late morning, early afternoon and around midnight, or whenever an idea or a thought or a text comes into my head.
From John 21:15
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
This story is after Peter has denied Jesus three times and Jesus is resurrected. Jesus wants to reinstate him. He asks him three times. Peter is upset. I was upset at the pandemic, and what it did to the church, but God inspired me to do things differently in caring for the “ lambs of God “. Feed the sheep.
- Fred Redekop is pastor at Poole Mennonite Church.