An analytical mind can sometimes be a curse. You cannot help but notice things. Your life would be so much more simple if you didn't. During this viral crisis on an international level, analytical people can not miss the double standards. On the one hand, the government wants us to keep the Learning Center open. It is a ministry of Little Cypress Baptist Church. They give us the regulations. No one is allowed in the Learning Center except the staff and the child that is being dropped off. No parents, no grandparents, no brothers or sisters. Their temperature is taken and if they do not have a fever they can come in. That is fine with us, of course, because our parents need to work and so do the LC staff. But the same people who made that decision made the decision to close the public schools. I digress. Little Cypress Baptist is then told, the same church that is the Learning Center, we should not have more than 10 people in a group. That effectively eliminates Sunday School, worship, and every other ministry program of the church. We are definitely out there on mission, but we are not supposed to assemble ourselves (Hebrews 10:23-25). We support the concept of social distancing. The problem is that the church must be considered a non essential entity for some reason in comparison to say, Walmart as one example. I was there. No one took my temperature. As I looked around I could easily count more than 10 people, some of which appeared to have come there straight from bed without changing. I saw more than 50, more than 100. They were handling things and putting them back on the shelves. They were touching the same baskets an some of them did not get the disinfectant wipe for their basket handle. No one was offended. No one said that people should not be there. I pumped gas with a dirty gas pump handle, too.
Back to the church I went with my yet unsanitized treasures. I arrived to see the Meals on Wheels program dropping off food to a group of senior adults. There they were, playing dominoes, telling stories. Why was this program allowed to continue? It is because we are trapped with a double standard. Who would take care of the children in the Learning Center if they were not there? Where would the senior adults get their lunch if they did not continue in this program? It seems that there is a single purpose. We are trying to be as careful as we all can. On the other hand we want to see needs met. This double standard is actually a dichotomy of caring. What would you do if the nation came under quarantine completely for two weeks? You would struggle to comply and try to help people the best that you could. Our church will be in the middle of that where ever they are. In the meanwhile, what about corporate worship? Are there people who are going to need to meet for corporate worship? The answer is yes. We take both sides of the double standard. Do not come to church. There will be no Sunday School, no Sunday morning breakfast, no meetings. The staff and a few volunteers will be here to carry out the worship time on video to be uploaded to the church website. But, we will not turn people who are well, and need to be in corporate worship whether they are lost or saved. Just worship at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.. Yes, we are trapped between the double standard sides. We want to obey the authorities and those who rule over us and we do not want to forsake the assembling of ourselves (Hebrews 10:23-25) so we are turning prayerfully to the Highest Authority for His direction and we remember the Great Commandment to love the Lord your God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself. We will not all agree on our response as church leadership to this situation because of the dichotomy. We will have to re-evaluate based on the circumstances that confront us each day. But we all agree that our desire is to honor Jesus and meet spiritual needs just like Walmart is letting in people to meet physical needs, Meals on Wheels is meeting senior adult needs, and the Learning Center is meeting childcare needs.
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