Where We Are With Fucking Covid

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Wherein we do our best to respond to shifting public health conditions during a never(?)ending pandemic. 

TL;DR: Skip to Section 4.

1.   Fucking Omicron, That’s Where We Are. 

Tarrant County Health Department is predicting a local surge in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths after the holidays. The CDC says that the Omicron variant accounts for >90% of Covid infections in Texas. It’s definitely here, and definitely more contagious. 

It’s also seeming more and more likely that infections in vaccinated, boosted folx are less serious than Delta and previous iterations. 

Here’s an article from the Star-Telegram that includes this information and more.

2.   Public health vs. Private risk.

Private risk acknowledges that individual persons and families at Galileo Church are managing their risk portfolios differently. Most are vaxed; some are not. Some eat in restaurants; some do not. Some bring their little kids around; some do not. We have not made it the church’s business to regulate people’s personal decisions around private risk. We don’t ask if people are vaxed, and we don’t exclude people who are not. We use universal precautions around masking and distancing in large gatherings.

Public health is about managing and mitigating the communal risk for spreading the virus to each other and potentially vectoring the virus to vulnerable persons beyond our borders. With Omicron, that vectoring possibility seems much larger than before. Even if we each feel “safe” (whatever that means now), we continue to have an obligation to protect the public health.

Here’s a summation of our current public health management:

•   For worship, we have had almost no trouble getting people to remain masked throughout. We provide masks for worshipers who need one. We’ve altered our communion practice. Chairs are spaced apart. The whole big space is well-used.

•   We have successfully moved many gatherings outdoors, or semi-outdoors in the Breezeway. It’s possible to be comfortable with our propane heaters if the temperature stays above 50°. 

•   We have learned how to produce darn good hybrid gatherings so that most IRL events are available online as well, so that local folx often have the option to attend meetings virtually for their own private risk management.

•   We have allowed small groups of people to make the conscious decision to go unmasked; i.e. if a small handful of people are meeting at the Big Red Barn, they may decide to let distance and the vast air space mitigate their risk; similarly, a G-group of 6-8 vaxed, boosted people may decide to share a meal in someone’s home. 

•   We have asked worship leaders to step back from their role if they have a “known exposure” – i.e. if they know they have been in close proximity, unmasked, to someone with Covid. We don’t exclude those persons from worship; we just remove the obligation for them to be there by finding a substitute for their worship leadership role.

•   We have delayed gathering kids until their age group can reasonably receive vaccinations and reach full (pre-Omicron) immunity.

3.   January 2022

We have a number of activities that are scheduled for January, either for a one-time IRL gathering or to begin repeated IRL gatherings.

•   Not Yo Mama’s Book Group, beginning January 2.

•   We Endured the Holidays party, January 7.

•   G-Kids, beginning January 9.

•   Covenantal G-groups, beginning week of January 10.

•   Missional Logistics Team retreat, January 15.

•   G-101, beginning January 22.

There’s a good chance that an Omicron wave will be cresting locally in mid-January.

4.   A Plan: Press Pause

What your church leaders would like most for Christmas is the gift of time: time to see how Omicron will play out nationally and locally, and whether our public health officials will have recommendations based on post-holiday data. Getting that gift of time is simple: we can postpone all the early January beginnings and events to the second half of January and early February. We can simply press “pause” while we let the virus do its thing, giving public health officials time to make some recommendations, and giving church leaders time to consider our communal response. Here’s the revised schedule with a pause built in:

•   Not Yo Mama’s… beginning January 16, continuing through February 27.

•   WETH party, February 4.

•   G-Kids, beginning January 23.

•   Covenantal G-groups, begin week of January 24. (Zoom groups can meet as they wish, starting week of January 10 as planned. All G-groups will continue through week of March 28, which is 10 weeks for IRL groups even with the delay.)

•   MLT retreat, February something, TBD.

•   G-101, begin as scheduled, January 22.

If, by the second half of January, public health officials are recommending a lock-down, or asking people not to gather in large groups, etc., we can make more rigorous decisions about how to gather, whether to go online only, etc. We don’t think that will happen. It does not harm us to wait another couple weeks to be sure, however.

In this proposal, worship continues as usual – #pandemicusual, that is. 

5.   The Shelter of Each Other

We continue to be concerned – heartbroken, really – about all that this virus has taken from us, and the way it continues to steal from our relational capital. The church is meant to be a school for love; a dojo for exercising strong, grace-filled ways of being together; a working laboratory for taking relational risks and failing fast and trying again. We’ve adapted the best we can to the restrictions of a slow-moving pandemic, but we know it’s still chipping away at our emotional, spiritual, and relational health.

With that acknowledgement of grief, we continue to hope for a real end to this global suffering. We pray for it, and we act on those prayers, making meaningful sacrifices for the sake of the common good. I’m proud of the ways we have protected each other and our neighbors, and grateful for a church that upholds its responsibility in this world God still loves. 

Pray for each other, beloved. And know that your church leaders pray for you even on the days we don’t feel much like praying. “Blessed be the God and Parent of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Parent of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

grace and peace,

Katie & the pastoral staff, the Missional Logistics Team, and the Spiritual Care Team