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War Zone Field Medics
by Captains Yasmin and
Hector Acosta
Speculation
Because of the spikes and the time that
it has taken Covid to work through society, we are speculating
that church and church programs in The Salvation Army will not
resume to the pre Covid norm for at least 12 months. It’s
worth noting that we as an organization estimated 2-3 months
of disruptions to programs. It has now been 6 months and there
is no end in sight. If and when we are able to open our
building for church and programs, we anticipate capacity to be
cut by 75% on the average.
Anticipation
Because of social gathering limits, the
amount of business’ closing, people being laid off and the
unprecedented impact to the economy as a whole, we anticipate
new waves of families in financial and housing crisis. We also
foresee an awakening of spiritual hunger, need for hope,
purpose and community.
Innovation
All of these elements create new
opportunities for The Salvation Army to explore how best to
serve suffering humanity. We would be tempted to stand by and
wait for things to return to pre Covid. But as Tony Robbins
has said, “change happens when the pain of staying the same is
greater than the pain of change.” Staying the same for this
corps means we cease to exist. Changing means embracing the
innovation opportunities we are faced with; one example is the
ability to connect with those we serve and can potentially
serve through social media platforms. As a result of Covid,
this is one of the only ways of connecting with our
communities, and I for one had been resistant to using social
media against advice given to me years ago to incorporate it
in ministry. The sad thing here is that this is not
breakthrough stuff, I needed to start using this years ago.
The Church was always meant to be a
movement not a place, which comes in handy when the building
is closed down. For years we have compared ourselves to a
hospital where the sick come to receive healing, but today it
looks more like we are a field medic having to go into the war
zone and provide support, and healing to those in need. This
will force us to use technology along with some scoffed at
methods like knocking on doors. We maybe need to use the first
century model of home and neighborhood community groups with a
digital twist to meet those needs today.
Personal application, I am teaching
myself how to navigate social media platforms (and surrounding
myself with those who use it), working on a church app for our
local corps for streaming, on demand services, giving and
communication, considering new expressions of old services
like an after school program in our building pre Covid now
looking like a mobile or side walk ministry.
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