May 21
2020
10 Ways to Help Decision-Making in the Gray
Making decisions can be hard, especially when things are not black and white. Decisions in the gray often generate deeps feelings of ambivalence where two options appear equally positive and negative.
Our current pandemic has created a very gray environment. Not only has number of decisions we have to make been exponentially increased, the process of decision-making has been exponentially complicated. All people, be it pastors, parents, or parishioners, are trying to make the best decisions they can with limited or incomplete information. Decision making is hard in itself, decision-making in the gray is even harder.
In recent weeks, I have had more than one conversation about how this COVID-19 pandemic is negatively impacting the church. Every new restrictions brings two new conspiracies and three new opinions. Sides are being chosen, teams are being made, post are being "liked" and people are being "unfriended."
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that this letter finds you trusting in the goodness of God’s purposes and hoping in the certainty of God’s promises.
It has been over a month since our last update concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, various social restrictions have expanded, and stay-at-home orders have been extended multiple times. In our first update following the initial shutdown, we expressed our great hope to resume gathering on Easter Sunday. As you know, this did not come to pass. In compliance with our government’s orders, we have chosen to gather virtually for the safety of ourselves and our community. While we are thankful for the technology that makes connection possible, we all recognize the relational deficiencies of this medium. 
Even if we have not been exposed TO Covid-19, we have all be exposed BY it. As time goes on, who we truly are and what we truly believe is being revealed. All suffering and trials do this. Paul Tripp in his book, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands rightly notes:
"We don't radically change in a moment of trial. No, trials expose what we've always been. Trials bare things which we otherwise would have been blind to."
Already, we have a ‘before’. Just as certainly, there will be an ‘after’.
What it meant to live before Covid-19 is already going to print in history. What it will mean to live after, has yet to be written. A thousand threads will be woven across a globally connected world to create what this will be, and we all are eager to arrive there.
Who will we be, as individuals and therefore as a church, as we have been changed by this?
"The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you are already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. All war depends upon it."