From the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to refrain from doing any sort of video recording for Sunday morning worship for my congregation.  Thankful Church offers no livestreaming or pre-recorded liturgy for our congregants.  Instead, for numerous reasons that I won’t get into here, each week, I have provided my parishioners with various materials and resources they need to read and reflect on the Scriptures and to join their own Sunday worship to the praise of God of the Church eternal in time and space. 

In addition, on Sunday mornings, at the time when we would otherwise be gathering as a congregation, I host a “Zoom Coffee Hour” for those Thankful Ones who wish to partake.  On average, we get about a dozen folks on this regular call who engage in conversation ranging from the banal to the pastoral to the profound.  Among other things, we usually discuss the readings from the Bible and various reflections on these texts.  The time we virtually spend together has proven to be fruitful. 

This one-two-punch method of keeping folks engaged through the past 10 months seems to have worked thus far and my congregation seems satisfied with these efforts of their priest.

As a parent, though, I have a somewhat different task trying to shepherd my children’s spiritual lives throughout this time away from more traditional forms of Sunday-worship.  After the first few Sundays in March and April of 2020 when we experimented with different forms of worship with our children, my family and I discovered that the best option for us was to say Evening Prayer together at about 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon.  One parent officiates; the other reads the lessons; Fred joins in the responsive prayers.  The younger children play quietly (we hope), letting the words and prayers wash over them and catch them up and they usually join in the Lord’s Prayer each week, too.

For ten months, then, this has been our family’s rhythm on a Sunday: Zoom Coffee Hour with my parishioners in the morning and Evening Prayer as a family in the afternoon.  And yet, in all this time, it was only today, as I was setting up the computer for Coffee Hour that I came across a stunning realization.  “Is it almost time to do church?” Beatrice asked me.  “Yes.  Just a few more minutes,” I replied.  But I was struck by her language.  Beatrice – indeed all my children – call both Sunday activities “doing church.”  According to Fred, Beatrice and Toby, to speak with Thankful parishioners over the space of an hour in the morning is to “do church.”  And to say Evening Prayer together as a family in the afternoon is, likewise, to “do church.”  They use the same phrase to identify both actions. 

And how right they are!  Both these things are in fact actions of the Church.  The fellowship and conversation that make up our Zoom call on Sunday mornings are the stuff of church.  And the prayers and worship that make up our family’s liturgical practice are also the stuff of church.   Without any prodding from me or any deep thought from them, indeed, with very little intentionality at all, the kids have hit upon a profound truth and acknowledged that multi-variant aspects of what it means to be and do Church – to be the Body of Christ in the world and to act like it. 

It is perhaps worth noting that, at least for the younger two, the Sunday morning activity – our Zoom call – is by far the preferred one of the two.  While we have to cajole Beatrice into participating in Evening Prayer even minimally without too much whining, she is always eager to join our Coffee Hour in the mornings, at least for some portion of the time.  And Toby, too.  Though he is happy enough playing while we pray for and around him, his participation in those prayers is understandably limited.  But, if we go through an entire Coffee Hour and Toby somehow misses his chance to at least say hello and goodbye to the folks in their squares on the screen, he cries and wails at the missed opportunity.  It is a testament to the positive effects adults of the Church have on the lives of the children who belong to them in their shared Christian community.  While Bea and Toby have not yet developed an understanding of prayer and worship as one of the ways in which we relate to God, the folks in my congregation continue to reveal God’s love to my children – even virtually – which is a lesson my kids will never forget. 

And there’s one more way in which my children define “church” during these unprecedented times.  Once a week, on Wednesdays, I drive into my office at Thankful Memorial in order to attend to some business that is just easier or better done in person.  So, on Wednesdays, I drive them to school wearing my collar for the only time that week; they know I will head to Chattanooga as soon as I’ve dropped them off and that I won’t be back until much later in the afternoon or early evening than I am on other days.  And very often, on Wednesday mornings they will say to me, “You’re going to church today, right?”  In this sense, then, the “church” becomes for them the physical building, the space where I still work and where they used to experience the fellowship and prayer that happened inside that building but which continues to happen for them still in these other ways. 

Personally, I am very much looking forward with great anticipation and excitement to the day, months from now, where my family and I can go to church in order to do church.  There is something we all miss – just a little bit – in not meeting with those loving and life-giving folks and joining together for worship and prayer in person.  But in the meantime, these other ways of doing church go on – and keep us going on, too. 

And now, I’m beginning to think about all the ways we can continue to broaden our definition of what it means to “do church” as my children have already begun to do.  Perhaps the next time Beatrice tells us about the way she helped a friend on the playground or Fred shares an insight about how he perceives goodness and love in his life or Toby’s laughter brings us all a moment of pure joy, I’ll say to them, “Thanks for doing church again today.  Well done.”