Dear LBCSD church family,
As we’re sure you’ve all heard, church services have now been deemed “essential” and thus have been allowed to be re-opened in a limited capacity, and with certain restrictions. The elders at LBCSD have been praying through and discussing how we can best re-open the church, while still doing our best to protect people from being exposed/infected with COVID-19 (caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus). Forthcoming in the near future will be details about the protective practices we will be putting in place (in accordance with the orders from the State of California), as well as our own guidance on who should consider staying home under various circumstances. These guidelines have been in the works for a while, and have been carefully crafted with the help of multiple members of our church family who are front-line healthcare professionals.
At the same time, we understand that some are hesitant to return to church, and feel convicted that staying home is what is best for them and their families. The elders want to affirm that this is a very reasonable and God-honoring choice. We appreciate your collective prayers for wisdom on how to re-open, and also how to continuously monitor how things are going; nothing is set in stone, including the governmental guidelines we seek to adhere to. So this is a fluid situation that we will do our best to monitor (legally, medically, and spiritually).
Some have asked how to make decisions in situations like this. That is a great question! We wanted to take the opportunity (since so many have asked) to walk through some biblical principles on how to make godly, and wise decisions.
As we’re sure many of you know (and affirm), whenever making a decision for any reason, we want to make that decision in a God-honoring way (1 Cor 10:31). The Scriptures are clear that our starting point is what the Word of God says (John 14:15). We are to love God and people (Matt 22:37-40), and trust Him in all things while not leaning on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:3-5). Those are tall tasks in and of themselves, but secondly we should also submit to the government (Rom 13:1-2) so long as the government is not telling us to sin against God (Acts 5:29). If we have fulfilled those two criteria (first glorify God, then second submit to the government) then we are free to make the best / wisest decisions we can make (prayerfully, and led by the Holy Spirit [James 1:5]). This is true of all biblical decisions, not just this situation.
In regards to this situation, we have to continue to remember God’s commands, while sifting through governmental orders (that keep changing, and in some cases have been inconsistently applied) and data on a worldwide pandemic (that honestly also keeps changing, i.e. see new WHO guidelines on masking). Ignoring any of those three components (God’s commands, governing authorities, new health data) is going to lead to an unwise decision. On the other hand, a heart that honestly considers all three of those components will make the best judgement for his / her family, and the elders respect and appreciate all the prayerfulness that went into that decision. We don’t want to make anybody feel like they have to go against their conscience (when that conscience has come to a decision in line with biblical criteria).
Having said that, we did want to address the changing landscape of medical information that is put out on a daily (even hourly) basis. There are many articles readily available online showing the rates of new infections, percentage of positive tests, deaths and recoveries in almost every nation affected by this pandemic. While the data from these other regions of the world (or even of the country) are helpful, it’s important to remember that the virus is not affecting every region identically. Furthermore, not every region of the world (or even of the country) are implementing the same physical distancing measures, masking requirements, lockdown protocols, or case-tracking technologies. So rates of infection outside of our immediate region are difficult to interpret in light of our local situation. Stated more succinctly, what works (or doesn’t work) in one locale doesn’t always translate to the one you live in.
For example, Florida hasn’t seen the spike everyone thought they would (of course they acknowledge it could still happen, but that’s part of the problem since nobody can really be that definitive about anything related to the virus), and the models that predicted the initial number of deaths in the US to be in the millions is now saying that Florida is on a downward trend (see the predicted death numbers). You can look at the California numbers too, and there’s an overall decrease in the projections (granted, this particular model uses a “mobility” parameter to predict how much the virus could spread, so it hasn’t yet taken into account the increased mobility of some people due to the new re-opening orders). Another model specifically for San Diego uses a different algorithm, and shows a potential modest increase in daily death rates by Sept 1, 2020 while assuming a June 1 gradual re-opening date (about 4-5 deaths/day above our current May 30, 2020 “7 day moving average” – we should all be familiar with what this means because of Peter Lim’s finance reports!).
So what about San Diego? San Diego’s new positive case rate has been fairly steady (the number of new cases is holding around 100-150-ish / day since mid-April). So that curve has “flattened” thus far, which was the original goal of the social distancing measures. We’re sure you also know by now that as testing increases we should obviously expect that the number of positive cases will also necessarily increase, but it’s interesting that the percentage of positive tests have gone down steadily since late April (another sign we’re flattening the curve). You’ll recall the goal of flattening the curve was never to see zero new cases everyday, it was to limit the surge so that the burden on the healthcare system would not be overwhelming. Obviously we’d love to see zero people getting sick, but even waiting for that to happen won’t be possible until we start to approach herd immunity (~60-80% of the population having recovered from the infection, or who have developed immunity via vaccination). Interestingly, reaching herd immunity is actually hindered by a continuing lockdown or quarantining, in the absence of an effective vaccine.
(Please don’t misinterpret what we’re saying – we’re not saying to open everything up right now so that the population can get infected, or that we need to sacrifice the weaker among the population who may die from being exposed to the virus. We understand that there is a shared responsibility for us to protect those who are most likely to succumb to the virus. But it is a valid question to ask yourself: “At what point would you be ok with going to church, or leaving your house, or hanging out with friends?” Is it when there’s 0% chance of being infected? (Then it could be another 12-18 months, or longer, until the first FDA-approved vaccine is available) Or is it closer to 20%, or 50% or…? These are all questions that are valid and worthy of discussion between you and your family and friends.
Regarding “expert” opinions about opening up too soon, there’s always another side to the story and we are to evaluate both sides when trying to make a wise decision (Prov 18:17). Many “experts” have highlighted the human cost of having people not go to see their doctors for regular / required checkups, not to mention the economic costs. Furthermore, there are also “experts” saying that lockdowns (as a means of controlling infectious diseases) are less helpful than universal masking, meaning masking would allow you to open up sooner. For example this “expert” from Brigham and Women’s hospital (and a professor at Harvard) said we can “shut down the virus” if at least 60% of the people just mask up. They don’t mean the infection rate goes to zero, what they mean is that it becomes much less prevalent and intrusive on daily life if we all were to mask properly (and may allow us to open society earlier if we all adopt masking and hand washing practices). Here’s a modeling study saying wearing masks is the best strategy for governments to adopt as they make plans on how to exit societal lockdowns. The paper quotes, “Combined with other NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) including social distancing and mass contact tracing, a ‘mouth-and-nose-lockdown’ is far more sustainable than a ‘full body lockdown,’ from economic, social and mental health standpoints.” In an interview with the principle investigator of this study, he cites the differences between the US response and Japan’s when he says, “This comes despite Japan having no lockdown, still-active subways, and many businesses that have remained open—reportedly including karaoke bars, although Japanese citizens and industries are practicing social distancing where they can. Nor have the Japanese broadly embraced contact tracing, a practice by which health authorities identify someone who has been infected and then attempt to identify everyone that person might have interacted with—and potentially infected”. Now this modeling study could be wrong too, but so were the original prediction models for how many people would die (they are, after-all, just models). All this to say, nobody knows what the “right” answer is. And, on a related note, we have to be careful what we read (and what we believe as “truth” or “hard medical data”) because it could lead us to being over-confident, or to being overly fearful (Is 41:10, 2 Tim 1:7)
So biblically, how does one make a decision when we don’t have all the information we need (or the information is incomplete, flawed, or biased)? It’s the same way we make any other decision – doing what we think is wisest based on what we believe most glorifies God. This factors in the “risk averse” nature of some, and the “risk taking” nature of others. There is no “one size fits all” answer when it comes to these types of wisdom / “Christian liberty” decisions. We have to try not to be dogmatic / legalistic about these, one way or the other. We may be convinced in our own mind that our decision is the right one for ourselves or our family (Rom 14:5) and with the exact same (imperfect) data someone else may come to the opposite conclusion, and that’s ok. So long as we both honestly believe we are doing our best to glorify God, to obey His word, and to submit to the government, then we get to make that kind of decision with wisdom and prayer in a Spirit-led manner. We do need to be careful though too, because we may be convinced that our way is the better way for us, until somebody shows us (and gently walks us through) a better way. It could be that our original reasoning was flawed: perhaps it was based on faulty assumptions, an incorrect interpretation of Scripture, and / or a misunderstanding of government law, updated medical data, etc. In that case, we need to be willing to confront those flaws and think through the issues biblically, whether it ultimately changes our final decision or not. This is how we sharpen one another (Prov 27:17).
So the leaders of the church obviously cannot make the decision to go to church, or not, for each individual person or family unit. That’s a personal / family decision, based on your interpretation of God’s word, the government’s orders, and the medical data (as imperfect and incomplete as it is). Nobody should fault you for feeling like the best decision is to stay home, and nobody should feel spiritually superior for thinking they should go back to church.
As for church re-opening, we will do our best to submit to the Word of God, as well as to governing authorities. We believe that if the church is allowed to gather (based on the governing authorities), then we should re-open (based on the Word of God, Heb 10:25). However, if individually somebody feels it’s not safe to return yet, we also trust our members that this decision was made through much prayer, and for biblical reasons (for an interesting view of a valid biblical reason to stay away from church, see Roger’s sermon from 15APR2020, where he explains that Paul didn’t visit the church in Thessalonica in order to protect them from persecution, watch from 1:05:00 – 1:14:00).
We love you all, and please know we are doing our best to trust in the Lord, and to acknowledge His sovereignty over our lives. We are also called to shepherd the flock (1 Peter 5:2), and while online church services serve a purpose for the time being, we look forward to being in fellowship (and ministering to one another) with you all soon.
In Christ,
The LBCSD elders