Do to COVID-19, I noticed from the faith community that there was a need to focus on messages dealing with fear, anxiety, worry, sickness, lack of finance and death. As a Pastor I receive more question about the world-wide pandemic, poverty and protests erupting around the country. These are the biggest topics and issues that most people are talking about today. To cope with this, people need direction and positive messaging. From the news media and the leaders in Washington DC there is nothing but division and confusion and this helps to feed people fears. This pandemic of sickness and death creates true factors that lead to job loss and negative economic impacts. For so many people the world basically stopped, anything that was moving hit a sudden stop, like being in a car that slammed its breaks to careen screeching into a wall of fear. There is a need that our faith-based and local leadership take up the cause to send a clear message of truth and hope and the showing of kindness that is much needed to heal this nation and the world over.
With this pandemic devastating our health and the negative economic impacts, we witness a devastating multiplier effect our collective mental health – outcomes like increased stress, more people turning to drugs and alcohol and a rise in the suicide rate. With news media feeding the public with fear, we need to give the message of hope, love and faith. Trouble don’t last forever but only for a moment or seasons.
Part of our messaging should be to reflect on the positive things in our lives – some even caused by this period of lockdown. It’s bringing together families. It helps people to focus on what really matters. With schools not re-opening in the fall, parents are home schooling. That allows parents to observe their children’s social and emotional state and their educational levels for themselves. With the shutdown or slowdown we have a chance to rest more, both physically and mentally, and step back from the fasted-paced lifestyles that is the USA.
We can allow this “new normal” to help feed the fear factor for the future. I encourage us to embrace the spiritual where the opposite of fear is not bravery, it is faith. And faith is a part of hope and light that
things are getting better.
The truth is that we are all in this together, and it is different for each of us. So we need to send a strong message from the faith-based community in concert with local leadership, and help national leadership embrace the peace, love and unity that is much needed for everyone in this country and the world.
Terry Allen
Pastor of God’s Perfect Will Ministries
To learn more about Pastor Terry and God’s Perfect Will Ministries, go to www.gpwm.org.
