These last couple of months I have been learning to live with a new reality and I’m not real sure that I like it. As many of you know, one of my younger sisters died a few months ago. She was the one who I talked to and texted all day, every day. She kept me awake when I was driving home from a late night meeting or the one I talked to in the mornings on the way to some unknown part of the conference, talking about the day’s activities or how beautiful the landscape was in front of me. For me, this is a new reality that I did not see coming! 

For many of our churches, we are facing a new reality. COVID and disaffiliations have decimated our churches. A “new breed” of Christianity has risen its ugly head with its radical but half-baked arrogance and exclusiveness, while the faithful remnant look on in anguish. We wonder what God is/has done to our churches and our families. We, who are left behind to pick up the pieces of what’s left are the remnant, left with a new reality. 

I would propose that as the “remnant reality,” we need to find a way to look at our future in a different way. The things we used to do . . . you know the story. Week in and week out we hear the story of those left to make different choices for their lives because of their new reality. The question of how we live in this new space looms before us and becomes more and more serious each day of our lives. Will we allow it to overtake our thinking and keep us in a constant state of “can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t,” or will we rise to the occasion and say “we can because of love, hope and grace”? Each step forward that we take is a reminder of the promise of the One who guides the remnant across waters, deserts, and wildernesses into new realities of opportunity and promise. 

We are the remnant who have the opportunity to make this current reality different and hopeful. And as the late Benjamin Elijah Mays said, “I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me, can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it. But it’s up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it.” Don’t waste your minute!