If you’re reading this right now, you very well might be someone who has just recently started ‘working from home’ or just finished watching ‘church from home.’ Currently, more and more people are beginning to shift life to ‘remote’—doing everything they used to do, except now from the solitary confines of their home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has likely already made its way to your very own city or neighborhood.
The virus that we perhaps perceived with ‘overreaction’ several weeks ago has now convincingly called our bluff, and it’s tearing through our global community at an exponentially alarming rate, daily. And per scientific and governmental instruction, one of the most effective ways to ‘flatten the curve’ of this sinister virus from expanding its ever-increasing empire is through the regulation of self-quarantining.
Self-quarantining is probably something most of us have never really done before. We don’t exactly ‘get alone’ or ‘slow down’ or ‘stop working’ or ‘stop being distracted or entertained’ in America. We believe in our break-neck pace, somewhat religiously; and if anything gets in the way, well, we just add it to our already impossibly long list of things to accomplish and conquer. If anything, we like to take pride in our ‘do it ourselves’ and ‘get ‘er done’ and ‘pull ourselves up from our bootstraps’ lifestyles and mentalities. I live in Texas now—trust me.
But this pandemic and the inevitable measure of self-quarantining has been—and perhaps will continue to be for some time—quite a change of pace for most people. Already, it’s affected people in many ways, both big and small: Externally, in terms of their routine, mobility, planning, etc., as well as internally, regarding mental-health, job security, and community.
And yet, self-quarantining as solution #1, comes with its own pros and cons.
One of the oddities about this whole dilemma is that one of the best things we can do right now is to, in a sense, do nothing, at least, in the traditional understanding. This is because the more we try to get involved and serve and contribute and ‘be present’, the more we make ourselves a risk to other people and the more we increase the growth potential of the contagion. You just cannot approach virus relief in the same way you would otherwise approach a hurricane relief. Loving and serving people best right now, in many ways, means quarantining ourselves and distancing ourselves from them, at least spatially.
But what self-quarantining doesn’t mean is that helping one another is impossible, either. The very nature of quarantining certainly presents new difficulties for followers of Jesus to be “his hands and feet” in the ways we would usually demonstrate, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take part in God’s mission in some capacity or another. If anything, it can be a ‘forced’ good for stretching our creative capacities to minister to people in new, opportune ways.
As you can imagine, government agencies, churches, nonprofits, shelters, food pantries, health industries and more—are working overtime to develop and distribute resources to people in need. And we can contribute in various ways to these causes—even from our living room sofa. Here’s a great article about some practical ways you can ‘serve’ right now.
But while you are in your living room, what about the people and community in your life right now, who are self-quarantined, too? How can you help and bless them? How is it possible to maintain—in fact, even deepen—your sense of community with them in this season?
And don’t forget about the person you’re going to be spending the most time with for the foreseeable future: yourself. What kind of help can you offer yourself during this season as well?
This post is not meant to be exhaustive, but I want to touch on two main things we can do at home, so that you don’t have to merely settle for ‘getting by’ right now, but so that you can aim at ‘thriving’ instead—all from the confines of a self-quarantine experience.
Deepening Your Community
Two weeks ago, your sense of community likely functioned much differently than it does now. You had a community ‘routine’ in place: You saw your friends at church. At Bible Study class. At small group. At work. Out for dinner every Tuesday and Friday night. At the gym. *On weekly repeat*
Now that routine has been somewhat disrupted. However, though that routine might be disrupted, your sense of community does not have to be. It is a weird time right now insofar as community is concerned—one restricted by quarantine—but it is also a unique time, ripe with opportunity for your sense of community as well.
I work at a church that greatly values gathering, events, and programming because it takes seriously what the Bible says—that community is integral to spiritual growth, corporately and individually. However, due to COVID-19 and respecting CDC guidelines, many churches and ministries right now are suspending their program-based approaches to community for the time being.
Although this is certainly not ideal, this is an opportune time to develop and deepen your church community relationships independent of programming, so that they are not fully dependent on programming. In a unconventional season of quarantining, we have the unique occasion to stretch and deepen our community beyond the confines of formal church gatherings, regular Bible Study class, and other organized events or gatherings.
So how can you, practically, develop and deepen your sense of community—from the the confines of your living room? You can get creative—start your own “Quarantine Crews” in iMessage groups (no green messages allowed), Google hangouts, or Zoom. Check in with each other. Encourage one another. Stay involved in each others’ lives, just in a new way.
Instead of just flipping the channels incessantly, or binge-watching your 17th episode on that new show on Netflix or Prime or Plus… take a moment and text a friend. FaceTime another one. Take initiative and do a ‘Watch Party’ of an online worship service with members of your Bible Study class. The book of Proverbs says, “A merry heart does good, like medicine; but a broken spirit dries the bones” (Prov. 17:22).
No one is more responsible for your relationships and community than you are. So lean in, and exercise this ‘community’ muscle right now by being intentional and aware—because in all likelihood, you’re not the only person who needs someone else to talk to right now.
About two years ago, I experienced a ‘communal quarantine’ of sorts myself, where I was traveling intra-regionally about 5 days a week for Cook Out, alone. It was not an easy time for me, at least initially, as an extrovert who scores 93% on the Myers Briggs personality test.
But I look back at that time, and I think about how special it truly was, and how God was growing me—because that ‘quarantine’ forced me to take responsibility for my relationships. It weaned me off the relational ‘training wheels’ of programming and events and routine in such a way that I could no longer rely on being ‘invited’ or ‘being around’ for all the ‘gatherings’ or ‘social events’ or ‘hangouts’ that were happening back home in order for me to thrive relationally.
During this time, God forcibly worked within me the habit of calling my friends—just out of the blue. And sometimes, the conversation would last 5-10 minutes; other times, it’d last for an hour. But what I realized is that even though I was alone, it was remarkable hearing from the other end of the line that they were feeling alone as well. In other words, the call did not just help me; it helped them.
I look back two years ago at that season of ‘communal quarantine’ with deep gratefulness, considering all the long, solitary hours spent in front of a windshield and inside an empty hotel room. And I see that what God was helping me do then—creating healthy habits—would bless me immensely for the long haul.
Truly, the quarantine did not prevent me from maintaining good relationships. The quarantine actually served to help me cultivate great relationships. What’s clear is that my strongest and deepest relationships today… TODAY… were cultivated in this petri dish of quarantine over two years ago.
Intentional community is not just a one-way street; it’s a two-way blessing. And I hope and pray that you’ll begin to experience that more and more as you self-quarantine during this time. Quarantining is not a call for utter isolationism and forcibly pressing ‘self-destruct’ on your sense of community. If anything, it can be a forcible good that drives you deeper in the community God has already blessed you with. In other words, social distancing is to be done spatially, not relationally.
God did not design us for quarantine, but for community. And hopefully, from the confines of your quarantine, you’ll be able to feel that truth more acutely during this time.
Nourishing Yourself Personally
Besides maintaining one’s physical health, maintaining one’s mental health is also of utmost importance. Quarantine will affect different people in different ways. Whether you’re the most exuberant extrovert or the most introspective introvert—I highly encourage you to aim for holistic purpose each day.
As best as you can, try to develop a greater awareness of your different needs, and seek to intentionally nourish your whole being: physically, intellectually, relationally, and spiritually.
While life slows down, schedules open up, and time frees up—use this opportune time to create momentum for developing healthy habits that will serve you well right now, and especially after COVID-19 has passed and life returns back to “normal.”
So… Work out. Go on a run. Learn to cook a new meal. FaceTime three friends a day. Read the Bible. Pick the guitar back up. Write thank you notes. Reevaluate your goals. Do your taxes. Start a new book… and make it a habit to set aside 30 minutes a day just to read, instead of default-wasting your extra time on mindless scrolling. Clean out your closet or garage. Throw away the Oreos (you don’t have to eat them…).
Sharpen yourself intellectually, deepen yourself relationally, nourish yourself physically, and stretch yourself spiritually. You can stay engaged even from your living room. And if any generation should know this, it’s us.
Earlier this year, I experienced a ‘quarantine’ of sorts during the first several weeks of January, and it was a change of pace in many ways at first, as regularity and normativity came to a screeching halt—regarding my sense of community, schedule, work, and routine.
But God helped me perceive this ‘quarantine’ as a helpful dose of ‘forced’ extra bandwidth—something that could truly help me get serious about the most important things in life as I started a new year, so that I could ‘reset’ and give the most important things the appropriate amount of time, space, weight, and effort that they ought to have had anyways back in 2019.
That brief ‘quarantine’ served to create quality time for the quality things to take place and to take root in my life. And even though we’re only 3 months into 2020, I can confidently say that God used that ‘quarantine’ to sow good habits in me, that by His grace, I’m somewhat keeping up with and reaping even now.
Quarantine can be like a petri dish for cultivating good, individual habits if you let it. It removes all other ‘variables’ and everything else is ‘controlled for’ per se, so that the main things can take place and grow without other things getting in the way.
And if there was ever a more ‘forced’ time for that to happen in your life—it’s now.
So I hope that you don’t let this unique time go to waste.
When COVID-19 and self-quarantining has passed, I hope you can confidently say, “God was sovereign in this quarantine, and by His grace, I didn’t waste it.”
…because the only thing worse than
a pandemic, is a wasted one.[1]
[1] Idea inspired by Pastor Rodney Hobbs, Stonegate Church, 3/22/20.
