My Church Doesn’t Know What to Do Anymore

After fielding back-to-back complaints about masks in church -- one regarding a fellow parishioner who had shirked a mask during a recent service and the other wondering whether our congregation had changed its policy from "strongly recommended" to "required," because "everyone" was wearing them -- I realized something surprising: Leading a church is harder now, in 2021, than it was in 2020, during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, state and diocesan mandates meant I could throw up my hands and respond, "Sorry, not up to me." And anyway, the answer was, for the most part, a straightforward "no" -- no, we can't gather for services, and no, we can't sing. Now it is up to me, the rector of St. David's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, and I am struggling to find a way forward.