Waldensian Board: “To be a community at the time of Corona-virus”

Rome (NEV), March 8, 2020 – The Waldensian Board sent a reflection to the whole Waldensian and Methodist community on the situation that is being created in Italy in the face of the Corona-virus epidemic.
“Ever since we started talking about contagion in Italy and the risk of an epidemic, we got scared and have been targeted by sometimes contradictory and sometimes misleading messages which helped  to increase our sense of anxiety. The competent civil authorities have issued precautionary ordinances (…) (which) have affected also the life of our churches”, reads the letter which goes on and recalls that “our churches have adhered to these ordinances by waiving the constitutional right to freely assemble, giving up on the desire to meet between brothers and sisters, radically reviewing their plans”.
The letter then focuses on what happened in our Country as a result of this emergency situation and invites us to remove feelings of fear that “put a distance between us and our neighbor  (…). We cannot forget that in many passages the Scripture, especially in the face of threatening events, asks us to stop, examine ourselves, put ourselves in prayer so as not to lose the profound meaning of the things that happen to us, in our life, in the vocation which we are called to”.
While remembering that “we have no precepts to observe and that every evangelical person knows he /she can read the Bible and pray at home”, the Waldensian Board reminds everybody that “our vocation goes beyond the individual” and therefore that “if the announcement and the listening to the Word is fundamental for the life of the church, we surely, even in these days,  will be able to find ways to ensure that this does not fail”.
“Pastors and deacons  can be reached by phone, email, on social networks, they can be welcomed at home or reached in church offices or at their home – it is emphasized in the text -. The announcement of the Word can make its way through the reading of meditations published in books or on our institutional website chiesavaldese.org, on the Riforma magazine, through the readings proposed by ‘One day one Word’, by listening to the evangelical cult on RAI Radio 1 or Radio Beckwith Evangelica, alone or with the involvement of a few others, or through other initiatives still to be tested. The important thing is to think together about this issue and to concretely remember that even today God has something to tell us and speaks to us, that our fear can be governed, that we are not at the mercy of ourselves”.