{"id":31232,"date":"2022-09-10T15:22:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-simple-tool-to-help-churches-make-covid-19-safety-decisions\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:22:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:22:12","slug":"a-simple-tool-to-help-churches-make-covid-19-safety-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-simple-tool-to-help-churches-make-covid-19-safety-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Tool to Help Churches Make COVID-19 Safety Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">August de Richelieu photo &#8211; Pexels <\/p>\n<p><em>By Jamie Aten and Kent Annan<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Nearly six months into the global pandemic pastors continue to face difficult decisions about when and how to meet safely together.<\/p>\n<p>Last spring the RAND Corporation, a company committed to improving public policy and decision making through research and analysis, released a new tool to help policy makers deciding when it will be safe to reopen entities that have been limited or shut down in service of public health.<\/p>\n<p>Though this helpful tool was designed to inform policy makers it can also be used to guide COVID-19 related safety intervention strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, this tool can help pastors better understand the possible outcomes of <em>when <\/em>to reduce current restrictions and <em>how<\/em> to reduce current restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how it works: When someone uses the tool RAND has provided, the user begins by selecting the state in which he or she lives.<\/p>\n<div class='code-block code-block-1' style='margin: 8px 0;clear: both'> <\/div>\n<p>In a brief accessible \u201chealth\u201d report, the tool reports the trajectory of daily fatalities, those currently hospitalized, ICU usage, and daily confirmed cases within the state.<\/p>\n<p>It then offers an \u201ceconomic\u201d report that charts the number of people filing initial unemployment claims and those receiving unemployment insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Next, the tool allows the user to view projections by selecting from two factors: <em>intervention level<\/em> (1-5) and the<em> start date <\/em>for the proposed intervention. Intervention levels are defined as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No interventions:&nbsp;No intervention and no reduction in activity.<\/li>\n<li>Level 1:&nbsp;Close schools.<\/li>\n<li>Level 2:&nbsp;Close schools, bars, and restaurants; and ban large events.<\/li>\n<li>Level 3:&nbsp;Close schools, bars, and restaurants; ban large events; and close nonessential businesses.<\/li>\n<li>Level 4:&nbsp;Close schools, bars, and restaurants; ban large events; close nonessential businesses; and issue a shelter-in-place order for the most vulnerable.<\/li>\n<li>Level 5:&nbsp;Close schools, bars, and restaurants; ban large events; close nonessential businesses; and issue a shelter-in-place order for everyone but essential workers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Granted the policy to pastor fit isn\u2019t perfect\u2014your church doesn\u2019t have a bar\u2014but the community you live in probably does, and your church is part of the community.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1em\">\n<div class=\"centered-text-area\">\n<div class=\"centered-text\" style=\"float: left\">\n<div class=\"u5f617848f574773ea3b26dfc494d6002-content\">See also&nbsp; 3 Practical Steps for Reaching the Mission Field in Your Neighborhood<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctaButton\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>When a user selects an intervention level and a start date, the tool produces a health projection and an economic projection.<\/p>\n<p>The health projection anticipates likely fatalities, ICU bed demand, regular hospital bed demand, and confirmed cases of those infected with COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>The economic projection anticipates losses in gross state income. It also offers other considerations for decision makers\u2014for each of the various mitigation measures\u2014that includes barriers to implementation, costs of implementation, cultural and social barriers, economic cost, impact on equity, impact on social well-being, and political barriers.<\/p>\n<p>As church leaders thoughtfully and prayerfully decide when and how to welcome their members back into the communal life of the church, these additional considerations\u2014such as social well-being\u2014will be particularly useful.<\/p>\n<p>In states eager to loosen restrictions as quickly as possible, this tool offers valuable data to congregations who may choose to continue restrictions for the good of both their members and the community.<\/p>\n<p>Church leaders who are clear on their guiding principles and motivations will benefit greatly from this accessible tool that helps them see the likely outcome of the decisions they\u2019re making today and will continue to be making for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JAMIE ATEN (@drjamieaten) <\/strong><em>is founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. Follow him<\/em><em>&nbsp;online at <\/em><em>jamieaten.com<\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"m_-3281200224363877136p1\"><strong>KENT ANNAN, M.Div. (@kentannan)<\/strong>, <em>is director of Humanitarian &amp; Disaster Leadership at Wheaton College. He is author of<\/em> Slow Kingdom Coming <em>and<\/em> After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken. <em>Follow him online at kentannan.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"su-box su-box-style-default\" id=\"\" style=\"border-color:#000000;border-radius:0px\">\n<div class=\"su-box-title\" style=\"background-color:#333333;color:#FFFFFF;border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px\">Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n<div class=\"su-box-content su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"border-bottom-left-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px\">\n<div class=\"one-third first\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"two-thirds\">\n<h2>Five Things to Pray in a Global Crisis<\/h2>\n<p>Rachel Jones<\/p>\n<p>  FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class='yarpp yarpp-related yarpp-related-website yarpp-template-thumbnails'>\n<h3>Related posts:<\/h3>\n<div class=\"yarpp-thumbnails-horizontal\">  22 Vital Stats for Ministry in 2022  What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times?  What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation?  3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August de Richelieu photo &#8211; Pexels By Jamie Aten and Kent Annan Nearly six months into the global pandemic pastors continue to face difficult decisions about when and how to meet safely together. Last spring the RAND Corporation, a company committed to improving public policy and decision making through research and analysis, released a new &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/a-simple-tool-to-help-churches-make-covid-19-safety-decisions\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Simple Tool to Help Churches Make COVID-19 Safety Decisions&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}