This is the first time in more than forty-years of ministry a church I was serving canceled services not just one Sunday, as for ice and snow, but two Sundays out. The Pandemic has everyone in a rightly cautious mood.

That is good. An abundance of cautious action now can change the outcome dramatically. According to an article in the New York Times, the Center of Disease Control has calculated various worse case scenarios in which between 160 and 214 million Americans might be infected with the Virus, yielding as many as 200,000 to 1.7 million deaths. Still more frightening, calculations based on these C.D.C. worse case scenarios suggested, 2.4 million to 21 million people in the U.S. could require hospitalization, potentially overwhelming the nation’s medical system, which has only about 925,000 beds, with fewer than one in ten of those beds designated for people who are critically ill.

The best way to bring those numbers way, way down is to to act quickly, before the virus spreads. We are assured that taking timely actions like people who are ill self-isolating, workers working from home where possible, closing schools, calling off sporting events and concerts, and cancelling church services and events, etc. can make a life-saving (and money saving) difference.

There are several things members of our church can do: