The following is an interview with Audrey and Tim Hollenberg-Duffey, co-pastors of Oakton Church of the Brethren in Virginia. We reached out to them based on requests from our readers. If you have others you would like to see featured in Brethren Life & Thought, please message us or our Social Media Editor, Chibuzo Nimmo Petty, via Facebook.
Q. What ministries are being offered online by your church right now?
One of the ministries we added right away was a daily “Coffee with the Pastors” video on Facebook and YouTube inspired by a practice of ours to host a shortened worship from our home on Sundays when worship was snowed-out. We now do these videos every weekday as regular “touchpoints” with our congregation. These segments have tried to frame current events theologically, they have been a place for prayer, and they have been a place to have light-hearted fun. More recently we have begun to interview our colleagues in ministry, hopefully helping our church members get to know a little about our partnering congregations. We have found these to be meaningful and helpful ways to stay connected in a time when people are feeling isolated from one another.
Otherwise, we have a Virtual Coffee Hour prior to worship on Sunday mornings, where congregants can gather on Zoom and just hang out. After worship, a small group is currently meeting to discuss the timely book “Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory” by Tod Bolsinger. On Tuesday evenings, another small group meets weekly to talk about the scripture and theme for worship coming up the following Sunday.
While these certainly are not replacements for what we can do together in-person, they are helping keep us connected to one another and even give us an opportunity to discern how the Spirit is moving among us during this season of the church.
Q. How has your preparation for ministry events changed in light of quarantine?
Practically speaking, the pandemic has thrown a monkey-wrench into our daily routines. Overnight, it seems, we became amateur video editors and we’re now spending many hours filming and piecing together videos. With the need to have a worship video produced by Friday, sermons and worship materials have to be written earlier in the week. With our 18-month-old daughter’s daycare currently closed, we are having to manage being parents and pastors simultaneously. We are mourning the loss of time to imagine, dream, and to think deeply about ministry as we are often multi-tasking and distracted.
The hardest part right now is figuring out how to do pastoral care from a distance. How do you support someone who has lost a family member when you cannot share physical space? How do you care for someone in the hospital when you are not allowed in? We spend a lot more time on the phone, sending emails or letters when we would certainly much rather be able to extend God’s love through a hug or a holding of the hand. Part of our job as ministers is to mourn this current reality, so we can also understand and mourn the loss of togetherness with others.
Q. Does your church have a reopening plan? What wisdom might you share with other church leaders struggling with the decision to reopen?
Our congregation is in the DC Metro region where we average between 1,000-1,200 new COVID-19 cases each week. With this reality, our congregation has elected to remain online at least through July. We will reassess at the end of July given any new information we have available.
Truthfully, our congregation has not been clamoring to gather in-person. We recognize that it will be a while before the whole congregation feels comfortable gathering in-person and even longer before we feel congregational life is back to “normal” We are fortunate to have an epidemiologist in the church who reminds us that this is a new virus and we need to be patient while we wait for science to continue to study it.
While we know the pressure to resume a sense of normalcy is strong, God may be using this time to invite the church to do some important discernment. This time is troubling and upsetting, but it may also be generative if we avoid trying to rush back into our pre-corona selves. There are plenty of reasons, where safety is concerned, to delay returning to the church that was, but there are also compelling theological reasons to let this chaotic time change us for the better. When the church does reopen it should do so with both the safety and the purpose of the church in mind.
Q. What reflections might you share on 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which has been our theme for quarantine reflection?
3 Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
We have been incredibly proud of our congregation’s ability to be creative when thinking about how to extend God’s comfort in these troubling times. Our congregation has started a “Blessing Cooks” group where every couple of weeks those who love to cook surprise members of the congregation with home-cooked meals. Our Deacons have spent hours on the phone checking-in on members of the congregation that are home-bound or socially isolated. Our community tutoring program rose to the occasion and moved online when schools closed their physical space so that our regular clients would still have regular contact with trusted adults as they continued to learn. While they have all had moments, personally, when these times have overwhelmed them, they have redirected their energy into extending God’s love and comfort to others, and in return, they have found meaning and purpose in these strange times. In giving, they have received.
Audrey and Tim Hollenberg-Duffey call what they do “harmonized ministry,” an image that represents the ways in which they complement one another and support a congregation. Pastors Audrey and Tim began their ministry in Oakton in August 2019. At the Oakton Church of the Brethren, they enjoy preaching ministry, missional church formation, and scripture study. They have a daughter, Anita, who was born on Christmas Day, 2018.
Pastors Audrey and Tim grew up together in the Westminster Church of the Brethren (MD). They first met and became friends in the church nursery, later feeling drawn together as a couple, leading to their marriage in 2011. They are both graduates of Bridgewater College (2011) and Bethany Theological Seminary (2014). During their time at seminary, they felt a call to do co-ministry and took their first pastorate in Hagerstown, MD.