Pandemic Preparation for the Church of America?

I'm Just Wondering... when (not if) the real, hugely fatal Pandemic finally hits the United States... what is going to happen to the Church??

How will the Evangelical and Protestant Church of America behave in the midst of a huge and highly fatal Pandemic-Infectious Disease?

Hmmmm....

A few years back, when the H5N1 ("Avian Influenza" Bird Flu) Pandemic Prep was beginning to emerge, I was part of an on-line Bulletin Board for Church leaders on this very topic. SARS hit, and that BB heated up for a few months... but it pretty much fell off into quietness.

However, along the way, there was a great amount of belief among the Christian Pastors there that their churches would become 'beacons of life and hope' in the middle of a Pandemic with high mortality... but a few of the Pastors were less than sure that their church would 'wade straight into the Pandemic', and that their congregations would become hugely self-survival focused and isolationist.

A previous post about the 90% 'pastors believe their Church is there to reach out', while the 90% of congregants surveyed believed 'their Church was their to meet their needs' comes to mind...

A book I'm starting back into is Charles Colsen's 'Against the Night', a treatise about the behaviour of the Church in the Dark Ages...

I'm Just Wondering how the American Church will respond... if the last 25+ years related to HIV/AIDS is any indicator, I think we're in for a wild ride...

cbaj