Have you ever had that experience of finding that your watch stops working and you chuck it into a draw only to find when you fish it out 3 years later that it now works perfectly? Toward the end of last year something happened to the Website I use which seemed to make it impossible to post a blog. However on coming back to the Website about 5 months later all now seems to be well! So it feels as though I've had a bit of a Sabbatical. There were times in the last few months when I've really wanted to write something but didn't have the opportunity to do so. But here I am again!
At lot has happened in 5 months, but Covid 19 still seems to be the dominant story. I constantly find myself thinking about the long term impact on the church. Of course no one really knows what that will be but with the jet propelled vaccination program and a real possibility of soon emerging from lockdown then the next few weeks are going to mean some big adjustments in the way we continue to do church.
My own church has been streaming our services online ever since we started the first lockdown and indeed that seems to have been the case with most churches. But for some weeks now we have also been holding live, in person, services. For us, because we have 2 sites this has meant 3 morning meetings with the same preacher often doing all 3 preaches. Will he leave site 1 in time to reach site 2 and also will he leave site 2 in time to return to site 1? It adds excitement to the occasion! So there we are all in our different coloured masks with wide spaces between us and apparently not singing - so it must be the angels who are filling in for us that explains the rise in volume!
I think the general feeling of those who attend is that 'it's better than nothing.' Certainly for the preacher it means there is a live, if small and muffled, congregation in front of him. Personally, I think the preachers need to have the encouragement of a live group of people that they can see as they speak. Knowing that there are people watching while sitting on a sofa at home drinking coffee doesn't exactly raise the preacher's spirit. But I'm not sure that everyone is all that anxious to return to a live meeting. Sitting on your sofa with a coffee seems like a literal soft option and there is a danger that we can just slide into that becoming normal. And faced with the exhortation from Hebrews not to neglect meeting together as is the habit of some can easily be met with the reply; 'well we are meeting together it's just that we are doing it via Zoom.' We may need to be honest with ourselves about whether we've been lulled into laziness and what responsibility does a congregation have to be present at the in person meeting to help the preacher give of his best. This will become much more critical in the coming weeks if we are able to get back to something like a possible full attendance where our church meets.
I can understand that for some people breaking the ice and coming back into a live meeting could be very difficult. For years I had an itinerant ministry while also being an Elder of a local church. Sometimes I was away overseas for up to 2 months but I can also remember if I'd only been away for about 3 weeks coming back into the congregation could be a bit of a strain. There were new people, there were a whole mass of people who didn't realise I'd even been away and among those who did there was bound to be someone who'd ask if I'd had a good holiday when in fact I'd been working my socks off and engaged in a lot of tiring travel and sometimes difficult and occasionally even dangerous moments. It almost felt like I had to begin all over again, even with my own church. For some of us it is going to be difficult to walk into that building again having been away for so many months. We simply need to realise it's up to us to break the ice and know that others will be doing the same.
But then what about those who are wondering about whether they return at all; they've got used to opting out of the Sunday habit? In Ephesians 6 Paul tells us 4 time to 'stand firm.' That doesn't mean we just stay in the same place. Rather it's a call to remind ourselves to stick with our convictions and to keep hold of the truth that we are in Christ. We are going to need to stand firm to rebuild our churches, to continue the mission we've been called to and to re-engage with church members and be the people of God worshipping together again.
We may have been out for over a year; the time is coming to get back in.
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