My friend Jim shared with me this article from Baptist Press. It’s pretty interesting and is filled with promise when you think about how a large church might approach worship in the time of COVID:
As the Hebrews passage I quoted yesterday says, we should not neglect meeting together. Well, here you have it – the people of this church are still meeting together, and doing it probably in a way closer to the picture of the church we see in the book of Acts than if they were to continue meeting in a setting of hundreds or thousands. With the gift of the internet, it is still possible to hear the word of God preached in your home, and to gather in smaller groups gives a wonderful opportunity for intimate prayer and worship.
While I faulted the mega-church model yesterday, I did note some advantages. And this church is using them. They have staff and pastors who can help organize. They may have an IT department that can help families with questions and needs if they can’t figure out how to stream a sermon. They have musicians and teachers who can create and organize music and activities for smaller groups and children.
The only thing for which I’d fault them is the continued reliance on the modern church model of letting the church teach the children. I think this lets parents off the hook for actually knowing what they believe and in turn weakens their opportunity to grow through teaching and shepherding within the family. This time of COVID might be the perfect time to start training parents in this direction.
The overall point here though is that this church is able to stay faithful to God’s call to meet together and encourage each other. Yes, there are challenges, but challenges are what fill in the cracks of a church. If God has promised to not give more than we can handle, why would we fear what will happen to us during these times. The one thing we must do though is that which first gives glory to God and, in giving that glory, cares for our communities. Do you see how naturally that fits in with what Jesus meant when he told us the greatest commandments were to love God with all of our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves?
Now is not the time for stubborn insistence on having it our way. It contradicts our call to be at peace with those around us and to serve as ambassadors of our faith. What better opportunity to be salt and light to the community than by showing them our love and concern? What easier way to serve than to simply care?