Covid-19 and staying local for church

Covid-19 - staying local when it comes to church

As Covid-19 restrictions continue, most of us are doing virtual church. (This option is quite impossible for many majority-world Christians for whom the restrictions mean no church, but that is another story.)

We miss much. We miss the joy of seeing familiar faces in the flesh, exchanging hugs and handshakes, reading body language, singing together and sharing in the sacraments. We face the danger of being distracted zoombies as we have yet another enforced bout of screen time (or is that ‘scream time’).  It’s not the same and not as good as being there in the flesh.

However, there are also big opportunities as the world virtually opens before us. We can go to church anywhere that puts out a signal (or nowhere, if we want to break the habit of meeting together and not get caught).

Let’s face it – most of us can find a better preacher, better technology and better music if we prowl around the internet looking for a church more to our taste. There is no need to put up with the usual bunch of people and their mindless conversation, along with insipid church coffee and that preacher whose lines are familiar to us after years sitting under the same voice. And perhaps there is a place for visiting other churches as we seek more frequent rich feeding in these spiritually needy times.

However, there is a case for mainly staying local and continuing with the church we belong to. To me it’s a joy to see the pictures of our familiar church building appear to give a ‘before and after’ physical bracket to the virtual service – it’s a reminder of what was and yet will be.  Our pastor knows us and his introduction to the Sunday gathering connects into our lives in our local community. Familiar faces read the Bible and present music from our regular play list.  Each week a church member known to us is interviewed about how they are going in life and they then lead a pastoral prayer that reflects knowledge of our people, our church and its local activities and wider projects. The ministry of the word in the preaching of Scripture comes from a pastor who knows us and can explain and apply the Scripture into our lives.

Doubtless there’s a slicker presentation, more eloquent preaching and such like elsewhere on the web. However, those other churches are not there to pastor us locals. They won’t be there for us after Covid-19. They won’t make the regular phone calls that our church leadership are making to check on all members. Dropping into someone else’s virtual church is a bit like visiting another church when away from home for work or holidays. It’s better than not attending at all, but never the same as going to the church where we are pastored with ongoing knowledge and concern.

And that’s why I’m going to my local this Sunday.

Covid-19 and human identity

Covid-19 and human identity

 “Tell me about yourself” is a question we often ask when meeting a new person. Many answer by talking about our paid employment, profession or business activity.

And that leaves a challenge for those whose paid work has disappeared or been scaled back during the CV-19 season. Add that to the perceived humiliation of applying for government transfer payments and lining up at the food bank and our sense of identity may be shattered. We are what we are paid to do.

Let’s think about how work related to human identity. Does the loss of paid work undermine who we are?

In a Christian view, work is basic to human identity. In the foundational early chapters of Genesis, we read who we are. We are made in God’s image (1:26); we are gender differentiated (1:27; and we are made to be fruitful, to multiply and to rule over the rest of creation, including harvesting it for our food (1:28-29). We are also told to ‘work to work it and keep it’ with respect to physical creation (2:15), implying development and use of the earth’s resources, coupled with creation care. The curse on our work that results from our rebellion against God makes work hard and unsatisfying (3:17-19) – but work itself is not the curse.

In short, we were made to work as well as to socialise and to form family units (2:18-25). These activities were all there before the fall, are affected by it and are redeemed in Christ. In Him, we are still to do these things, only now as redeemed people who have an eye on eternity (eg, Eph 5:21 – 6:9).

The sense of shattered identity arising from lost or scaled back work during Covid-19 is real. However, it may be deepened by a too-narrow definition of work as ‘paid’.

The Old Testament discussion of sabbath rest shows the inadequacy of our definition of work as something we monetise. Israel was to rest from all her work on the sabbath (Ex 20:8). The scope of work from which Israel is to rest is wide. It’s no surprise that the ban included paid trading activities including food retailing and winemaking (Neh 13:15), but the prohibition goes far wider. Even the provision of heavenly manna (a passive act of gathering what God had provided) was not to be done on the sabbath (Ex 16:5-30). Gathering sticks, presumably for a fire, was forbidden (Nmbrs 15:32-36). Note also that the command included family members, servants, visiting strangers and even livestock (Ex 20:10). The fact that the severest penalty was applied for sabbath breaking is an indication of its seriousness (Ex 31:14). God takes our work, along with our rest, very seriously.

Our work is part of who we are as people. If our work is taken away, our identity is diminished. However, our work is far more than paid employment. Curating a garden. Cooking a nutritious and attractive meal. Creating artistic beauty. Raising a family. Building friendships. Caring for the needy. Caring for ourselves. These are all work, but are generally not monetised.

The redefinition of work beyond something we are paid to do aligns us with most people, in most places at most times. For them, the idea that work only involves coins or banknotes is as foreign that the thought that we are not male and female. Work is just the stuff that we do to live.

Covid-19 is an an unwelcome opportunity to rediscover the wider world of work in God’s economy. And to be satisfied in the work  that he gives us to do, whatever that may be for this season.

Covid-19 - where is the Easter music

Covid-19: where is the Easter music?

Word, prayer and the sacraments are the key means of grace for the people of God. They are the Father’s provision to lead us to his Son in the Spirit as we gather to him and to one another.

The word addresses us with teaching, training, correction and rebuke. Prayers enable our response to God in adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. The sacraments are enacted drama as they point away from the sign to Christ who is signified. Together, these means of grace nourish the soul and equip us to be the people whose every thought, word and deed is an act of worship.

Song is an important means of these means of grace. It is a normal part of gathered worship (1 Cor 14:26). Through song we can teach the word to another. As Scripture says: Let the word of God dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col 3:17). In that sentence, teaching, admonishing and singing are all means to the indwelling word. Song is also a means of expressing our response to the Lord in thankfulness, lament, petition and more – consider the range of responses embedded in the song book of Psalms.

From earliest times God’s people have used song to praise God and to address one another. The first recorded song was a response to God’s great act of exodus salvation (Exod 15:1). The Bible speaks often of singing with some 225 uses of key words (sing, singing, song, songs). The Psalms urge us to sing with exuberance (Ps 150) and to sing a new song to the Lord (Ps 149:1). Isaiah links that new song to the coming of the Lord’s servant who bears the Spirit and who brings the day when the old yields to his promised new things (Is 42:1-10). The last action of Jesus before going to his arrest was to sing a hymn (Matt 26:30). The heavenly throne room echoes Ex 15:1 as worshippers sing the new song praising the lamb who has brought the ancient promises to pass (Exod 19:1-6; Rev 5:9-10). Singing is in the beginning, middle and the end of redemptive history.

As churches go to livestreamed services in the season of Cov-19, we seem to have hung our harps (Ps 137:2). Equipment issues, copyright protections and social distancing may mean that song has little part in virtual worship. God made us to love with heart, soul, mind and body (Matt 22:37) but livestream seems most quickly suited to a head focus.

Many of us miss the music. Music has an ability to reach into the heart and to help express its deepest feelings. It touches the soul. Of course, Christian singing is no more to be separated from a Christian mind than the mind is to be separated from singing (1 Cor 14:15). Mind and heart always go together as grace enters a person and as we respond to it. Gathered worship without singing seems … well … empty.

Music has a special place in Easter gatherings. The dark songs of Good Friday take us to the agony of Jesus and its necessity in our sinfulness. Hymns like “Rock of Ages” interpret the Cross and teach us to come naked and with empty hands “... simply to your Cross I cling”. And then great Sunday release as we sing “Jesus Christ is risen today – hallelujah”.

Even if livestreamed services cannot have much Easter music for the above reasons, this doesn’t mean that our harps are hung. Individually, or in family units and closed social media groups, we can juxtapose the reading of Scripture, prayers and reflective silence with well-chosen music from our CD collection or sources such as YouTube.

Easter calls us to unhang our harps and to sing the Lord’s new song.

Covid-19 and the generational pivot

CV-19 and a generational pivot

As the Covid-19 pandemic widens, life changes in ways unimaginable a month or so back. While the still-living dig graves for the dead and settle to prolonged hibernation we ask how long this will last and how will we survive.

Is this also a time to think of what happens next? What will life be like after the virus runs its course?

An episode from Biblical history can help frame the discussion.

In about 587BC the nation of Israel fell captive to a Babylon invasion.  Old certainties disappeared. Jerusalem became a wasteland and the great national symbol of God’s presence became building rubble with the fall of the temple. The population was decimated. The dead were left to bury themselves and the living were sent to Babylon, Egypt and elsewhere. The land, people and blessing promised to Abraham were only memories (Gen 12:1-2).

What next?

Some hung their harps on the poplars, refused to sing and surrendered to bitter thoughts of vengeance (Ps 137). This may well represent a failure to face the new reality and a futile captivity to the past.

Others did differently.

Daniel flourished as he both served his captors and remained true to his Lord (somewhat like Joseph in an earlier time). This is an example of blooming where you are planted and making the most of adversity. And so, we read of a florist whose flowers became compost as she adapted her home delivery business so that carrots replaced camellias and radishes replaced roses.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were two of God’s spokesman who suffered with their fellow Israelites and went into exile. Jeremiah’s already difficult life was compounded such that he wrote a book whose very title evokes a tear: Lamentations. Yet even there we find a great word of hope and expectation as he speaks of new daily mercies from the Lord which prompted a personal ‘waiting’ on him (Lament 3:23-24).

More and better was to come.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were inspired by the Sprit to see an ‘over the horizon’ pivot point when the Lord would do something remarkably new. Ezekiel speaks of the valley of dry bones being restored to life by the breath of God and a new future for Israel under a new king (Ezek 37). Jeremiah was given a remarkable vision when Israel would again be ‘my people’ (Jer 31:1) and when the Lord’s everlasting love (Jer 31:3) would result not just in restoration but in a stunning new covenant (Jer 31:31).

Get it? Under God, the crisis of judgment was to become the pivot point to a new and different future that went way beyond restoring the past.

People started returning to their country about 50 years after the fall of Jerusalem. However, this was a tiny triumph as they returned to a still-conquered land only by permission of a foreign power, struggled to re-establish life and took forever to build a new temple that was a faint shadow of its predecessor (see Ezra and Nehemiah). Far from being a pivot moment, this was a half-start. The pivot was to come about 500 years later with the advent of Jesus who is the fulfilment of all God’s promises (2 Cor 1:19-20) and the inaugurator of the long-promised kingdom that made mighty King David look like a village Mayor. Grace pivoted divine judgment into the redemptive moment.

Is Covid-19 the opportunity of such a generational pivot moment on a collective and personal level?

I am not suggesting that Covid-19 is equivalent to the fall of Jerusalem in terms of God’s judgment and covenant making (although the aspect of judgement in Covid-19 deserves careful attention). However, there is room to see some parallels of events and process.

What responses can we make to Covid-19? Several possibilities suggest themselves.

• We can hang our harps and be consumed by bitterness as we realise that the past will never return.

• We can choose to engage with the new normal and thrive like a Daniel.

• Or we can, under God, imagineeer a new and different future. This is the  opportunity to pivot.

• And so, the pastor of a long-established church who sees a generational opportunity to use the shutdown to think through what a re-booted church could look like and to plan for it.

• Or the bank CEO who remarks that things cannot be the same in his business and who dares to imagine the future.

• Or the schools now forced into virtual learning and who ask how they can shape new blended pedagogies to serve the future.

• Or the families who ask how they can reshape their relationships into healthier forms.

• Or the individuals who ask what old constraining patterns can be jettisoned for a good new growth curve.

Here are a few starter questions to help find the pivot:

• What are the significant aspects in what I now do?
• What are the defaults in those aspects?
• How do those defaults stand up to scrutiny?
• What new habits or patterns could replace the present defaults?

• Should some of these aspects of life be discarded, replaced or changed in their relative weight?

• Are there whole new things to be doing with my life?

Of course, for Christian people and organisations, these are not questions to ask by ourselves lest we self-construct a new Babel that collapses like the tower of Siloam. Rather, as we imagineer the post CV-19 pivot it is a time to be humble and ask what the Lord desires.

This is not a time to be consumed by nostalgia for the past or fatalistic about the future. Rather it is a time, under God, to ask what the future can hold.

As a poem puts it;

Let life rejoice in what is and can be

And regret not

what could, but should not be

Or, what was and should not have been.

Covid-19 A time to reduce giving?

Covid-19 - A time to reduce giving?

Pierre and Jacqueline had retired a while ago. They had settled into what they expected to be many years of enjoying a slower pace combined with active service in ways fitting to their experience and abilities. There had been a trip of two and more local engagement than when they were employed. Life was good.

Then along came Covid-19.

They took care. Hands were washed and contacts with others, including some nearby family, were carefully managed. They remained physically close to one another and agreed that they went together through this in life or death. Their Christian faith left them unafraid to die, although not welcoming its untimely advent.

Their retirement income had been adequate to their needs, but a significant share was market-linked and suffered under the Covid-19 downturn. And so, after seeking advice they took a decision to reduce that income with a view to preserving wealth for the longer term.

That meant some belt tightening. But first a reckoning. They faced the possibility that some of their extended family could have reduced or no employment and might need support. A significant sum was pledged to various Christian agencies and their local church. Through their church they were also committed to share support for a local needy family.

What expenditure could be reduced? They reduced some unnecessary items from the household budget but still needed more savings. How about the external giving? Reductions there were an easy way to reduce outgoings

Some of the missionaries they supported wrote to suggest that the new time was tough for donors and they understood if people cut back. Other missionaries pleaded for increased giving because of the sudden and dramatic drop in their support.

However, Pierre and Jacqueline decided not to cut their giving. They knew that others would not have any choice in this, but they did. Meanwhile the needs of the causes they supported continued. The result of not cutting their giving was a threat to their own future welfare, but also a threat to the present welfare of others and to the increasingly urgent gospel task. They also knew where their rust-proof wealth was deposited, and they knew and trusted the One who promised to care for those who seek first his kingdom.

This was a time to give and to give again.

Covid-19 - Dying to live

Dying to live

As Covid-19 continues its grim dance of death around the globe, most of us follow government urgings to isolate ourselves and to avoid danger areas where possible. And so, there are stories of people away dashing to cross borders before they close, and they are trapped on the wrong side while others retreat behind latherings of handwash and bolted doors.

This is not universal.

Central Nigeria is an area where Covid-19 is not yet virulent but is also an area with very limited health facilities. For example, ventilators are few and are hand operated. Expatriate workers in a Christian mission were given a choice to stay or to evacuate during a recent one-week window of available flights. There was no pressure on anyone and no criticism of anyone’s decision. A group of missionaries in the vulnerable post-70 age bracket chose to stay and continue serving, well-aware that this may be a choice resulting in their death.

This is not new. See the articles below for a few stories from the past of Christian choosing to stay or to walk into seasons of plague or pestilence.

Why do people do things like these missionaries in central Nigeria?

·       Loved by God in Christ and wanting to reflect and repay that by serving others.

·       Loving neighbour and wanting to serve as they are able.

·       A sense of eternity in which it is better to be with the Lord and in which death is not the worst that can happen to a person.

And of course, a decision by a particular missionary to evacuate is not necessarily selfishness or cowardice. There are times that it is better for some to withdraw from a danger zone (eg, Matt 10:23; 24:16; Acts 8:1&4). And equally so, there are times when a decision to stay may arise from false motives or may cause unnecessary burdens on others including nationals.

All that being said, the decision of these older missionaries to stay in central Nigeria is worth recording. These are people who know that they started to die when they were born, and that Christ has conquered death. They value life, are not careless with it and doubtless take responsible measures such as handwashing and social distance. The decision to stay is taken with knowledge and as an expression of faith that, whether they live or die, their calling is to deny themselves and follow Christ. They choose to wear his crown of thorns that they may have his crown of life.

To read

There’s plenty of good material starting to appear abut Christian responses to CV19. Here is a selection of material that brings a historical perspective.

·       https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/when-the-plague-came-to-eyam-four-lessons-for-the-church-an-a-time-of-covid-19/

·      https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/13/christianity-epidemics-2000-years-should-i-still-go-to-church-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0QTCLf5lMQBlh-x77ClkKeR_qmG2wsFTvkZET8iPeqeaIq-J6YwGsq_go

·       https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/spurgeon-ministry-cholera-outbreak/

Covid-19 and the myth of ‘my world’.

Covid-19 and the myth of ‘my world’.

A world of our own?

A trend of our times is the self-constructed world. We want to decide what is real, true and right for ourselves. Some want to decide their own gender, independent of biology. We resist others telling us what to do, map out our future vision and make plans for its execution. In short, we like to build a world for ourselves and then build a wall around it to keep others at bay.

And then things come along to rattle our DIY world. Climate and weather events send droughts, fires, storms and floods in unusual patterns and disrupt lives and livelihoods in varying ways. The rapid global spread of Covid-19 impacts through deaths, economic turmoil and growing fear. Even if these miss us personally, there is always the potential of an apparently random event in which being in the wrong place at the wrong time sends life topsy turvey.

Such events shatter the myth that we are in control and that life is certain.

What do we do when life goes topsy turvey

Common responses are to rage against events and lash out at anyone who we can find to blame. (Who would want to be a political or organisational leader at such a time?) Or we surrender to despair and passivity, concluding that the world is in the hands of the bad or the mad – if it is in anyone’s hands at all. Or perhaps we opt for a Stoic response of not trying to make sense of it all, shrug our shoulders and soldier on anyway.

Lessons from and for the times

1. We are not in charge of our destiny and the sooner we accept this the better.

2. Learn to live with contingency.

It is wise to know and engage with what is in our power and leave what is not in our power alone.

And so, we ask, what can I do to prevent contact and contract with the virus or any other threat? What prudent precautions can I take in anticipation of contact or contract such as laying in medications, basic foods etc and having a family plan in place.

It is also wise to have proportionality in perspective. All things are possible, but what is the probability of contact or contract with the virus and what are the likely outcomes of either? If we engage with the worst possible outcome, then we are equipped to deal with anything else.

The hardest lesson – humility before God

Our liking for a self-constructed world is shattered when events beyond our control break in. Our ego is undermined. We do not welcome the news that we are not god.

For unbelievers, the challenge and opportunity is to align themselves to God through faith in Jesus. That connects people to the heart of the universe and is our best path to flourishing amidst uncertainty. Knowing that he is God and bowing before him is the hardest of all human lessons. It is also the wisest.

For believers, the news that God is God and is in control is most welcome. The universe and our personal world are not in the hands of the mad nor the bad and is not a driverless train. What we see is not the sum total of reality.  Rather, our all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful and always present God is watching and working for the good of his people. The way he worked redemptively through the dreadful death of Jesus is proof positive of his unseen and good hand behind the appearance of chaos.

For believers, our alignment to God in Christ enables calmness. We know that chaos and contingency have real and painful impacts which we too may suffer. However, we also know his unseen hand that works all things for the good of his people and works towards his plan of reconciling all things in Christ. That enables us to live with serenity, take active responsibility where we can and to give of ourselves to the needs of others with generosity.

Historically, Christian believers have responded to the world’s chaos by stepping forward and leaning in. Followers of Jesus have stepped into situations of threat such as war, natural disasters, pestilence and plague, embracing risks in order to serve. Love of God and of neighbour take us there.s

A timely word

Let James have a timely word to us all:

Come now you who say “Today or tomorrow let’s go into the city, and spend a year there, trade and make a profit. Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this and that”. (James 4:13-15)