Skip to main content

The Church's Ongoing Pandemic

Photo Credit

 People don’t go to church for a lot of reasons, but a Christian without a church is a Christian in trouble. Sadly, the number of professing Christians is far larger than the number who attend weekly meetings. Many churches experienced an acceleration of this trend during Covid as well: professing Christians have returned to school, work, and leisure, but have not returned for regular church gatherings. Why? Everyone is a unique case in the specifics, but there are trends we see in the wake of the pandemic: people have elevated political and medical (mask & vaccine) opinions over faith commitments and demoted their faith so it is not the primary identity marker in their life.

What does this mean for the church? Is it doomed? I don’t think so, but Christians need to rediscover that the church can have different political and medical opinions, but still love each other, be on mission, and gather for Jesus. Christians need to remember that the fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to defeat sin and death is the cornerstone of our identity. And when Jesus rose, his Apostles brought together his people for regular worship.

Christians should return to church because we belong to God, because Christ gave his body, and then he formed a body of believers from every tribe, language, people, and nation. (Revelation 5:9) If this describes a tension in your life, I encourage you to regather with your local Church because that is where we experience God’s love and presence with others; this draws us out of selfish cocoons and help us discover healing that this world cannot offer.

 These reflections are from “Rediscover Church.” If you want a copy, ask me or stop by my office sometime! I will be posting some highlights of the book over the next few weeks.

Comments

  1. Aunt LibbyJanuary 18, 2022 at 10:23 AM

    Gathering together is a lot like coming to the frontier fort to restock, recuperate, regroup -- and then go back out to the actual wilderness where we live and work. We will definitely run out of supplies, and not be able to share what we've learned about the wilderness out there, if we don't come back together regularly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

What would you add? Any insights you have?

Popular posts from this blog

Does Paul contradict Jesus?

Recently I finished The Heresy of orthodoxy: How contemporary culture’s fascination with diversity has reshaped our understanding of early Christianity by Köstenberger and Kruger. The first is a New Testament scholar and the latter is an early church scholar, so they are particularly capable of bringing clarity to the origins and early years of Christianity. This book is dedicated to debunking and replacing the “Bauer thesis” about early Christianity; many of you do not know it by name but have heard its claims from History Channel hot takes, annual Time Magazine Christmas exposés, your liberal religion professor, or Twitter. Here’s a few claims that you might recognize: Jesus and Paul’s teachings contradict each other. Paul is the true founder of Christianity. The New Testament we have today is the product of political and theological power grabs in the 4 th century. The early church had a bunch of other books like the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Phillip, Gospel of Nicodemus, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

April & May 2020 - Birthday, Baby Showers, Nesting, and Building Projects

Hey Family and Friends, Writing about life has been hard for two reasons lately: 1) we are cooped up and there isn't much variation in our life - like many of you are experiencing. 2) We don't know what is next. People often ask what is next because I finished my degree, but I don't have answers. I am thankful for my current job and I'm not "itching to get out of town." We are taking one day at a time and praying about what might be next. I am considering a PhD and also a part time teaching job. Life surely isn't all uncertainty and routine though - here are a few highlights: This meme spoke to me😃 Graduation/Birthday I had my 30th Birthday in April and graduated Seminary shortly after! I am relieved and also excited about what plans the Lord has for us next. On my birthday, I received many wonderful celebration videos and texts, but this one made me laugh quite a a bit: Family Bible Time Pastor Don and I have been making weekl...
2 comments
Read more