TIM COSTELLO reflects on the challenges for churches during the coronavirus pandemic…
I have noticed a few interesting things in this extraordinary time we have all been living through.
For starters, I have noticed that my life has slowed down considerably – and that I am coming to enjoy living more in the moment and not planning too far ahead.
What a blessing online communication has been in these times. I have found myself Zooming to meetings and meet-ups all over the world – and now wonder if I will ever need to jump on a plane again! What an amazing tool it has been for work from home, home schooling and family connection.
I have also observed some interesting talk with friends (both local and some international conversations through Zoom meet ups) that this time is changing people’s orientation to their church.
PICTURE: Samantha Borges/Unsplash
For many people it has shown them the importance of church as a bedrock in their lives. A young couple we know with two primary aged sons said their church has provided such good pastoral care of families – it has lead them in daily devotions and provided fun activities online for their kids, targeted at their age groups. On top of that there has been good advice for them as parents. And they said Sunday and midweek Zooms have been full of good worship and helpful teaching. This particular church has also run a makeshift food warehouse for the needy in its catchment area. So stories like this have been most encouraging. For others who could not invite secular friends to a church service they have found it easier to recommend an online service where anonymity is possible.
Many friends, on the other hand, have found their own church’s online offerings somewhat ho-hum and so they have ‘travelled’ and tuned in to ‘other’ churches – just to see what they are like. One couple told me they Zoom regularly to downtown New York and feel so inspired; several others have become wedded to a church many miles away but in their own city. And not a small number of them as a result are finding that their loyalty to their own church, even denomination is being challenged. Church world just got smaller and more competitive.
“Church will not be just the same again. As leaders we need to seize the opportunities and listen without being threatened by the journeys people have been on – even if it means that this now questions our denominational and local church loyalties. Let’s bank the insights of the great online and zoom discovery in worship and teaching but not abandon the meeting together. These are times of change and growth – in ways none of us saw coming. We will need to seize the day.”
This will provide churches and leaders with challenges in the next months. How do we go back to being inside a fold again? How do we get people out again regularly to sit on a pew in our place? What if some of these churches who have gained a large online following keep providing these services and people just decide sitting at home and tuning in is much preferable? Do we bless that practice and still set up small groups with pastoral care if the teaching is coming from elsewhere? Do we rationalise the number of preachers who may now struggle to hold us, given the preaching riches discovered elsewhere?
I can see these challenges will cause angst and even envy for many church leaders. It is hard to compete with the best and brightest when one is in a church without gifted communicators or social media or tech experts. For small congregations it is hard to have heart stirring music when the church is pressed to have an organist in place for each week or musicians and instruments are scarce.
What does the local church have to offer in its place? I think the critical thing it offers – and needs to focus on – is human connection – in the flesh – especially when we can safely hug again or sit in worship together. Our Gospel is incarnational and God so loved the world that He did not use social media or a webinars to speak. Local church offers sanctuary to look people in the eye and share intimately the struggles and pain of loss – be that through redundancy, financial hardship, bereavement or family tensions and divorce. Churches create ‘in the flesh’ community and a context for experiencing the human nuances of the joys of answered prayer as well as solidarity and mission together for the needs of the community and our sad and suffering world. It alone provides a place to gather together for baptisms and the rich experience of Communion.
Church will not be just the same again. As leaders we need to seize the opportunities and listen without being threatened by the journeys people have been on – even if it means that this now questions our denominational and local church loyalties. Let’s bank the insights of the great online and zoom discovery in worship and teaching but not abandon the meeting together. These are times of change and growth – in ways none of us saw coming. We will need to seize the day.
Rev Tim Costello is one of Australia’s most well-known Christian social activists, a former chief executive and chief advocate with World Vision Australia, and currently executive director of Micah Australia and a Senior Fellow of Centre for Public Christianity as well as a member of the Sight Advisory Board.
