Opportunities for the Church during its Online Hiatus
Online church is not church.
Let’s get that straight from the get-go. (We’ll delve deeper into that reality with the next post “The Dark Side for the Church during its Online Hiatus”.)
Yet even in the hardest of times, God is a God who habitually brings life out of death, light out of darkness, and triumph and strength out of times of conflict and weakness. So what could be the positive effects on the church during its online hiatus due to COVID-19?
PUTTING FAITH BACK INTO THE FAMILY
The church is meant to play a secondary role in the spiritual nurture and intentional discipleship of our children and students. The priority of the family in faith formation is a long-standing God-ordained way the faith is passed to the next generation.
In Israel, families practiced the daily recitation of the Shema (Shema שְׁמַ֖ע is derived from the first word “hear” of Deut. 6:4-9). The Shema begins with the confession of Yahweh alone being their God and Israel being a monotheistic people:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deut. 6:4
The Shema proceeds to the central commandment to love Yahweh. (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” Deut. 6:5.)
Yet, quite noticeably, the context of this instruction to love Yahweh occurs not in the Tabernacle, nor in the future-built Temple, nor in the Holy City of Jerusalem but in the midst of family life. (Read Deut. 6:6-9!)
No mention is made of the priests. No mention of a sanctuary. No mention of Sunday school or youth group.
Faithful Israelites are given a holy and solemn charge: “You shall teach them [God’s words/commandments] diligently to your children.” Where? “In your house.” When? “When you lie down and when you rise.” The command implicitly charges Israel’s fathers and mothers: you need to get equipped to be the primary teachers of the faith to your children.
Not surprisingly, in the New Testament, God charges leaders in the church, including pastors and teachers, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). Pastors and teachers are called to equip; the saints (meaning all Christians, including fathers and mothers) are called to carry out “the work of ministry”.
If you feel ill-equipped in the discipleship of your child, then you should beat down the door of the teachers and pastors of your church so they can disciple you in the faith until you are equipped for this life-defining work. Christian parents need to get well-acquainted with the Bible (reading the Word), sound Christian doctrine (knowledge of the Word), and spiritual practices (the rhythms & habits that nurture faith) to pass on the faith onto their children.
As COVID-19 strips away the gathered church, faith has an opportunity to flourish in its God-ordained setting – in the context of the family.[1]
Key Question: Are the spiritual rhythms and habits you are currently practicing during COVID-19 able to sustain, by the grace of God, your child’s faith into adulthood?
EXCHANGING CONSUMER CHRISTIANITY FOR SIMPLER VERSIONS OF CHURCH
I love what Brett McCracken writes: “In the COVID-19 quarantine, the clunky, unpolished computer-church experience will decidedly not be the easiest or most comfortable option for how people spend their Sundays. It will be a countercultural choice. And that’s a good thing.”
Even in our denomination, one of the largest churches in ECO (with a paid media team) has experienced technical problems during COVID-19 that resulted in many people not being able to participate in its Sunday morning worship.
During COVID-19, we have to remember that the Christian faith is predominantly thriving in places on our planet (like Africa & Latin America) that are most removed from the consumer-driven metrics that characterize the western church. Could it be that the simple biblical gospel does not need to be adorned by electric guitars and fast-paced activities for children and youth?
Key Question: Are you being a consumer or a worshiper during COVID-19? What can you learn about the simplicity of the faith during these days of quarantine?
Giving “UNTO GOD” rather than for (consumer) SERVICES-RENDERED
Many churches have been scrambling to piece together emergency budgets and dramatically cut costs during a downshift of congregational giving as church services have moved online.
Will the coronavirus teach the American church that giving, first and foremost, is a God-centered activity that honors God rather than being a horizontal, transactional activity that gives for “services rendered”? If our giving is in proportion to “how happy I am with my church” or “how wonderful the music is” or “how good the preacher performs”, then we have succumbed to a very human-centered transaction in our giving.
Ironically, as the church moves online, online giving has the potential to depict something beautiful about the nature of giving itself. Whether the person is present (or not) in worship during a given weekend or whether the church is meeting face-to-face (or not) during the coronavirus, giving is primarily meant to be an expression of our worship of God. Primarily, congregational giving is to be found on the Godward side of life, with a God-centered direction in its basic orientation.
Key Question: Is my giving “unto the Lord” or for (consumer) “services rendered”?
A Word of Hope
The coronavirus is shaking up our world in enormous ways. Wouldn’t it be great if the church could emerge from this shake-up with more resolute father and mothers convinced of the necessity to teach the faith in the home? If the church began to be filled with Christians less beholden to and less impressed with the consumer-driven circumference of the faith and more fixed upon the Jesus as the center of the faith?
There are positive possibilities for the church. Let those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, lean into a Jesus-centered, family-nurtured, simple gospel that awakens our hearts and prepares our souls to journey through even the hardest of times in our world.
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