Whatever!

What if this common teenage word also represents their attitude towards Christ and his church? What if your teenager displays apathy towards spiritual things?

“Apathy. This word literally means ‘without feeling’ or ‘without passion.’ When teens are apathetic, they simply go through the motions of life…disconnected, flat, appearing not to care. Whatever!” (p. 1)

Rob and Amy Rienow cite a 2013 Barna study that indicates that “59% of twenty-somethings have stopped attending Christian churches, even though they were active at church during their teen years”. In addition, according to the Nehemiah Institute, “from 1988 through 2012, high school students’ understanding of Christianity and the teaching of the Bible has declined 50%. It is important to note that this was a study of students attending Christian high schools!” (p. 2-3)

What do parents do with these statistics? Some parents simply shrug their shoulders. Other parents dismiss spiritual apathy as “what teenagers are like these days”. Many parents simply freeze, become immobile, and plead the 5th (“I don’t know what to do!). Sadly, becoming immobile is often the same as doing nothing.

The Rienows write: “Many parents passively accept the seasons of struggle and apathy in their kids without ramping up their parenting involvement and attention. ‘He is just 14. He’ll grow out of it.’ ‘She is just doing what her friends are doing. She’ll be fine.’ Just because teenage apathy is common doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.” (p. 5-6)

“Think of a plane that has lost power and is headed for a crash. It is coming down fast and hard. These are the critical moments. Will the pilots and crew do what is necessary to restore power and pull the plane out of its nosedive? Desperate times call for desperate measures. If we have an apathetic child, it is desperate times. It is a dangerous time, where the threat of a massive crash is very real.” (p. 6)

This small book identifies 5 common factors that cause teenagers to develop an apathetic attitude towards God.

The authors identify that the first common cause of spiritual apathy among teenagers is that the parent’s heart is not turned toward the teenager (p. 9). Although this reason, at first, seems harsh, many parents begin “checking out” of parenting duties during the pre-teen and teenage years, thinking that the “hard part” of parenting is behind them (infant years, changing diapers, etc.) instead of ahead of them.

The authors write: “We live in a world of delegation parenting. Do you want your children to learn to play the piano? Sign them up for piano lessons. Do you want them to learn basketball? Find a coach…Do you want them to learn about Jesus? Take them to a great youth group. Your job is to simply drive the mini-van and drop your children off with the various experts who will teach and train them for success.” (p. 9)

Yet, as any youth pastor will tell you today, many parents are refusing even to drive their teens (or encourage their teens to go) to youth group. But that’s not even the heart of the matter. Addressing parents of teenagers directly, the authors write: “When it comes to their spiritual training and nurturing of their faith, no Christian program can ever replace you! It is so easy for us to slip into the mindset that a youth group or a Christian school is all our kids need to grow in the faith and love for God…Youth groups and Christian education can provide a ‘spiritual vitamin’ boost for our kids, but they were never designed to be a ‘spiritual meal’”. (p. 10)

What happens when a parent’s heart is not turned “towards” their teenager? “If an adolescent has a disconnected parent, it is like the head coach of their team sitting on the bench not offering any direction….Just as a team becomes lifeless and rudderless when their coach stops coaching, a teen can become indifferent when parents are not engaged in providing spiritual leadership” (p. 16).

A second common cause of spiritual apathy is when the teenager has turned his or her heart away from the parent. Yet, positively, what does it mean for teenagers to metaphorically “give their hearts” to their parents? “First, it means the child is open-hearted. He shares his thoughts, feelings, fears, highs, and lows. Second, it means the child has a sense of trust in her parents. As her parents seek to lead her, she knows that they have her best interests at heart, and while she struggles with honor and obedience as every child does, she genuinely wants to be responsive to the discipleship of her parents” (p. 20).

In their ministry to families, the Rienows have heard frequent stories from parents of prodigal children who started “pulling away” from their parents: “The parent of the prodigal shared with us about a time they first sensed their son or daughter 'taking their heart away’ from them. They started telling lies. They started doing more and more in secret. They increasingly gave one-word answers, especially if the questions had anything to do with God. Personal conversations were off limits” (p. 21).

The authors give parents this advice: “If you sense your child’s heart becoming cold toward you, don’t ignore it! Don’t chalk it up to teen hormones. The longer you allow their heart to drift, the longer the journey to retrieve it” (p. 23).

Why is spiritual apathy so intimately connected to the parental relationship? The Rienows make the case as follows:

When the hearts of fathers (and mothers) are fully engaged with their children, and the hearts of children are turned to their parents, everyone’s heart is prepared to receive the love of Father God expressed through His Son Jesus” (p. 14).

While I won’t delve into reason #3 (The presence of secret sin) and reason #5 (A spirit of rebellion) for spiritual apathy among teenagers, I believe the authors correctly identify “a lack of spiritual nourishment” in the home as the fourth reason for the “whatever” attitude towards the things of God among American teenagers.

“If we want our children to be spiritually strong, they will need their three spiritual meals. They will need to pray and ‘eat’ God’s word (1) alone as an individual, (2) together with the family, and (3) with the church” (p. 45-6).

Essential Meal #1: Personal Prayer and Scripture Time

How can parents help their children with the first spiritual meal of setting aside time alone to pray and contemplate God’s word? The authors counsel parents with these words:

1. “First, we can ask the Lord to help us set a good example for them. Ask God to help you grow as a man or woman of prayer. Ask Him to give you a greater personal hunger for His Word….

2. Second, we can give our children space in their schedule to spend time with God….We can help our children set aside time to prayer and read the Bible…What they do with that time is up to them. We can’t force our children to pray. Even if we could, it is a bad idea. We can’t force them to read the Bible with an open heart. But we can try to model this for them, give them time and space, and warmly encourage them to draw near to God This is especially true for a teenager who is intensely apathetic about spiritual things.” (p. 47)

Essential Meal #2: Family Worship at Home

“No matter what family worship has looked like in your household up to today, it is never too late to start— or restart. Years ago, we encouraged a group of adults in our church with this biblical vision for family worship. A mature godly man came to me after the class and said he would try to have a time of prayer and Bible reading that evening with his wife and two teenage daughters. He was feeling awkward and insecure about it so we took some time to pray together before leaving church. It turned out to be a great time for their family. They talked. They prayed. They read the Bible. At the end of their devotion time his 15-year old daughter said, “Dad, why did you wait so long to do this?” It is never too late.” (p. 50)

Essential Meal #3: Worship at Church

The practice of the church for the first 1900 years was parents and children worshiping together. In the 20th century, especially beginning in the 1970s, children became increasingly separated from their parents at church. As I’ve said before, “Parents, Stop Sunday Schooling Your Kids Out of Church”.

The Rienows concur: “Sadly, we have almost two generations in our country that were raised on little more than spiritual vitamins. Parents made it a top priority to be sure their children were in Sunday School, youth group, and even Christian schools. While these vitamins can provide a boost, they will never replace the meals of personal prayer and Scripture, family worship, and your church’s corporate worship service [“the essential meals” instead of “the vitamins" of sunday school and youth group]. For some families a great way to help their kids get both their meals and vitamins is by making church on Sunday morning a two-hour experience. They worship together as a family for one hour, and the second hour they get their ‘vitamin boost’ in Christian education, youth groups, or adult classes.” (p. 57)

This is a simple book. (I’ve quoted the most important pieces of the book above, so this post is not a hearty endorsement to buy the book.) Yet the problem of spiritual apathy among teens is profound and pervasive. The overarching theme of the book might be put like this: Parents, enter the battle. Don’t ignore the apathy. Be the kind of parents that prays, reads your Bible, and models the kind of spirituality you want to see in your own teenager. Be diligent in providing the three essential meals that every teenage heart and soul needs. It’s never to late to enter the battle for the soul of your child.

"Brothers and Sisters" by Dr. Lisa D. Cain

Monergism on Facebook 6/12/20: The World Needs What the Word Has

“For those who have asked for resources to combat racism... read, pray and meditate over your bible. Take it off the shelf, blow off the dust and read it. It is God's very own word. To love your neighbor as yourself includes everyone, no exceptions. Jesus came for people from every tribe, nation, people and language (Rev 5:9).”

BARNA: Black Practicing Christians are twice as Likely as their White Peers to See a Race Problem

• Interesting surveys about race in American among black and white Christians.

“Only two in five white practicing Christians (38%) believe the U.S. has a race problem. This percentage more than doubles, however, among black practicing Christians (78%), As this survey was conducted in late summer 2019, it can’t account for any shift due to the present, heated national discussion discussing racism and white supremacy..

There are polarized views in the pews about whether the root of the nation’s race problems is primarily systemic or individual in nature. Data shows that three in five white practicing Christians (61%) take an individualized approach to matters of race, saying these issues largely stem from one’s own beliefs and prejudices causing them to treat people of other races poorly. Meanwhile, two-thirds of black practicing Christians (66%) agree that racial discrimination is historically built into our society and institutions.”

VIDEO: A Christian Approach to Moving Beyond Racial Gridlock

Justin Taylor: Professor George Yancey (PhD, University of Texas) is professor of sociology at Baylor University, specializing in race/ethnicity, biracial families, and anti-Christian bias. He is the author of Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility (IVP, 2006). The above talk asks whether Christianity can offer a unique approach to the problem of racism and race relations that differs from the dominant secular ideologies of our day. You don’t have to agree with every jot and tittle to benefit from his analysis and prescription.

John Piper: Structural Racism: The Child of Structural Pride  (Nov. 15, 2016)

• Biblical reasons concerning structural racism from a conservative theologian.

“…if your mind is Bible-saturated, you would consider it absolutely astonishing if structural racism were not pervasive wherever sin is pervasive. In other words, Bible-shaped people should expect to see structural racism almost everywhere in a fallen world.

But beware of thinking that, because structural racism is pervasive, it is the decisive cause of all injustice or all inequalities. The pervasive presence of one type of cancer cell in the body does not make it the cause of every malady. Therefore, it is seldom helpful to wave the flag of structural racism without putting the finger on specific manifestations. The likelihood may be high that it played a part. But a good physician does his tests.”

Monergism on Facebook: Cries for Justice/Morality Demand an Objective Basis in God

“I am delighted to see how many young people are committed to universal justice. But, at the same time, modern society tends to be deeply incoherent. On the one hand our culture demands justice for the oppressed and impartial benevolence toward all. On the other hand it teaches that no one has the right to declare right and wrong to anyone else, as secularism asserts that every person must determine his or her own moral values. This is cognitive dissonance. It demands moral behavior of others and yet insists morality is relative. The idea undermines itself. The promotion of universal justice, human rights, self-sacrifice, a commitment to human dignity and considering the poor can only coherently make sense in a world where morality is objective and whose source is God. Either stop moralizing others or stop pretending to believe morality is relative/subjective. You can't hold to both at the same time and expect people to take you seriously.

If you lie to yourself in this way, you are not helping. It is a type of willful blindness to the real source of the problem. This means if you are fighting for justice with human wisdom alone, with no thought to where human dignity comes from, you are keeping humanity in the very bondage and slavery you claim to be fighting against. We cannot merely judge policies by their "good intentions" but by a consistent commitment to the truth, in a way that corresponds with reality. The real remedy for our problems cannot be based on a lie.”

Cole Brown: Jesus is Not Colorblind

• Brown explores 6 reasons for Jesus not being colorblind and concludes: “Let us love the way our barrier-crossing Savior loves us.”

Video: Grace, Justice, & Mercy: An Evening with Bryan Stevenson & Rev. Tim Keller (from 2016)

• Tim Keller was the founding pastor of NYC’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Bryan Stevenson is one of this nation’s most influential public interest lawyers and the Founder & Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. For over 30 years, Stevenson has dedicated his life to help release those wrongly condemned on death row. He has also successfully advocated to eliminate the prosecution of children as adults. Leading the charge for a renewed conversation about racism in the US by connecting contemporary injustices with slavery, lynching, and segregation, Stevenson is the bestselling author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.

Shai Linne: George Floyd and Me

• Christian hip-hop artist shares about his personal, visceral reaction to George Floyd’s death.

“I am heartbroken and devastated. I feel gutted. I haven’t been able to focus on much at all since I saw the horrific video of George Floyd’s murder. The image of that officer with hand in pocket as he calmly and callously squeezed the life out of that man while he begged for his life is an image that will haunt me until the day I die.”

Tony Evans: America’s racial crisis is a result of the failure of the church to deal with racism

One of America’s foremost evangelical pastors, Tony Evans, writes: “God has four distinct spheres in which life is to be lived, and therefore, there are four areas in which changes need to be made, according to his kingdom agenda. The kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life.”

MLK’s Theological Case for Racial Justice (and Today’s Thin Alternatives)

• A scholarly article on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s biblical foundations for racial equality

“In addition to his appeal to natural law and the imago Dei, King frequently used an argument from New Testament ethics. A major aspect of this derived from the command to love your enemies, as propounded by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. In numerous speeches and essays, King develops the idea by distinguishing divine agape love…

…Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and social contractarianism fail to provide this. In contrast, Martin Luther King’s Christian theological ethics—natural law ethics combined with a biblical theology of imago Dei and agape—does provide this crucial philosophical foundation. Arguably, this is a major reason why the Civil Rights Movement was a success.”

The raw, unedited 8-minute and 46-second video of George Floyd’s death is horrifying and heartbreaking and appalling. Ahmaud Arbery was shot while running in a predominately white neighborhood.

Whatever those particular cases reveal about racism in America, we can and should acknowledge this: racism is not dead in America. Not even close.

In the aftermath of a significant uptick of white supremacy in our country which culminated in Charlottesville in August 2017, I wrote “On Race and the Gospel: Pastoral Reflections”. Many of those scriptural and theological truths should be reiterated again during these days.

The last couple of days feels like the aftermath of Rodney King on steroids. Just as nobody is defending the horrific manner of George Floyd’s gratuitous death, it is likewise (rather) easy to agree that the looting (stolen merchandise) and the burning of businesses in city centers from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Los Angeles are acts of violence that do not honor the memory of George Floyd. In the midst of it all, there are peaceful protestors expressing genuine hurt, frustration, despair, and anger over racial injustice that is intertwined in a long, complex social history of racism in our country.

More is Needed than Virtue Signaling

Virtue signaling is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue”.  Social media is a breeding ground of virtue signaling. With a few clicks and shares, you can be sure you are always on “the right side” of any particular moral issue while signaling to others your impeccable moral character. Racism in my life? “Please, haven’t you seen my moral outrage via my posts on social media?” More will be needed than virtue signaling in the days (and years) ahead if America is to heal one of its foremost collective sins. (For more on virtue signaling read here, with a counter-point here.)

Share the Pain

Rev. Dr. David Lenz is a friend and an ECO pastor-colleague working in Minneapolis. After Minneapolis pastors came together via a video call, Lenz reflects thus:

I listened as one of my friends and colleagues, a prominent African American leader, someone I have laughed with and shared meals with, someone I admire greatly, someone who has preached at Hope Church, shared his pain. 

Through his tears, he wanted us to know how this experience feels to him and the black community. The horrific public death of George Floyd, a death that never should have happened, for which there cannot be any shred of justification, is not an isolated event. Rather, it is part of a shameful pattern that reaches back across American history for something like 400 years.

He wanted us to know that it is precisely because such deaths keep happening that there is such despair, such questioning of systems and structures that have not protected African Americans from lynching and brutality. (I thought of my visit with him in 2018 to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama - an extraordinary place, where 800 steel structures list the names of lynching victims from every county in the United States where they have taken place.)

Most of all, he wanted to know if white Christians will come alongside black Christians and the black community, to stand with them in their pain, to be willing to name the evils of racism (and the often implicit ways racism continues to infect and impact us), and to work together for a better future.

A question white Christians should be asking during these days is this: what does it mean for me to (better) understand the pain of the black community? To stand with them in their pain? To begin, through empathy and through action, to share the pain? Folks might point out the impossibility of complete solidarity or the impossible task of fully sharing the pain of another. Yet even if solidarity is always approximate and burden-bearing never bears the full load, the trust and good-will and intentionality present in such movement towards others who are not like you is often appreciated and respected, even if you (and me) will be corrected at times and continue to learn through the journey.

Ask the Question “What is Racism?” and Let the Question come Home to Roost

The paradox of racism in America is that almost nobody believes themselves to be a racist…yet racism is prevalent in our country. How can this be? Part of the problem why this Gordian knot is extremely difficult to unravel is our inability to even agree on a simple definition of racism.

Conservatives tend to define racism in terms of personal, concrete behaviors; progressives tend to define racism in terms of social and structural systems. Much of America talks past each other on issues of race because we are starting the conversation from such distinct vantage points.

In general, white conservatives tend to define racism in such narrow terms that the definition itself often serves only to insulate them from any implicit participation in the societal structures of racism. With a narrow definition of racism in place, only egregious and heinous and personal concrete actions are considered racist and thus most white conservatives are never forced to look in the mirror and let the question of racism come home to roost in their own lives (i.e. “I haven’t lynched anyone” or “I haven’t purposely discriminated against anyone…so I’m fine”).

I wonder whether defining away the problem is part of the problem. 

I’m not advocating a militant pendulum swing (i.e. “all white people are racist” or “all white people should be plagued by white guilt”). Complex issues deserve proper nuance rather than visceral sound bites. Yet if we define away the problem of racism such that nobody ever really participates in racism, then we haven’t traveled very far down the path towards hope and healing.

Unsettling times calls for unsettling questions: let the question of racism come home to roost in your own life. Therein lies the beginning of the journey.

As Trinity pre-recorded its service earlier in the week, please pray with me for our country in this Pastoral Prayer for May 31, 2020:

Lord, have mercy. 

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

How long, O Lord, how long will racism ravage our hearts and our communities?

How long, O Lord, how long will African-American young men fear for their lives?    

How long, O Lord, how long will structures of racism prevail in our cities, neighborhoods, and schools?

How long, O Lord, how long will these protests-turned-riots perpetuate senseless acts of vandalism and violence?

Give wisdom, O Lord, give wisdom to police, mayors, governors, and the federal government.

Give solidarity, O Lord, give solidarity between Christians of all races that the church might be a harbinger of the Kingdom of Heaven where every tribe and language and people and nation gather around the throne of the Lamb who was slain.

Christ, for these acts of racism, you died. For these acts of violence, you died. For the reconciliation of brothers and sisters of different races, you died.

Lord, we praise you that the image of God is stamped upon each and every human life. Lord, we praise you that the image of God is perfectly found in every race and ethnicity and that the diversity of ethnicities and races and languages serves to magnify your excellent greatness.  

We praise you, O Lord, that you are a God that brings hope out of despair, peace in the midst of chaos, reconciliation out of strife, and justice in the midst of violence. Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit be poured out in abundance on Pentecost Sunday. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

*****

In the aftermath of a significant uptick of white supremacy in our country which culminated in Charlottesville in August 2017, I wrote “On Race and the Gospel: Pastoral Reflections”. Many of those scriptural and theological truths can be reiterated again during these days.

Our church has not celebrated the Lord’s Supper since the first week of March.

Theologians and churches have reacted in diverse manners to this online hiatus with regards to the Lord’s Supper. The Gospel Coalition has published a pro/con on the issue from two baptistic perspectives, one encouraging the practice of an online Lord’s Supper and one denying that the Lord’s Supper should be celebrated apart from a gathered assembly. An article in Christianity Today embraces “online Communion” with a cheeky subtitle: “The bread and the cup Zoomed for you”. G.P. Wagenfuhr, ECO’s Theology Coordinator, makes a theologically robust plea against online communion, as does Scott R. Swain, President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

First of all, we must place this issue on our theological radar as a “third-tier theological issue”. Non-negotiables of the Christian faith are first-tier theological doctrines like the Trinity and the incarnation. If a person cannot hold an orthodox belief in the Trinity or that Jesus became human (the incarnation), then we can reasonably assume these issues represent a stark dividing line between belief and unbelief. All major branches of Christianity (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and Pentecostal) affirm these first-tier theological issues of Trinity and incarnation.

Yet, we are not either treading on what we might call “second-tier” theological issues such as our Reformed view of Soteriology (doctrine of salvation). As a Presbyterian church in the Reformed family of churches, our tradition has historic roots in the Protestant Reformation, itself founded on a solid exegetical foundation of sola scriptura (Scripture alone). Thus, Presbyterians have historically embraced the Reformed “doctrines of grace”: election based on the decree of God (Eph. 1:4-5), salvation not by human choice but by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8-9) since we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) and thus God had to act in Christ to make us alive (Eph. 2:5). Only God’s saving grace can awaken (unto salvation) men and women dead in sin.

The issue of an online Lord’s Supper is a third-tier theological issue where you will find good Christians on both sides of the theological divide (e.g. baptism, eschatology, forms of church government). There are good, faithful churches practicing a lament-like abstinence from the Lord’s Supper during the online hiatus while other good, faithful churches dive into the deep end of virtual church by celebrating the Lord’s Supper online.

Here’s a few reasons (biblically, theologically, and confessionally) why I am hesitant to celebrate the Lord’s Supper online.

(1)   Biblical Reason: Instructions in 1 Corinthians 11 emphasize the Lord’s Supper should take place with the gathered church.

1 Corinthians 11:17-33 represent Paul’s most important instructions for celebrating the Lord’s Supper. In this teaching passage of Paul to the Corinthian church, the apostle mentions on five different occasions the importance of coming together as a church to celebrate the sacrament:

• 1 Cor. 11:17 – …when you come together…

• 1 Cor. 11:18 – …when you come together as a church…

• 1 Cor. 11:20 – When you come together…

• 1 Cor. 11:33 – …when you come together…

• 1 Cor. 11:34 – …when you come together…

Scott Swain puts it succinctly: “When it comes to the Lord’s Supper, then, no shared meal, no covenant assembly, means no sacrament.” Biblically, the physical gathering of the body of Christ to share the meal together is a fundamental and indispensable part of celebrating the Lord’s Supper.

A sacrament is a means of grace ordained by Christ that bestows the promise of the presence and blessing of God. The nature of baptism connotes initiation while the Lord’s Supper connotes participation and communion. In 1 Cor. 10:16-17, Paul writes:

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

The mystery of “participation” and “communion” in the Lord’s Supper is not simply vertical in nature (communion with God) but also horizontal (the mystery of spiritual unity in the gathered church). From the one bread, the gathered many are united mysteriously together spiritually as the body of Christ, the church.

As G.P. Wagenfuhr writes, “We cannot be united in the body of Christ if we are not together in the body.”

(2)   Theological Reason: Biblical spirituality is incarnational in nature.

Spirituality without incarnation is gnosticism.

Gnosticism was an early ancient heresy that threatened the early church with a belief that emphasized the spirit to the exclusion of the body. An overly simplistic summary of gnosticism is: body = bad; spirit = good. Gnosticism sought to divorce the Christian faith from the earthiness of God’s creation and the fleshly, bodily, incarnation of Christ. Whether or not John was writing specifically against incipient gnostic tendencies of the early church, John 1:14 is a seminal text that celebrates and magnifies the kind of “incarnational spirituality” that becomes central to New Testament faith: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14a). Paul celebrates the bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15) and portrays the church as a body (Rom. 12:4-5, 1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 4:4; Col. 1:18, 24).

The New Testament’s view of Christ, of the church, and of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper are inter-connected and deeply incarnational in nature. The central NT metaphor for the church as “the body of Christ” and the Lord’s Supper which remembers the body and blood of Jesus in gathered worship point decidedly away from “excarnation” (out of the flesh) and unequivocally towards “incarnation” (in the flesh). (For more, see Wagerfuhr.) An online Lord’s Supper, which primarily promotes the spirituality of the sacrament in a disembodied fashion from the gathered body of Christ, is gnostic in its orientation.

While some might argue for online Communion because Reformed Christians historically believe that Christ is “spiritually present” when we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the context of Christ’s spiritual presence thru the sacrament is embedded in an embodied, corporeal, and incarnational gathering of the body of Christ.

True spirituality is incarnational: Jesus Christ came and dwelt among us (John 1:14). In all its divine mystery, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper communicates to us this massive and essential truth that the presence and blessing of God is embodied (not disembodied) and corporeal (not ethereal).

(3)   Confessional Reason: Online Communion essentially promotes the practice of a Private Communion, which is antithetical to the nature of the sacrament.

Historical creeds have shaped the praxis and theology of Reformed churches as reliable and historic expositions of the Word of God. The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 27, Paragraphs 3-4 reads:

iii. The Lord Jesus hath, in his ordinance, appointed His ministers to declare His word of institution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break bread, to take the cup and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation. 

iv. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone, as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.

Commenting on the Westminster Assembly, Reformed Theological Seminary professor Chad B. Van Dixhoorn writes:

The last line of the third paragraph specifies that the Lord's supper is not to be received privately. One reason why the Westminster assembly frowned on bringing the bread and wine to persons not present in the worship service, was presented in paragraph one: this meal is intended to celebrate communion with Christ, but also with fellow Christians.

A second related reason why the Westminster assembly disapproved of private communion is found in the Bible itself: not only did the individualistic approach of the Corinthians earn an apostolic rebuke (1 Cor. 11:20; c.f., 17-22), it seems to have been the settled pattern of the first Christians to 'gather together to break bread' rather than to eat in isolation (e.g., Acts 20:7). 

If my wife asks me to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with our boys on a special Christian holiday, my answer would be the same: the sacrament is meant be celebrated in the church. The sacrament is not to be privatized. The sacrament is not meant to be individualized. Representatives of the church may go to hospitals or nursing homes only as an extension of the church for those incapable of physically participating in the sacrament. When the entire gathered church is in exile, the sacrament is not rightly celebrated.

Yet someone might say: “Does not Jesus say, ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them’? (Mt. 18:20) Therefore, two or three is the church! So let’s celebrate online communion in homes during the pandemic.”

The succinct reply is that Mt. 18:20 is one of the most misinterpreted and misapplied verses in the entire New Testament. Jesus is referring to admonishing or rebuking a brother caught in sin:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. (Mt. 20:15-16)

The context is not a private prayer meeting. Nor is Jesus giving the definitive criteria for what constitutes the ekklesia (church). Modern evangelicals, in misapplying Mt. 18:20, often ask the verse to carry an outlandish amount of ecclesiological freight it was never intended to support.

What is our Response?

In the life of the church, there are seasons of feasting and seasons of fasting. In the Psalter, there are praise psalms and lament psalms. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens...A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” (Ecc. 3:1,3)

As exiles from the gathered church, congregations are learning to fast, to lament, and to mourn.

G.P. Wagenfuhr expresses our contemporary situation well: “Scripture is full of examples of people who were forcibly separated from the presence of God and other believers:

Paul longed for churches while he was imprisoned.

The Israelites lost the Ark of the Covenant when Saul misused it, thus losing the symbol of the presence of God.

The Israelites lost the temple, and the presence of God in their midst when they went into Babylonian Exile.

In each of these situations the people lamented. They did not try to cope by simulating what was lost.” 

Lamenting, fasting, and mourning can be soul-food, too.

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See also: The Dark Side for the Church during its Online Hiatus.

Psalm 62: For God alone my soul waits in silence | from him comes my salvation. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, | my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. 3 How long will all of you attack a man | to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? 4 They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. | They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. 5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, | for my hope is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation, | my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; | my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; | pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. 9 Those of low estate are but a breath; | those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; | they are together lighter than a breath. 10 Put no trust in extortion; | set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, set not your heart on them. 11 Once God has spoken; | twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, 12 and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love. For you will render to a man according to his work.

Guest Post: Lisa Carter

The COVID-19 crisis has shaken the world, and now we wait. Some of us wait for the day in the Fall when we feel safe to send our children to school. We wait to return to our jobs, if we still have one. Some wait for a stimulus or unemployment check. Others of us are waiting to gather with loved ones and families and our church family. We wait for the freedom to visit our favorite restaurants, coffee shops, and businesses. We wait for the services and interventions for our special needs children. We wait for surgeries or dental or medical appointments that are not deemed essential right now.

Others of us wait for test results. We wait for family members to recover. We wait to grieve the loss of a loved one within our community. We wait and wonder how many more will get the virus. How many more will die? How long the quarantine will last? We wait. Waiting is never easy.  As Tom Petty sang, “waiting is the hardest part.”

It’s not our habit to wait. We are a culture of immediacy.  With all our technological advancements, we’ve become a less patient people. Coupled with our Do-It-Yourself fixer-upper mentality, we find it hard to wait and depend on anyone or anything outside of our own control.

Spiritual Waiting

Spiritually, it’s also hard to wait. Dr. Larry Crabb writes, “It is not our habit to wait on a hidden God who is somehow working a masterful plan to bring glory to Himself.” 

Even with plenty of things to keep us distracted, waiting can still be a scary and painful process. Yet, waiting is actually good for us all. To miss the goodness of waiting is to miss what waiting does to refine and grow us. There is always purpose in waiting. Abraham and Sarah waited 75 years for their promised son. Israel waited 420 years for deliverance from Egypt, then another 40 years before they could enter the Promised Land. God’s people waited generation after generation for the Messiah, and the church now awaits Christ’s return.

The question “How Long?” is a question that hovers over many of the Psalms.

In the waiting, here’s the key question: what does it look like to wait in a way that makes us a participant in what God is doing rather than someone who struggles against the wait and His purposes in it?

After all, we can be assured, as John Piper recently shared, that “the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it.” God could stop this pandemic at any time, but in His mysterious wisdom chooses to let us wait for His purposes. So how do we wait well?

A Biblical Resource for our Waiting

I believe that Psalm 62 can be an encouragement to us in the waiting.

This is a psalm attributed to David. Some scholars think that David wrote this psalm in the middle of facing the rebellion of his son, Absalom, though it’s not certain. Whatever the case, throughout his entire life David seemed to face formidable enemies whether it be Goliath, his own mentor Saul, his own son Absalom, the Philistines, and especially temptations from his own flesh and the sin within. 

We cannot relate to many of the experiences David faced but we do have an enemy we are fighting right now as a nation. It’s an “invisible enemy” as people in our government have called it. Our enemy is COVID-19 which is life-threatening and threatening our very way of life, but we also face the enemies of our doubts and fears that attack our minds. 

What does David do when he is surrounded by enemies as expressed in this psalm?  He does something so counter-intuitive to us as modern Americans. He stops. He ceases action. He goes silent. He waits.

David’s Waiting

Right in the midst of all that is going on around him David begins with a calm composure and a silent waiting based on submission to his God (vs. 1: “For God alone my soul waits in silence”). He doesn’t grumble or complain or scheme but waits on the only source of hope that he knows. He says his waiting is in God alone. 

Charles Spurgeon describes this kind of waiting as a possession of the soul until deliverance comes. He says to wait on God is worship.  To wait in this posture is to give up the notion that we can do anything to save ourselves. It requires a kind of faith that nothing can shake us.

How could David silently wait instead of taking action or fretting, grumbling or complaining when enemies were upon him? And how do we sit and wait in submissive silence for deliverance in the midst of a global pandemic? To find the answer in this psalm, we must ask ourselves two questions:

Who do we Trust?

We wait quietly because of our trust in the One we wait upon.  We can wait assuredly upon God because He is our rock (vs. 2, 6), our salvation (vs. 2, 6), our fortress (vs. 2, 6), our refuge (vs. 7, 8).  He is all powerful (vs. 11) and possesses steadfast love (vs. 11).

We put our trust in Him because He alone is our greatest hope and the only perfectly trustworthy one.  Our ultimate hope in the waiting is not in our own plans, our googled information, our government, our medical experts, our economists, or even our first responders as important as these institutions and people may be. Our hope is in our Sovereign Loving God and it ought to be Him that we wait upon for our salvation and deliverance. He alone is the only one who can deliver from us from any enemy.

This leads us to another question that begs to be asked: are we waiting for everything to go back to the way things were?  Are we waiting for health, ease, comfort, and peace?  What are we waiting for?

What do we wait for? What do we hope for?

There is something at the end of our waiting. Most people feel that waiting is meaningless without an end result. Right now, we wait for an end to a global pandemic.

Yet, as we look to the counsel of Scripture, it appears that the process of waiting is as important as the end result to God.

As Paul Tripp puts it, “waiting is not about what you get at the end; it’s about what you become as you wait.” Or, as Jade Mazarin writes: “Something actually happens while nothing is happening. God uses waiting to change us.”

From the whole counsel of God’s Word, we know God’s ultimate purpose is that God be enjoyed and glorified in and through us. Paul writes: “It is my eager expectation and hope that…Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20)

Waiting is a tool of God to shape and mold and refine us into vessels of His mercy if we submit to Him through the process. We exist for God’s glory, not our own comfort and ease. Paul Tripp writes, “The whole redemptive story is written for one purpose and one purpose alone: the glory of the king.” Tripp believes that the reason that waiting is so hard is “because we tie our hearts to other glories.”

In Psalm 62, David points out man’s attachment to the glories of riches and power. God often strips us of our glories in our seasons of waiting. Waiting requires us to surrender to His glory.

Since we live in a fallen and broken world, it is inevitable that we wait. You will often find yourself in a “season of waiting”. In the waiting, will you build bigger and more solid bridges of trust in God? Will you surrender more fully to a Sovereign God who continues to possess perfect steadfast love even in the midst of a global pandemic?

Will you use your season of waiting to trust more fully in God alone?