Since March our country has been closed down due to the
Covid-19 virus. To one degree or
another, we have stopped following our normal routines and substituted
alternate activities. School in a school
building became home school via computer.
Shopping for groceries became either an online order with contactless
pickup or an extended wait in line as stores limited the number of shoppers. Even corporate worship services at churches
became personal internet worship in the home.
We have all been sequestered.
Life has been circumscribed by the walls of our homes. For many, Sunday morning, with brothers and sisters
at a meeting place, became a time to sleep in, lounge around and perhaps tune
into the church’s video presentation.
Church attendance became like watching a favorite television show, you
could watch live or watch at your convenience.
Of course, no one would know if while watching you were also doing
something else-multitasking; which according to Barna Research 15% of
practicing Christians do while watching the service.
More importantly to me is how many of us over the last four
and a half months have simply lost the practice of worship on Sunday
mornings. Research claims that breaking
a habit can take anywhere for two months to a year, and we are four months into
limiting church, into meeting together as the church. My fear is that some of us, having changed
the routine of our Sundays, will simply continue in the new habit.
Belief in God and following Jesus Christ are evidenced by
certain actions which include gathering together to worship the Lord and
encourage one another. Certainly we can
all worship alone, we have been doing that since the quarantine began, but
being physically together in worship, is what the church does. We can reach out
to each other through the internet, call or mail, but face to face support is
what the church does. You may say, “The
New Testament is filled with long distance, written encouragement from various
apostles.” That is true. But that is not the only encouragement those
people received. They were in close
contact with fellow believers, contact which bolstered and encouraged the one
who gave and the one who received.
If we continue to avoid contact, personal contact and
corporate worship it will be easier and easier to simply drift away. We can find other things to do on Sunday,
needful things, and forego church on television. We can find others who are of like mind and
leave behind our brothers and sisters. The drift away will be gradual, almost
leisurely.
Then, almost without noticing it we will wake up one Sunday
morning and realize we have been without worship or encouragement for a month
or two, and it won’t really be that upsetting.
This is what I fear. This virus
upsetting our country will infect more than our bodies. Don’t let it infect your soul and hinder your
relationship to the Lord of Life.