Why I'm Thankful to be Connected to a Local Church in a Time Like This

Yesterday my church held its first online Sunday worship service. This of course wasn’t by design but something we felt we needed to have due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Like most people around the country, this situation has become increasingly alarming for our area and caused local authorities to prohibit large gatherings and recommend social distancing.

It was manic. Our staff had to meet non-stop every day. New sermon. New worship format. New personnel. These past few days were probably the busiest days of my pastoral life.

It was strange. How do you do an online service? We realized it’s not as simple as turning on a camera and recording. We had to figure out a location to film (we don’t own a building), how we wanted to film (full worship style?), and how to broadcast what we film (Facebook live? Youtube?).

It was nerve-wrecking. When Sunday morning came, it was interesting seeing all these other churches broadcast their services first. I felt like I was back in high school watching my peers give amazing class presentations and soon it’d be my church’s turn to present theirs.

It was amazing. Our church didn’t do anything special. In fact, we purposely removed the bells and whistles of our online service. But it was encouraging seeing familiar names tuning into the online service, seeing insta-stories of church members singing in their living rooms, and interacting in a live Q&A session afterwards.

It was in this moment that I realized that, during this anxious and lonely time that lies ahead, how thankful I am to be connected to a local church.

Strange But Familiar Times

Like most churches, our congregation will no longer be connected to one another in a normal sense. As mentioned above, we won’t be physically gathering on Sundays for the foreseeable future. Our community groups are all meeting online. We can’t even meet individually to share a simple meal. In other words, everything feels different now in how we function as a church.

But while this is unprecedented for people in my local church, it’s nice to know this is not unprecedented for the people of God. When you look at the early church, you realize this is how they had to function all the time. For example, in the book of Acts, the early church used to meet regularly every single day (Acts 2:46). So imagine the shift they had to make when that regular rhythm got interrupted after a great persecution arose and “they were all scattered” (Acts 8:1).

Many of the New Testament letters are usually written to gathered local churches. But when you pay close attention, you’ll realize some of them are written to scattered local churches. For example, James writes his letter to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (Jas 1:1) while Peter writes his to “those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion” (1 Pt 1:1). Why so? Because Christians were persecuted and scattered during this time.

When I look at this, I can’t help but agree with author Mike Cosper’s observation that there seems to always two ways the church functions: gathered and scattered. While the coronavirus makes the reason for our scattering unique, scattering is quite normal for a church. And right now, Christians are the church scattered. We can no longer set aside one Sunday and “do church.” Instead, we are in a situation where we must “be the church.”

This is a unique challenge for modern Christians, but it is not unprecedented in church history. Christians did not abandon their faith when scattered - they simply adapted the way they lived out their faith. Therefore, even as we stay home for the next few months, we are still called to love, grow, and fellowship. And this is why I am so thankful to be connected to a local church.

Why I’m Thankful for My Church

The reason why I’m so thankful to be connected to my local church isn’t because there’s anything particularly unique or special about my church. We’re a young, mid-sized, church with a moderate budget and small staff. So why am I so thankful for them in a time like this?

1. I’m thankful I can collectively worship with my local church. When our church staff was planning for our online Sunday service, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why would people tune into ours? There are other churches with greater productions and better preachers who will be live-streaming their services. Why not simply recommend our church to tune into one of those?
   
   But we realized while other churches could provide preaching, we are the only ones who could provide what our church probably needs most: shepherding. When we do our service, we are doing it for specific faces in a specific context. That’s why we purposely stripped down our online service because that was our emphasis.
   
   It turned out to be a great moment for our church. Though we were not physically present together, it truly felt like we were together in spirit (1 Cor 5:3). While joining a random church’s online service is better than nothing, there’s something special about joining one when you know the people who are joining with you.

2. I’m thankful I can regularly connect with my local church. I’m a natural introvert, so quarantining myself doesn’t sound too bad. However, I still long for meaningful human interactions. But outside of my household, where will I find this? I’m sure I’ll text friends every once in a while, but the age of hour-long casual phone conversations died after social media.
   
   While I wonder how I’m going to be able to regularly connect with friends, I am thankful knowing that I will be regularly v-chatting with my church’s community group. Every Wednesday, I’m scheduled to meet with them just as we’ve always done - except it will be online. This will be different, but I’m so thankful for it.
   
   In a time where social isolation will be the new norm, it’s encouraging to know I won’t always be alone. There is a constant arena of meeting together that I perhaps used to take for granted. But this is only possible because I am connected to a local church who have already committed to meet in this way.

3. I’m thankful I can be on mission with my local church. I can imagine these next few months feeling like one, long boring vacation. What are we going to do with our time? How much Netflix can we binge? What hobbies can we pick up? The coronavirus functions almost like a pause or interruption to real life.
   
   But I’m thankful to have a community that will remind me this moment is not an interruption but an opportunity. As Proverbs 16:9 writes, “A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Just because our plans have been interrupted doesn’t mean God’s plans have been interrupted too. In fact, this is the real plan all along. As church history has shown us, God seems to always use the church in a time like this.
   
   Being alone will make it difficult to remember this. But with my local church, I can remember we’re not in isolation together. We are on mission together. Just as God uses the gathered church, God uses the scattered church. In fact, out of the 40 miracles recorded in the book of Acts, 39 of them happened outside the church walls. I’m curious what kind of modern miracles will happen through our scattered church and can’t wait to hear about them.

Conclusion: Personal Burdens

However, as thankful as I am to be part of a local church during a time like this, it makes me feel just as burdened by those who are not part of one.

I feel burdened for people who don’t have much family or friends. While many of us at least have a spouse or kids or parents to share life with, what about those living out of state? Singles? Widows? Empty-nesters? This is where I realize Jesus’ promise of receiving a hundredfold of mothers and brothers (Mt 19:29) is first experienced in the local church. I hope anyone in such a situation will see their church that way.

I feel burdened for former church members who recently left our church. Like most churches, we’ve had people leave our community looking for one “they can better connect with.” But I know most of them will now be tuning into a random church’s online service. While this is better than nothing, I can imagine it’ll be difficult to sustain. It’s tough to virtually connect with people and pastors you don’t know. And this is where the power of being part of the same local church pays dividends and I genuinely hope those who left not only our church but other churches can realize community is truly not discovered but built.

Lastly, I feel burdened for Christians who have never been part of a local church. There are Christians out there who have attended church their whole lives but haven’t been connected to one for a long time. I can imagine this season being especially challenging to their faith. But perhaps God is using a moment like this to wake us up from our nominalism and see the need to plug into a local church.

I hope in my church, we can open not only our online Sunday services to people but we can also open our online community groups and personal lives to those looking for a community and a message of hope. In other words, I hope God uses a moment like this to wake us up from our Christian huddles and to truly be on mission again.