Ive been a Christian for 38 years now, and in all that time I have very rarely missed a Sunday in church. Until this year. And this year I have only been in a physical church building to participate in a service twice since March. The Vineyard church I attend decided not to open its doors at all during the ' releases' from lockdowns and wont be returning to in- person services until Dec 27th. So that is most of the year spent ' not in church'.
Over the summer our pastor was praying about what to do and he had a strong impression that he was suddenly in a hospital room where there was a person on life support. He knew the person was our church. Jesus said to him ' switch off the machine'. He knew the machine was church services. He said he suddenly felt acutely aware of how medical staff must feel when they have to make that decision in real life - the fear, and sense of responsibility and huge sadness at knowing that someone will die when a switch is flicked. Andy said to Jesus ' but if I switch it off we will die'. Jesus said ' If you don't switch it off you can't live' So, bravely, when every other church was thankfully re-opening their doors and doing the masked, hand sanitised, socially distanced, no singing services, he pulled the plug and we remained closed.
Of course there have been services throughout online.
Im sure Im not the only one to have had a few ups and downs with the whole online church thing this year. It took a while for everyone to work out how to do it and the first few services at the start of the year were a bit haphazard and ' skin of teeth' affairs. But there was something honest and nice about that. We were all so shell shocked at first lockdown that we were glad to have anything at all - and of course nobody thought that we'd all still be locked down in December! Then as weeks went on everything got a bit more polished. We worked out the technology. We got used to watching church whilst in bed or making the dinner or whatever. We skipped the announcements and the worship songs we didnt fancy ( come on, Im not the only one who did that! 😀) And we became spectators - even more so than we usually are.
But something else happened too. During the first lockdown I was the only one 'watching' church and I was acutely aware that if we didnt do something as a family my boys would quickly get out of the habit of doing anything spiritual together with other people. So when all of us were at home our family decided to pray together every day after tea. We hadnt done that for years, since the boys were little. Initially it felt a bit awkward - three reluctant teenage lads who really just wanted to get back to their gadgets. But after a few days it became a rather nice little interlude in all our days. My Dad was becoming increasingly ill and so we prayed together for him. We prayed for an end to Covid and for lonely relatives who were struggling. We prayed for our jobs and for those who were losing their jobs. I think God used those few minutes each day to do something with us as a family. Where, before Covid, we had all been imperceptibly drifting apart, we came together. And for me, those daily moments were much more significant than the times spent watching church online. We were being church as opposed to doing church. When the life support gets switched off, thats when we see if we are going to breathe for ourselves or die.
Now, as we approach the end of this mad year, the end of Covid ( hooray for the vaccines!) and the start of 2021 I think I feel differently about church than I did at the start of the year. At the start of the year I took it for granted that church would be there, available, consistent, reliable. I was in the habit of regular attendance but now that habit has been broken. I always thought that going to church on a Sunday was a great habit to have formed. But now Im not so sure. Im not quite sure if, and how, and when I might re-start it. Do I want to go back to turning up on a Sunday to sit in the same seat and do the same things week after week? One of the things Ive realised afresh over these months is that most of my meaningful Christian relationships are with people who are not in my physical church. Many arent even in my physical country!! My fellowship in 2020 has been with friends from a wide variety of denominations and places and experiences - mostly online. Two or three 'real life' friends have kept me sane with conversation and prayer when online relationships just cant quite scratch where its itching. Oddly I havent missed ' in person' worship at all. But I have really enjoyed being able to dip in and out of various different church services and listen to different teaching as the months have gone along.
Am I alone in feeling that something has shifted about church this year? Am I alone in wavering between thoughts that its the devil trying to distance me, keep me out of fellowship, cause me to drift from the body - and thoughts that this is God shaking us, re-setting our priorities, challenging us to question what we do and why? I have no conclusions about any of this - Im really just thinking aloud here. As we come to the end of another year, what is God saying to you about church??
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