In my FG&T message from one year ago this week, I shared my anxieties around the Covid-19 numbers being reported in the US at the time:
– 250,000+ cases
– 10,000+ deaths
– 281,000 unemployment claims
Little did I know how infinitesimal these figures would seem a year later. You’re probably familiar with the grim statistics now being reported in the US: over 30 Million cases, over 540,000 deaths, and 70 Million Americans who sought unemployment benefits between March and December of 2020. Truth be told, we’ll be recovering from the effects of Covid-19 for years to come.
The as-yet untold story of 2020 is the pandemic’s collateral damage. Researchers are just beginning to report their findings in regard to the shutdown’s effects on the elderly, schoolchildren, and those struggling with mental illnesses, for example.
Meanwhile, I know many people who have quietly welcomed the change of pace brought on by the shutdown, and I confess that, at times, I have been among them. We were all too busy before, or so this line of thinking goes, it’s good for us to scale back from the neverending stream of social obligations like youth sports, charity events, and church activities.
As far as I’m concerned, a world with fewer meetings is one step closer to God’s Kingdom come, but Christians should be very careful not to throw church attendance into the same disposable category as your kid’s lacrosse game. John Wesley once said, “There is no such thing as a solitary Christian,” because Christianity is, and has always been, a gathering movement. Jesus put it this way,
“Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” – Matthew 18:20
Because gathering has always been such a critical part of the Christian faith, our Enemy has always done everything in his power to keep believers from coming together. Covid-19 is the last in a long line of other opportunities seized by Satan to scatter the faithful.
On his blog, Dr. Jason S. Clark, a pastor in London, wrote about this phenomenon in a searing reminder for Christians in isolation:
“Human beings have been hiding away, withdrawing from God and one another since the garden of Eden. And, like Adam and Eve, we Christians are very good at making excuses for withdrawing, believing the lies we tell ourselves that underpin such backing away. The internal stories are often these: ‘I need a break, I need to focus on my kids/family, I want time to myself, I have to get this marathon/triathlon/course done’, etc. We then succumb to, and placate, any doubts we might have about our stories with more fabrications. ‘I can get back to church later’, ‘it won’t affect me’, and, even worse, ‘this is what’s best for me’…Satan is indeed the father of lies, prowling around looking to devour us. His greatest ploy and tactic has not been a full-frontal assault on belief; instead it has been the insidious entropy of attendance. A lion secures its prey by first isolating it, so it is then free to devour it.”
Even first-generation Christians, some of whom followed Jesus in the flesh, struggled to prioritize gathering as Christ commanded, as evidenced by this admonition in the New Testament book called Hebrews:
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:25
When believers gather, God shows up in a mighty way. Since we reopened for in-person worship last October, around forty percent of you have felt ready to return, which means that, for most people in our community, it’s been over a year since you last gathered with your brothers and sisters at The Story. It remains to be seen what kind of spiritual toll the past year has taken on us, but I suspect it has been every bit as ruinous as the economic and emotional devastation has been.
