I was in conversation with someone recently about the topic we all chat about, the pandemic. My friend said something that caught my attention. “I think the Church will survive this.” I was a bit taken aback because the Word of God tells us that very “gates of hell will not prevail” against the Church. The end, for us, is not in question but the means certainly are. Rather than bemoan the changes that have been forced on the church, and impatiently waiting for things to get back to normal, we would do well to ask, “What are the lessons we can learn?”, and “How can we apply new learning to our future?”
There are certainly things we miss, during these times. We are not able to physically gather and so miss many of the best experiences of corporate worship. I too look forward to the time we are together to practise our faith corporately in these familiar and biblical ways, but I do want to suggest that we can learn and grow thrivingly during these times!
The western church often seems rife with consumerism. People hop from church to church looking for the brand that will best ‘feed their souls’. Often I have heard people exit a church with the phrase “I was not being fed.” This tells much about our mindset and the mindset of many ‘attraction modeled’ churches.
As a lay person, I want to say that a pastor who is the sole source of spiritual nutrition does that church a disservice and individuals who rely only on pastoral teaching are bound to be anemic. Amy Grant used to sing about “Fat Baby” Christians. These Christians drank only the milk fed to them and never fed themselves.
Psalm 1 describes a flourishing Christian as a tree planted by the water. The tree is placed in a location that makes growth possible and all but inevitable. The tree only has to sink its roots! Sometimes a horticulturist ‘forces’ the plant by drastically changing the environment. I believe we are in a time where God is forcing us to sink our roots.
Sinking roots is an individual exercise to which corporate worship is a complement. Jesus calls us and we respond personally, and this is how we grow. It is an individual sport!
During this time of Covid we have the supreme opportunity to sink our roots. When we do so we will be richer and better able to encourage one another when we can resume corporate meetings.
There are many ways of sinking our roots, but I want to suggest three.
Reading scripture meditatively.
Praying conversationally.
Obeying consistently.
These practises do not need a lot of explanation. Part of feeding yourself may be in figuring this out for yourself. I do want to emphasize obeying though! If we read God’s Word and converse with him but do not incarnate what we have come to know and experience, we remain ‘fat baby Christians’. When we intentionally sink our roots in this way we can count on God to do His work. If we work on the roots He will take care of the fruits.
Hope & Reedemption 