The church and covid-19

These are strange times that we are living in. Covid-19 has meant all of us having to adjust to new ways of living. Many of us are fearful for loved ones and ourselves. Many of us are anxious about being able to get our every day needs, medicines, food, toilet rolls. Toilet rolls! Who could have predicted the scarcity of toilet rolls. Things we have taken for granted have had to change. No more cups of tea with our friends. No more greeting each other with a friendly hug or a kiss on the cheek. No more driving down to the coast to paddle in the sea. No more holidays abroad for the foreseeable future. For some, no more work. Life has become clinical and regimented. Washing of hands, disinfecting surfaces, the use of hand sanitizer. Keeping two meters apart from those we meet. Self-isolating, shielding ourselves from harm, living in quarantine and morning what has been.

But what about the positives? Time to stop and evaluate our lives. Time to do those things we have been putting off. Time to learn an instrument. Time to read. Time to write that book. Time to potter in the garden. Time to spend more time with the kids and homeschool them. Homeschooling! Who would have thought that would be such a thing for so many of us. Time to just be.

We are use to racing around and filling our time. Many of us are still doing that. Filling our time with social-media and Zoom or Skype conference calls. What do we feel the need to be so busy? 

Church gathering have had to stop, no Sunday service, no weddings, no mid-week meetings. Funeral services are ever evolving and can no longer be attended by everyone. Some by no-one, some by only five, or more with mourners spaced out. The death tolls continue to rise. We await the change in tide.

Life ebbs and flows and the tide will change again. What will be left on the shore after all of this? What will be washed out to sea? What and where is God in all of this?

God is here with us. He hasn’t and won’t leave us. Has he gone quiet? No, he’s making us think. What’s important to us? Or rather, who is important to us? And what is church?

On Sunday 22nd March 2020 I woke up with the word ‘pivot’. A pivotal day in church history. A day that we had been asked by the UK government not to gather as church. This is the day the church realises it is much more than a building. A day that the church stopped and prayed asking for Covid-19 to be eradicated. It was a pivotal day for the UK church. She has had to wake up.

God is calling for our attention he is speaking. If we stop we will hear his voice.