Words from WW Blog

Let’s be honest! We don’t want it to seem like we’re lacking faith, and yet we’re disturbed by those who seem dead set on gathering in mass in church buildings for a Sunday morning worship service!

We believe in the Jesus who is always with us, and we are anchored to the Jesus who rose from the dead. Part of that faith journey is believing that we can worship together, despite practicing social distance.

Should we begrudge those who seem committed to massing together in a sanctuary, as if they are the Hebrew people of Moses’s day, putting the blood of a lamb on their doorframes and having COVID-19 blow past them as it hunts for its next place to land? Is it unspiritual of us to believe they have taken that step of faith off a cliff?

There are enough issues for people of faith to disagree about, and here’s one more point of contention to add to the heap.

So what are the confusing elements that are the bones of contention?

First of all, there’s the proclamation of some that they are being a witness to their communities and cities by continuing to come together and worship in the freedom of Christ, not being prisoners of their homes. The reality, however, is that the only people impressed by their witness are those who are gathered in their sanctuaries. The opinion of others ranges from “those crazy religious fanatics” to “It figures they would do something as dumb as that!”

Photo by Jonas Ferlin on Pexels.com

Having a witness includes the elements of integrity and humility.  That leads into the second bone of contention: the attitude of many of those who are gathering together. When I say “gather together’, I’m not referring to those who have decided to do drive-in church services this Sunday. I applaud their creativity, their seeking that middle ground of gathering together, but wanting to be safe and be seen as being safe.

Unfortunately, those who are gathering in mass in church buildings are coming off as either spiritually arrogant or deliberately thumbing their noses toward the governing bodies (local, state, and national). They are taking church and state separation to the extreme. The opinion about the multitudes watching them from a distance is that they couldn’t care less about the communities they live in; that they are more enamored by how many people are still flocking to their buildings on Sunday mornings, than with the risen Christ who can speak to people in the quiet of the living room.

Those of us who are worshiping by watching a worship service being streamed onto our laptops are wondering if we’re simply spiritual vagrants or have we found a good balance between faith and that other thing God gave us…common sense?

This entry was posted on April 7, 2020 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.