Title: WHAT IS MISSING FROM THE CH CH? UR
For today’s spiritual nourishment, let’s consider the following statistics and add pro-active thoughts as we meditate on how we can play or part as a church and for the church- the kingdom of God.
With millions of people having stayed home from places of worship during the coronavirus pandemic, struggling congregations have one key question: How many of them will return?
As the pandemic recedes in the United States and in-person services resume, worries of a deepening slide in attendance are universal.
Some houses of worship won’t make it.
Smaller organizations with older congregations that struggled to adapt during the pandemic are in the greatest danger of a downward spiral from which they can’t recover, said the Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School and co-pastor of a church in Boston.
On the Maine coast of USA, the pandemic proved to be the last straw for the 164-year-old Waldoboro United Methodist Church.
Even before COVID-19 swept the world, weekly attendance had dipped to 25 or 30 at the white-clapboard New England church that could hold several hundred worshippers. The number further dwindled to five or six before the final service was held Sunday, said the Rev. Gregory Foster.
The remaining congregants realized they couldn’t continue to maintain the structure, and decided to fold the tent, Foster said.
“We can’t entirely blame everything on COVID. But that was just the final blow. Some people have not been back at all,” he said.
In Virginia, the Mount Clifton United Methodist Church experienced a similar fate. The church can seat more than 100 but the number of weekly worshippers dwindled to 10 to 15, even before the pandemic.
The small white church built on a hill in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1880s may be rented to another congregation, or it may be put up for sale.
The pandemic has brought a huge economic strain to most people. This has also affected the church as members are not keen to give their tithes, offering or missions pledges. At such, the full-time ministers are not paid enough, premise rental or mortgage are not serviced and other ministries are disrupted.
“It’s a complicated picture overall, but the pandemic was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said the Rev. Darlene Wilkins, who oversaw Mount Clifton. “It just became next to impossible to sustain.”
From the standpoint of the congregants, many are not keen to return to church due to the following reasons:
1) Fear of the pandemic with reasons to protect themselves and their families.
2) Feeling comfortable to log in to “online church service” via Zoom/Google Meet (without switching on the cameras?) or to just listen to whatever worship songs, sermons sent by the church or any that’s available in the social media at any time or none at all.
3) Forgoing of Christian ministries or service removes the “pressure” of having to make commitment or the sacrifices to serve God or the need for accountability and “task-performance”.
4) Finding faults in the weaknesses of the imperfect church in terms of the leadership, organisation structure and even fellow brethren, thereby giving themselves excuses not to attend church.
5) Failure to understand the true biblical concept of “church” and the important role she plays in the extension of God’s kingdom, maturity of the Body of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ.
The list can go on but the key question is who will be found in this remnant of true believers as the church and the world as a whole, are going through these difficult times as a result of the pandemic. The “horror” would be how many will remain faithful when more adverse circumstances mounts when the Anti-Christ begins to persecute and deceive the church during the “last days”. Will you be found faithful?
In closing, let us meditate upon the exhortations in Hebrews 10:19-25: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Stay safe, blessed and be faithful!