Physical Worship During COVID Heightened Alert

Physical Worship During COVID Heightened Alert

Pastor Vincent - 29 May 2021

Weekend Devotion: Physical Worship During COVID Heightened Alert

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We may know the word of God literally, but when it comes to critical situation, especially situations that cause tension, we may not be able to arrive at the clear stance. And one of it is what the church is currently experiencing. i.e. With the Covid heightened alert recently, should we still attend physically worship, or should we move everything online since this is the generally preferred choice, or the seemingly uphold view by many nowadays?
Now, just the other day, someone throw the question: “Pastor, my family members who are Christians from another church says that it is irresponsible to gather physically in the church now.” Because their pastors also advocate meeting online now during this period. And they question why are we still having physical corporate worship at this time? So it seems to me that to meet or not to meet has caused a strife within a family of Christians nowadays.
 
Now, let’s get ourselves thinking.
Through all these years before the Covid, as far as I could remember, the Church has unanimously advocate and teach about the necessity of physical corporate worship. Traditionally, meeting physically is a high view held in Christian obligation. It was taught in the bible, it was pursued by godly Christians. No question asked. Even Christians living in Middle East, North Korea, China, risk the wrath of the authorities to meet. And Christians in liberal countries who are allowed to practice their faith freely applauded such faith.
Yet, now when we are struck with a pandemic situation, we are entertaining the view of stopping physical meeting, and not only that, stopping it in the name of love and responsibility.
 
Now, of course as a person living in a world of reality, we know about science. We heard about how people were infected by large scale gathering. We understand complicated issues where some of our family members are stopping us from going to church for whatever reasons. There could be also some who work in sensitive industries, like the hospitals or defense forces. They can’t afford to be infected. So for these people, they are exceptionally felt the personal responsibilities. And for them, living with family members who goes to church creates great tension in them. So many believers are facing that kind of pressure, not only with the pressure given by the negative news report, but also the pressure of their loved ones. Never before we face such great obstacle in just wanting to carry out a simple Christian obligation like going to church. So when your religious freedom is being jeopardized by the other person’s freedom in the setting of a pandemic, practicing your faith becomes a very complicated issue.
 
Now, I believe God has deliberately allow such complications to exist. He allows such tension to come upon believers living in a free and liberal country.
Why?
The very immediate reason that first came into my mind is because we could have taken our freedom for granted all this while. We are used to not having any tension in practicing our beliefs. We are proud of our ability to adapt, and we happily adopt ways to get around the tension. “Oh, let’s go for zoom! It’s the new way of corporate worship now”. I am not against that, we are also doing that when we’re being forbid by law from meeting physically.
 
But my question is have we adopt the widely acceptable way too easily and too fast?
Are we too fast in saying that this is the new way of corporate worship?
And when we do that, the church pays the price for that when not even half of the congregation are coming back to corporate worship when they’re allowed to meet. And many are not coming back not because they’re fearful of the pandemic, but because they have gotten used to a “new way” of worshipping God at home, and which is given the legitimacy by Christian leaders.
 
Now, what is God showing us?
He is showing us that it only takes a year or two to change your high view of Christian practice, something which we once hold dearly to. And I’ve to say that Covid_19 will change and have changed the landscape of Christian corporate worship. We cannot be oblivious to the changing mindset of believers in these one or two years of the pandemic. It only goes to show how easily moved we are.
 
But on the other hand, should we condemn people who are not meeting physically?
My short answer is no.
Neither should we criticize church leaders who move their physical meeting online during this heightened period.
 
Now, we must also understand that in critical situation, especially pandemic times as such, God has made certain practices disputable. It’s just like in <Romans 14>, when the Jews first came to the Lord, they are still struggling with consuming food that are not Kosher. And that is why they only eat vegetables, while the Gentiles believers freely consume any kind of food, including all kinds of meat. So conflicts arise among them because of food. So what was the instruction of Paul then?  Here in <Rn 14:6>, he said:
“He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and give thanks to God”.
Now, this is the instruction Paul has given the church, especially during this period where there are still very much cultural differences between the Jews and the Gentiles. Now, bear in mind that this is a critical period, not the usual times. So, I would say the Pastor who moves his worship online now does so to the Lord, and the Pastor who retains physical corporate worship does so to the Lord also. The pastor who moves meeting online does so to love and protect his sheep, and so does the pastor who retains physical corporate worship. There is nothing to criticize each other in this matter.
 
But let me say, this should be only for this critical period.
When the heightened period is over, it is important for the church to emphasize to her believers the importance of physical corporate worship. Even if there are restrictions to the numbers, my view that it is the responsibility of the church to increase the number of physical corporate services to meet the spiritual needs of its members. Let us not adopt another kind of Christian worship just because of a passing pandemic, but let us retain what is traditionally held on since the church existed.
 
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Pastor Vincent Choo
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Vincent serves as the President of The Blessed Run Church. He is also the Senior Pastor of The Life Church and Missions (Singapore) and is an ardent missionary to the Chinese World. He currently lives in Singapore with his wife, Qiufen, and has three kids, Mary, David, and Caleb.

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