[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], November 2020]
Now that a possible end is in sight for COVID, are we looking forward to returning to how things once were, or have things changed forever? How has the church changed? Should it change?
With the announcement this week of a vaccine for covid there’s been talk of when things will all go back to normal and we can’t wait, can we, until we are able to do various bits and pieces – you know, socializing, go to the cinema, stuff like that. But are we truly going to be going back to normal in terms of how things were before, or in reality are things going to be very different? When it comes to church, well surely we can just go back to how things were, can’t we?
[00:56] There’s this passage in Isaiah 55 verse 11 that says these words “My words that proceed from my mouth will not return to me empty but it will accomplish what I please and it will prosper where I send it”. This is God talking about the power of his spoken word. Creation happened, the universe was created when God spoke. When God speaks things change; when God speaks new things are created, and I think that God has spoken in an amazing way in these past nine or ten months that during this time of covid God has been creating something new. I don’t just mean a new season because seasons come and go, they’re on rotation. I mean a new way of being, a new way of doing things, a break from the past.
[02:10] Some of you may recall in my first midweek message, my first little talk on a dog walk, I talked about God doing a new thing. Do we perceive it? I don’t think that we can go back to how things were, particularly as a church, and I think to do so would be to ignore the new things that God has been doing in this time, the new era that God is ushering in for his people, for the body of Jesus Christ. So does that mean that some churches won’t ever go back to how things were? No, I don’t think that; I think there are some churches that will act as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed but I think that will be a massive failure on the church’s part if they have learned nothing from this and if they insist on going back to how things were. I think we need to have a recognition that this time has helped us to realize that our mission should not be building-focused. We have a sense of pride in our buildings – not saying that buildings are wrong but if we make that the focus and the centre point of our mission, of God’s mission, then we’ve got something seriously wrong.
[03:40] We need to realize that our gifts should not be Sunday-focused. Too many people have felt beret, felt unemployed, during this time because they’ve been removed from their normal Sunday rotas or rotas that are building-centric. We need to realize that our gifts, our spiritual gifts from God, are meant for mission. It’s meant for the world out there, it’s meant to empower the church to do the task that God has for it. Also, I think we need to recognize that our aim should not be to get people into a service and if the only thing that changes about the way we do church is the way we do our Sunday morning service then I think we are focusing too heavily on such a minor part of what it means to be church.
[04:48] One of the things that I have loved about this time has been the fact that the church has been on display, that we have had an opportunity to show our local community, and beyond, the things that we are doing. We’ve been able to show them our worship, we’ve been able to tell them our sermons, but also we’ve been able to show the ways in which we have been showing love and care and support to those who are most vulnerable in our society. We’ve been able to feed the poor through food bank or make lunch but actually people have started to see that God loves them and that we as churches are agents of God in this world, involved intimately in his mission.
[05:43] I think that’s the thing that needs to be significantly different in this new era. They say that technology has jumped ahead five years within a couple of weeks in this time. I think as a church we’ve been talking about mission and justice and all that sort of stuff for years. I think this has been the time when we’ve had the opportunity to have that fast forwarded; that this will be an era of justice, this will be an era of helping the poor, feeding the hungry, speaking out in truth and love, sharing Jesus with the world rather than just expecting them to come into our buildings where they can hear about Jesus. We’ve been able to show them Jesus, not only through the things we do corporately as a church, but also through those acts of love and kindness that many people have shown to their neighbours and those in need.
[06:49] This is what God has been doing, I think, in 2020 and we mustn’t let that go to waste. The question is – are you going to get on board, are you going to get on the surf board and ride the wave that God has created? It’s God’s doing, this isn’t us, this is God making the best possible outcome from a bad situation. It’s a wake-up call, not just for our nation, not just for the world, but for us as a church as well. Now really the question comes, are you just looking forward to getting back to how things were, or are you waking up to the fact that God has fundamentally changed the way that we should be functioning as the body of Christ?
[1] YouTube link: Is the church going back to normal?
Bible references: Isaiah 55 verse 11
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
