Coronavirus feels like when the school bully ran around the corner of the building and stuck a broomstick in the spokes of your bicycle tire. In one cruel stroke, all forward momentum was abruptly and violently stopped.
The church has felt this stoppage keenly. I’m certain God is doing many things right now (he’s the ultimate multi-tasker!). I can’t help but think that one of those things is a weird Year of Jubilee-ish season in the church. In the Old Testament, the Year of Jubilee happened every 50 years and acted as a divine reset on the whole nation of Israel: people returned to their ancestral lands, sowing and reaping ceased (i.e., major economic activity), slaves were released from service, and properties were redeemed (see Leviticus 25). If Saturday’s Sabbath provided a brief weekly rest and refocus rhythm for God’s people, Jubilee provided a sort of generational Sabbath, a “Sabbath: Extended Edition.” This was not just one day, but a whole prolonged season of stopping, resting, resetting, considering. No, the church isn’t the nation of Israel, but maybe we’re getting our own Coronavirus Jubilee. We just didn’t plan for it.
Church, if this is so, what might the Lord be asking us to stop, consider, and reset? Maybe there is divine mercy in this hardship we face. Maybe we should not seek to get through this as quickly as possible so things can go back to normal. Maybe some of what would be considered “church as normal” needs to be forsaken…for good.
We can look at this from many angles, but in this article I’ve chosen to focus on some norms that we as leaders of American churches might do well to repent of and release in our Coronavirus Jubilee:
1. Placing more attention and spending more resources on producing quality services rather than connecting people to a vibrant relationship with the Living Christ.
2. Not teaching a robust theology of suffering, loss, and lament.
3. Communicating that biblical living looks like winning, living your best life now, or claiming your blessing.
4. Acting threatened by other churches: being quick to talk about their troubles, being slow to celebrate their successes, being suspicious of them in general.
5. Stinking of theological arrogance on non-primary doctrine that keeps us from fellowship and collaboration with other churches for expansion of God’s kingdom.
6. Giving more attention to inward organizational stability than on an urgency to equip, resource, and deploy our folks as sent ones in their communities.
7. Not stewarding the clarity of the gospel, but allowing it to get syncretized with Republican or Democrat ideologies (whichever way the leader and/or congregation leans).
9. Using church attendance as our primary indicator of people’s discipleship.
10. Not creating a culture of relational discipleship.
11. Wrongly hoarding leadership when others could be mentored into new roles and exercise their gifts.
If you know me, you know that I absolutely love the church. So please do not take this post as ammo for church-bashing; it isn’t, and please don’t. This is a call for humble evaluation and a plea to hear the answer to what may be the most important question of our time: What is the Spirit saying to the churches (Revelation 2:29)?
Grace & peace.
The Sent Life 