WHAT THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 HAS TAUGHT THE CHURCH
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f you are of the opinion that the Covid-19 pandemic was merely an international health disaster, in need of scientific and medical solutions, or if you are of the opinion that the pandemic was simply a poorly globally managed health accident, with no bearing on the prophetic trajectory, and that, once remedied, the world would go back to normal, then you should keep reading. Covid-19 has brought about significant disruption to every sphere of life: personal, social, educational, commercial, travel, work, entertainment, recreational, and religious. Almost no aspect of Church life has been left untouched. What we can say is that many in the church have readily embraced certain changes imposed upon us, because we have had no other option. Are we willing to do some serious reflection on the lessons that emerge from the social and economic chaos and carnage? Here are six compact lessons, fully recognising that there are many more, for which space will not allow. Firstly, we don’t always have to wait for a crisis to embrace change; we can do so because the mission demands and requires it. We can prayerfully ask the Lord to reveal to us through His Word which areas of our active discipleship experience need to be exposed to a fresh injection of the Holy Spirit’s leading. It starts with developing an openness to go where God goes, even if it is unfamiliar or if we’ve never been there before. Our doctrinal pillars rest on eternal unchanging truths; but our methods and forms adapt to the context and mission. Ellen White says: “New methods must be introduced. God’s people must awake to the necessities of the time in which they are living. God has men
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whom He will call into His service,—men who will not carry forward the work in the lifeless way in which it has been carried forward in the past” (Evangelism 70.1). Secondly, though we have a nostalgia for pre-Covid times, going back to the old normal is settling for second best. God desires us to move in fresh meadows, to break new boundaries, and accomplish things we haven’t yet done. Thirdly, could we be on the brink of an ecclesiastical revolution in which mission becomes the obsession of every member and the local congregation finds fresh ways of engaging every member? According to Jerry Pillay, writing for the theological and academic environment and commenting about the Christian Church as a whole (quoting): “Mark Dyer (see Tickle, 2008) observes that ‘About every 500 years the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be at the
