What the impact of Covid-19 has taught the church

If 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 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 time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur’”. Pillay (2020) further references the fall of the Roman Empire in the 6th century, followed by the Great Schism in 1054, which involved the splitting of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches into two distinct branches, and was followed by the better-known Reformation in 1517, when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to door of the church of Wittenberg. The Reformation that took place in 1517, had to do with the corrupt and apostate Church; and he suggests that the current Reformation taking place is a “reaction to the irrelevance of the church in relation to the Gospel and its mission” (Pillay 2020). Some dare to believe that this statement doesn’t apply to Adventists? Well, take note: most of our congregations’ time and focus tends to be internal (with periodic incursions into the community). We reach persons more easily with whom we already have an audience, in our networks for the most part. How many new people, of the vast statistically unreached majority, are we accessing, that don’t know the Adventists, or have never heard of the everlasting Gospel or of the three angels’ messages, and don’t even know that they don’t know? Fourth, there is also the dimension of apocalyptic prophecy, which is inextricably linked with the ecclesiastical reforms that God wants to bring about. The Adventist who diligently studies the books of Daniel and Revelation in particular, will recognise that the current world events are signs to prepare the Church for the coming of Jesus. This is not a call to paranoia or extremist knee-jerk reactions, or biblically unsubstantiated subtle time-setting attempts, but rather to personal spiritual preparation, the preparation of the inner life to be guided by the Holy Spirit into a more attentive study and obedience to the Word of God, leading to an exterior life of ministry, service, and the ecclesiastical task of witnessing, that will climax in the final loud Gospel proclamation found in Revelation 14. Fifth, apocalyptic prophecy helps us understand that religious liberties can effectively be removed by world governments for the greater good of the population, for reasons other than health. The issues surrounding the global Covid-19 pandemic portend the end-time prophetic scenario, with specific reference to the removal of religious liberty, the control of government over the Church affairs, a major issue in Revelation 13, in which the State joins forces with apostate Christianity to enforce worship of the beast in opposition to the true God. On the other hand, Romans 13 encourages obedience to the State in matters that do not impact on our allegiance to God. Sixth, the level of complacency within the church at large has been called into question by the nature of the events we all had to endure through the pandemic. According to an article in Adventist World (2020), it is suggested that Covid-19 is a sign for those who, in the Adventist Church, have grown complacent, or “a wake-up call for some of these doubting Thomases”. The statement below from E.G. White was not a prophecy about Covid-19, but a description of similar types of events that will manifest themselves as gracious divine foretokens, to the general deterioration of the physical and religious realm: God has not restrained the powers of darkness from carrying forward their deadly work of vitiating the air, one of the sources of life and nutrition, with a deadly miasma. Not only is vegetable life affected, but man suffers from pestilence (3SM 391.3). And the religious world, too, is to be terribly shaken, for the end of all things is at hand (7LtMs, Ms 24, 1891, par. 9). The aim is not to generate alarmism, but rather to cause for pause midst the rat-race of life to assess our spiritual posture, to be reminded about the transience of the world, the impending termination of the current world order at the Coming of Jesus, and to reorder our lives accordingly, and perhaps to specifically mention the need to review how we do church, as it has an impact on maintaining the status quo or following the lead of the Holy Spirit. The one great outgrowth of a general revival will be a focus on witnessing to others in the densely populated cities about the love of Christ for them and to inviting them to follow him. This is compatible with the three angels’ messages found in Revelation 14, which say that the everlasting Gospel will be preached to every nation, tribe, language and people. We don’t run from the world, and cluster together, or bunker down; instead, we infiltrate the world like the salt of the earth. The church is being jolted to the realisation that there are still hundreds of millions worldwide, and tens of thousands in Mauritius, who have not been exposed to the Gospel of Christ. It is noted that even some non-Adventists were more prepared than Adventists for the Covid-19. Secular people seem to recognise that there is a D-Day for human civilisation, a day of reckoning in preparation for an “apocalyptic doomsday disaster”, as several journalistic sources have reported stockpiling, and the building of fully equipped doomsday shelters, and the like. What has happened in the entire religious realm is that the Christian Church at large, including the Seventh-day Adventist church, is in a revolution, meaning that change was forced on the church suddenly and rapidly. It almost always happens when there is a crisis significant enough to bring about a shift in thinking, planning, structures, goals and priorities. The fact is that online services have either been embraced by some or tolerated by others, at least during the pandemic crisis, and more especially where government restrictions have been implemented for public gatherings. This is something that would probably would have enjoyed less widespread support and/or at worst even been criticized as a trendy unnecessary conduit for church services, had there not been a Covid-19 crisis. Who would have thought you had to book to attend church, or hear a pastor encourage you “not to attend church services in a church building”, but rather to watch on YouTube, FaceBook or the Zoom? The world seems to find itself at an inflection point. What exactly is this inflection point? Governments recognize that major decisions must be made related to our mutual responsibility in caring for natural ecosystems, population management, scientific preparedness for pandemics and other potential world disasters, etc. We are transitioning from a pre-Covid to post-Covid world order. But what does this mean? It goes without saying, that the socio-religio-polico-economic order and rhythms of civil and church life have been destabilized and disrupted. The Church finds itself at an inflection point if it chooses to recognize it. The questions that need to be asked are: why are we still here as a church, and what is our mission? How do we, as a church, constructively interpret the times and avoid extremes that lead to either alarmism, or peace and safety calls? Either of these extreme responses will leave us hopelessly ill-prepared for the final events that will cascade upon the world at the end like an avalanche. Practically, how can the Church better function in harmony with its intended purpose? The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that change is possible, and perhaps even desirable when we have become hypnotized by unbiblical (in some cases) traditions and customs, that work against missional effectiveness and also corrupt the Gospel message. But we are not merely talking about change for the sake of change, but rather change that sees the fresh winds of the Spirit’s power blowing across our churches, producing a reformation of personal sanctification, which will lead to revitalised (as opposed to canned) worship experiences and structures, leadership and administrative planning patterns that find new ways of conveying the Gospel to the masses and discipling them for the Kingdom. Either way, we must not fall into the trap of simply swopping seats amongst the faithful at the congregational table, but should rather add additional seats and actively go out to invite, by sharing with them the story of redemption, thus giving others the opportunity to join us around the Kingdom table.