Why We Should Give Up Meeting Together Face to Face for Now
And they said to him, "The
disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the
Pharisees, but yours eat and drink." And Jesus said to them, "Can you make
wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is
taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." He also told them a parable: "No one
tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he
will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no
one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the
skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine
must be put into fresh wineskins. And no
one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'" (Lk. 5:33-39 ESV)
Are we being disobedient to God’s
Word by giving up face to face meeting for church during the COVID-19 global
pandemic? The Bible does say to “not
neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” (Heb. 10:25 ESV) Many churches
like our own have moved to ministry via streaming video or video teleconference
call (VTC) in order to practice social distancing. However, I am anticipating that this does not
feel good for pastors. I could be wrong,
but I think this has a lot of pastors nervous regarding how the local institution
will fair. Pastors work hard to serve God,
but that service is in the context of an institution which has a local footprint. How do we know if a church is prospering? David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, used to say it
was the metrics of buildings, budget and attendance. I am not sure have the order nor the wording
correct but these are measurable features of the church. If any of those metrics are in the decline,
then one could attempt to fix the problem.
What if those metrics go away? How
valuable is a building that cannot gather people together? What happens to the budget when there is no
easy way to give? What is that attendance
number when it is all online? My guess
is that we all feel like we like the old way better. We say, “The old is good.”
I read the book The Problemwith Wine Skins: Church Structure in a Technological Age in the early
80s. I am grateful that a mentor and
friend recommended it. I am captivated
by the prospect of innovation in general, and this book put that in the context
of Christian service. Later, I got to
see how many of the ideas actually work out.
The book advocated that innovation in terms of real estate. Why not rent a location rather than invest
heavily in a building and land that is used once a week? Why not make cell groups a main part of the
ministry of the church? Why not
decentralize the ministry so that more people are able to participate in the
life of ministry? I have been a part of implementing
these ideas in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s.
Jesus parable of the wine skins has been somewhat difficult for me since the main voice in my head was the interpretation coming from Snyder:
As I read the passage again, I will have to disagree with Snyder that the old wine is Judaism and the new wine is the gospel of Christ. It is not a matter of institutional structure and message. Rather the parables which Jesus is using is the appropriateness of the practice to the situation. All three parables of wedding guests, patching clothing and storing wine are all about appropriateness of a practice to a situation. In our current situation, rather than doubling down on Hebrews 10:25, the general equity[ii] taken from Leviticus 13[iii] of social distancing is a better passage to think about. The passage calls for people with a skin disease to go outside the community, an ancient form of social distancing. COVID-19 is not a skin disease and there are indeed many differences. Also, we must not disdain those who have COVID-19, but we do need to keep slow the spread of the infection so that our health system of systems does not get overwhelmed. While I long for the day when we hold precious a face to face gatherings, right now the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic calls for social distancing.
Besides streaming church and VTC, how have you innovated to handle the current ministry context?
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Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) Chapter 19
3. Beside this law,
commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a
church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances,
partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and
benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All
which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
Innovate Ideas from The Problem with Wine Skins
|
||
Innovative Idea
|
Strength
|
Unexpected Weaknesses
|
Rent public space rather than invest in real estate
|
1.
Invest finances into ministry rather than in
static land
2.
Flexible use of space allows for rapid growth
|
1.
Relational friction between owner and tenant; public
space may not welcome the cost for them
2.
Set up and tear down of temporary space consumes
volunteer time
|
Use cell groups for main part of ministry
|
1.
Build relationship within the congregation
2.
Cells can focus on different needs and demographics
|
1.
Cells often devolve into merely social hour
2.
While we may give lip service to training cell
leaders, it is often neglected
|
Decentralized ministry which appreciates the priesthood of all believers
|
1.
Value of a variety of gifts and callings
2.
Ownership of ministry
|
1.
Dissipation of effort
2.
Lack of openness to guidance from church
leadership
|
Back to that question, is it good
to give up the assembly especially when we actually do have a direct command? Are
these innovations that we are trying on for size going to cause crazy unexpected
problem from which we may not recover? Well,
it is a possibility. There are affects
we might easily anticipate. However,
there will likely be results that are not easy to anticipate. We just do not know what they are. Since
there is risk to our institutions, this may make us fear. For others, it could make us feel excitement of
anticipation. I know I have felt both in
regard to how to serve in an innovative fashion during the COVID-19 global
pandemic. Likely other pastors have
other feelings than I do, both negative and positive. The negative
feelings may make us say, “The old is good.”
Jesus parable of the wine skins has been somewhat difficult for me since the main voice in my head was the interpretation coming from Snyder:
The last statement is the key:
“new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.” The old Judaism could not contain
the new wine of the gospel of Christ. The Christian faith would have to grow
and burst the old wineskins of Judaism. And that is what happened. The church
began to spread into the whole world, shedding the old Jewish forms.[i]
As I read the passage again, I will have to disagree with Snyder that the old wine is Judaism and the new wine is the gospel of Christ. It is not a matter of institutional structure and message. Rather the parables which Jesus is using is the appropriateness of the practice to the situation. All three parables of wedding guests, patching clothing and storing wine are all about appropriateness of a practice to a situation. In our current situation, rather than doubling down on Hebrews 10:25, the general equity[ii] taken from Leviticus 13[iii] of social distancing is a better passage to think about. The passage calls for people with a skin disease to go outside the community, an ancient form of social distancing. COVID-19 is not a skin disease and there are indeed many differences. Also, we must not disdain those who have COVID-19, but we do need to keep slow the spread of the infection so that our health system of systems does not get overwhelmed. While I long for the day when we hold precious a face to face gatherings, right now the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic calls for social distancing.
Besides streaming church and VTC, how have you innovated to handle the current ministry context?
4. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
[iii] And
if the priest examines the itching disease and it appears no deeper than the
skin and there is no black hair in it, then the priest shall shut up the person
with the itching disease for seven days,
and on the seventh day the priest shall examine the disease. If the itch
has not spread, and there is in it no yellow hair, and the itch appears to be
no deeper than the skin, then he shall shave himself, but the itch he shall not
shave; and the priest shall shut up the person with the itching disease for
another seven days. (Lev. 13:31-33 ESV)
Comments
I enjoyed this post and found it thought provoking. The comments I make are not intended as a critique, but rather to offer a slightly more expansive view of the context.
I am reluctant to agree that pastors are nervous about using streaming video or VTC to conduct services because of their concern regarding their institutional footprint. At least two notable pastors have refused to suspend worship services (see https://reason.com/2020/03/20/these-churches-refuse-to-close-over-covid-19-does-the-constitution-protect-their-right-to-remain-open/) because of 1st Amendment issues, or that the COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions are politically motivated. I think they are wrongheaded in their thinking based upon the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 23 (to which I doubt they subscribe). More to the point the Puritan divine, Richard Baxter, writing in the 17th century in The Christian Directory, Vol. 5, poses and answers this question:
Question 109. May we omit church-assemblies on the Lord's Day, if the magistrate forbid them?
Answer 1. It is one thing to forbid them for a time, upon some special cause, (as infection by pestilence, fire, war, & etc.) and another to forbid them statedly.
2. It is one thing to omit them for a time, and another to do it ordinarily.
3. It is one thing to omit them in formal obedience to the law; and another thing to omit them in prudence, or for necessity, because we cannot not keep them.
4. The assembly and the circumstances of the assembly must be distinguished.
(1). if the magistrate for a greater good, (as common safety), forbid church-assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey him.
I regret the physical assembling on the Lord's Day because, while it is not a direct command, it is the pattern of Scripture from the Tabernacle all the way through to the New Testament. My concern is not for the institution itself for the gates of hell will never prevail against the church, but for the spiritual welfare of the members. I gain more insight into their spiritual and physical condition in meeting them than I do online. However, we have to make do within our present circumstance.
Pastors, ruling elders, and deacons may be nervous about using technology simply because they do not know if their ministrations are effective and beneficial to the people in a real time basis. We have the same problem Paul had during his ministry. He would write letters (the then-technology), and have to wait for a report or a response. Spurgeon, lacking a microphone, could preach to thousands at a time, but the printed versions of his sermons had a far more reaching effect. An untold number of people were converted under the televised evangelism of Billy Graham. Many Christians were horrified when Robert Schuller began services in a drive-in movie theater then, ironically, grew the institutional footprint of Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, CA. Bucking the technological trend, the church in many countries operate secretly in homes and other locations to continue worship in the face of government and social persecution.
I think the question revolves more around stewardship of time, resources, and people. Should a church buy or rent is a stewardship question. How can we use technology to more effectively minister to our people is a stewardship question. The use of technology can become part of the institutional footprint and must be carefully considered. While there are many benefits to it, the Apostle Paul longed to go to Rome to receive a spiritual blessing from the church and to bestow a spiritual blessing upon them. He longed to visit them, and not simply depend upon the technology of the day.
As for us, we have used live streaming for our worship service and midweek hymn sing. We have also used VTC to check up on some of the members of the congregation, contacting others by phone.
I will be glad when they say to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Psalm 122.
In the bonds of Christ's love,
Tom