What is your church doing better through this COVID-19 shutdown than it was prior? How could your church better demonstrate the visible presence of Christ to your community during this time? What will your church (the people, including you) do to show the love of Christ in your community as we come out of this shutdown? Will the community remember your church for anything significant when they look back on the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020?
These are all vital questions for every church and every believer in Christ to ask right now. When restrictions are lifted and we begin re-opening churches and communities will be too late. It is the difference in being proactive and reactive. Of which will you be a part? Which will you lead your church to be? Even if you are not the pastor or leader of your church, you can still lead by your actions.
To answer the first question; “What is your church doing better through this COVID-19 shutdown than it was prior?”, many churches have a better internet presence. Yet there is always room for improvement. As you consider how to move forward and re-opening your church and ministries be ever aware and searching for how to improve and increase your internet presence.
Also, I know churches that have made a more positive impact on their communities than any church in the last five decades. Members and leaders of the community will remember these churches, giving the churches a voice to be heard and open doors for Great Commission efforts.
The second question: “How could your church better demonstrate the visible presence of Christ to your community during this time?” What is your church not doing that it has resources to to help meet the immediate needs in your community? If you’re only having an internet presence and not being the hands and feet of Jesus during this pandemic, your church will be left behind, dropped by the wayside, by your community. God has handed to us on a silver platter, through this pandemic, perhaps the greatest opportunity to be his hands and feet that we’ve seen in decades.
The third question: “What will your church (the people, including you) do to show the love of Christ in your community as we come out of this shutdown?” I fear many churches (all the members) will jump right back into their self-seeking rut of desire and comfort. Though this rut of self-desire and self-pleasure is not found in God’s desire or command for His people, it has become the Christianity of North America. Oh church, let us no longer serve the westernization of Christianity. Rather, let us be the New Testament church God has called us to be as we read in the book of Acts.
Perhaps the most pertinent question of all four is, “Will the community remember your church for anything significant when they look back on the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020?” There will be few communities where we will hear, “The people of that church put their own lives at risk to help others by ___________.” People in those communities will be drawn to Christ throughout and after this pandemic shutdown.
My prayer is that you desire to be a proactive, Great Commission Christian and desire for your church to be as well, reaching your community for Christ as we are commissioned to be. Be Christ’s light in the darkness of today.
George Yates is the Church Health Strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, assisting churches and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Learn more at ALSBOM.org/revitalization.
