Covid-19 and the shrinking Church.

Covid-19 is much dreaded. It has changed the way churches run their services as we know it.

One churchgoer said: “The world is on pause mode. Things we take for granted, like flying, or even where to have a family meal, have changed. We ponder over what God is saying during this time. This is a message resonating in church circles.” (Zach Wong, 64).

In a way, we can’t do church the way we have been doing church. As churches “try to maintain a balance between social responsibility and faithfulness” (aka Bishop Terry Kee), most, if not all, religious and secular gatherings are mandated to limit gatherings to no more than 250.

If you must know, that number is 100 more than what is the ideal number for social gathering, which, according to Robin Dunbar, a University of Oxford anthropologist and psychologist, is 150. 

Robin said that “any more and...relationships cannot be sufficiently nurtured.” He added, “Sure, one can have countless social media “friends” these days, but those do not equate to real connections.””

So, I guess as church services go online or on livestream with a limited gathering of families, cell group members or ministry participants, we can start to establish real connection with our neighbours just as Jesus did with his twelve disciples?

Because if you think about it, it is how deep you go in investing in a life that will ensure how enduring the transformation in that life will become when the storms hit.

If you recall the parable of the sower, the seeds that fell along the pathway or rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, became food for birds, or got scorched by the sun at midday.

Eventually without depth and root, they wither away. Or worst, they become so comfortable with the status quo, they forfeit the opportunity to grow above the status quo. As such, their sacrifices are no more than arriving in church on time and leaving it most time, unseen.

Seen in this light, pastor Norman Ng of 3:16 church with an attendance of less than 250, has a point when he said that the current  mandated number of 250 is like a “return to roots”.

“We believe this is to be a spiritually significant moment where the Church can return to its historical roots of gathering in smaller groups as the early Church did,” he said.

“By providing safe spaces where people can have more authentic interactions, we get more opportunities to encourage one another and to care for the vulnerable.”

At this juncture, the sentiments above remind me of what a pastor said a few years ago. Pastor Francis Chan left the church he founded,  namely, Cornerstone Church in California, which grew from 30 to 4000 within 15 years.

He shared that the burning question in his heart at that time was this, “Am I the problem?” That started a deep soul-searching journey when he and his pregnant wife took a Sabbatical from church to explore the urgent needs of the lost and deprived in Asia. 

Further, in his book, Letters to the Church, Chan wrote that he often asked church leaders what their congregants expect on a Sunday. Below was their response.

“Typical replies include: “A really good service, strong age-specific ministries, a certain style/ volume/length of singing, a well communicated sermon…parking… coffee.”

“(Chan) then asks the same leaders to list biblical commands about church. This time, the responses are: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12), “Look after widows and orphans in their distress” (James 1:27) and “Make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).” “What would upset your people more?” Chan asks. “If you didn’t provide the things from the first list, or if you didn’t obey the biblical commandments on the second list?”

Taking a similar approach, I feel strongly that every pastor owes it to their congregation to ask the same question pastor Chan had asked, that is: -

1) “Am I the problem?” and

2) “What would upset your people more? If you didn’t provide the things from the first list, or if you didn’t obey the biblical commandments on the second list?”

Ultimately, the fruits of our labour in faith is never about what I would metaphorically describe as “quantitative easing” - to borrow a finance or economic stimulus term, which means “the introduction of new money into the money supply by a central bank.”

In similar vein, we ought to be cautious in pursuing numbers by injecting newer programs and attractive packages to bring in the crowd. Mind you, it has always been about the great commission of investing in lives, one soul at a time, and not about the great attraction of filling up the seats in the building, by storing up wealth to sustain it.

Alas, admit it or not, the number game distracts, dilutes and divides eventually because size demands attention, and attention demands structure, and structure demands money, and money demands a system of collection, and that system of collection demands even more numbers, and such obsessive cycle goes on and on, risking the relegation of the genuine transforming work of Calvary a secondary consideration because the administrative leviathan we have unwittingly nurtured in our backyard demands constant attention, regular feeding and blind perpetuation at all costs.

Sadly, as the church grows in this way, the sacrifices of a farmer-shepherd gradually becomes the building of a grain factory, the setting up of supply chain island-wide and the raking in of the financial harvest, while the planting of a soul gets subcontracted out to the impersonal hands of spiritual professionals with its excitable programs to boot.

As such, the silver-lining during this uncertain time provoked by Covid-19 is one where we ought to reflect deeply on the ends we hope to achieve with unchecked growth that ironically backfires rather than sets hearts aflame. This is therefore not a message against megachurches per se, but one for their consideration on the timeless purpose the Rock of Ages has established for us when the first cornerstone was laid towards the building of the Body of Christ from ground zero up.

Indeed, the church that returns to its roots in the modern context is one that not only comforts the afflicted, cares for the orphans and widows, loves and disciples one another, but one that also afflicts the comfortable so that instead of embracing the status quo, we reach out and make a difference in a life, one soul at a time, by planting the seed with depth in mind, however long it takes, so that when the storms come, each soul has a strong anchor or foundation to stand on  individually and communally.

By then, it is not the quantitative easing that attracts, which can only last for the short term, but it is about centering on qualitative transforming, upon which the church is built and is designed to last for all times.