What does it mean to be the Church, when the Church has left the building?
When I agreed to write this blog post about that amazing, supernatural, yet profoundly human engine of God’s mission in the world—the Church—I had no idea we would be walking through this unknown territory created by the coronavirus. We live in a moment of time none of us ever expected. Who ever imagined a scenario where groups of people couldn’t gather at all?
So, what does it mean to be the Church when we can’t conduct the weekly worship-preaching event that feels like the hub of our life and identity?
Intellectually, we all understand that the Church, the Body of Christ, is the people of Christ, not the building nor the gatherings we hold. But, the longer this “global snow day” continues to shut everything down, the more urgently we will need to grapple with questions about our core ecclesiology. What do we believe about the nature, mission, and essential rhythms of Church? What does it mean to be the Church when we cannot meet? While you might need to wrestle through this for yourself, allow me to suggest a game-changing perspective:
“We have a missionary God who called us to follow him on his mission in a lost and broken world. To join him on mission is to be a missionary. Sure, some ‘missionaries’ will be gifted and called to live in cross-cultural contexts. But, every Christ-follower is called to a missionary life. The normal life for ordinary followers of Jesus is to live as missionaries in their everyday lives. And, as a result, every local church is a missionary outpost—a community of Christians on mission together.” *
We are all sent ones. That’s just as true in quarantine as at any other time. And here’s the thing: Many of us have been “training for this moment” every week for much of our lives. All that we have learned about the nature, the mission, and the hope of Christ will be needed by our neighbors in this crisis.
What if this were a moment to deploy into our networks as missionaries? What if the millions of us who know the life-giving presence and power of Jesus began afresh to incarnate his presence among people who are afraid, hurting, trapped at home, running out of food, or needing someone to run an emergency errand? What if this were a moment to bring the kindness of God to life for people to whom God seems far, far away? Remember Romans 2:4? “It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.”
What if we embraced this as our moment to mobilize the good news into action in every neighborhood and every community across the country?
What if each of us simply chose to not wait for someone else to give us instructions and instead began to experiment with how we might be Jesus to the people within our reach?
Allow me to offer a prayer of blessing for you in this moment:
In the name of Jesus, I bless you with eyes to see the needs of people around you. I bless you with ears to hear the cries and fears below the surface, places in people that need the healing and hope of Jesus. I bless you as an agent of the King, an ambassador of good news in a world plagued by relentless stories of bad news during this crisis. And, I bless you with creative insight on how to live into your role as a royal priest in the parish of your neighborhood and close relationships.
Lord, we honor and bless the pastors and ministry leaders who are scrambling every day in this crisis, trying to figure out how to lead their people well. Grant to them extraordinary measures of wisdom, great courage, and the sacrificial love of Jesus as they shepherd people who are and who are yet to be affected by all the dimensions of this global crisis.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Mayes joined Novo in 1997 after 20 years of pastoral ministry, in order to live out his calling to equip leaders to build the church to reach the world of tomorrow. He’s the executive director of ChurchNEXT, giving leadership to 150 staff who serve on 17 teams worldwide. Gary and his wife Margaret live in the Phoenix area near their two adult children and three grandsons.
*Gary Mayes, DNA of a Revolution, p. 41