A COVID-19 Reformation
I started writing this in December of 2020 and people were already finding ways to predict how 2020 will be a joke in the years to come (e.g. if 2020 was a crisp, it would be orange juice and toothpaste flavoured). For some, it was a year of despair or loss, for others it’s been a year of stress and pressure, and I’m sure for some it was actually been a relatively good year. I’m not sure where I would sit in those three options, probably a little of each!
It’s also been an incredible year for the Christian church across the globe – and I use ‘incredible’ lightly, as for many it has been a total disaster. How do you still be the church when you can’t meet on a Sunday? (…or at any other time of the week). It’s a question that sadly, many church leaders just didn’t know the answer to and never found the answer to over the months of lockdown. I felt like it was summed up effectively by a MEME I saw throughout this year…
Pastor in 2019: Facebook is from the devil!
Pastor in 2020: Make sure you ‘like’ our Facebook page and subscribe to our weekly online stream!
For me, I sat back at the beginning of the first lockdown in the UK with a mixture of fascination and awkward laughter because I’m a bit of a sicko (Australian slang for someone who has a slightly deranged sense of humour). How would churches cope? I knew many who just didn’t have the capability to do any kind of online service/event and I knew many who would revert to just coming up with an online stream/service that would, as closely as possible, resemble a physical Sunday church gathering.
Right from the start I felt like neither would be an effective way of continuing to ‘do church’, not because of anything intrinsically wrong with online streams, Zoom quiz nights, or pastors trying not to look awkward doing a selfie-video, but because of the way churches were before they’d even heard of COVID-19.
In 2020 I had more of an opportunity to connect with old friends over digital messaging platforms (and make pancakes for my family on Sunday mornings!) than ever before. Suddenly, there was more time and less ‘busy’ to be concerned with. It also helped that I read ‘The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer quite early on in the first lockdown, but I digress.
I’ve spoken with several friends across the world (South Africa, America, and across the UK) who are/were involved in ministry in their respective churches prior to and during 2020. Many telling me that 2020 had given them the time and perspective to look at what church is like to them and finding a deep dissatisfaction with its praxis (practices) and ideology (systems of ideals).
I’ve heard several say that they are seriously considering not going back to their churches when things get back to ‘normal’. Everything within me as a graduate of Bible/Leadership College wants to push back and tell people they should go back to their churches and support their leaders, but I also feel like maybe God wanted to do something during this crazy year/time? Maybe even, it required a major disruption of the status quo of ecclesiology (theology as applied to the nature and structure of the Christian church)
As a partially pensive person I have spent a lot of time during this time reflecting on and wrestling with what this could be. Does something about the Christian church need to be shaken and changed? And as per usual, I didn’t have a very clear answer, until I spoke to another friend who had similar feelings towards their church and she reminded me of the reformation. It was said in a passing comment of ‘it’s a bit like why the reformation happened’.
What was the Reformation?
The Protestant Reformation started in the 14th century with men and women noticing that there was something wrong with the institution of the church. Over about 2 centuries individuals held to their beliefs and withstood persecution for the criticisms they had. They identified issues such as abuse of power, insistence of religious practices not mentioned in scripture, and errors in the Latin translation of the Bible – to name just a few.
There is lots of history and people involved, which I don’t want to go into here but you can read more at Christianity.com – ‘What was the protestant reformation?’
What I do want to point out though is that it was a time of reforming, renewing, refocusing and redeveloping of the Church. People identified things about the church, which were not ‘of God’ and there was no willingness of the institution of the church to repent and renew itself.
A Reformation or Renewing for today...
I’m tempted to write here that ‘of course I’m not saying that there is abuse of power in the church today, or errors in translating the Bible for today…etc.”
But, those are some of the exact things that have been said to me over the last 6-12 months of COVID-19 lockdown/pandemic.
I also think that prior to COVID-19 there were a lot of ‘modern’ churches and church leaders who would have said that they identified issues with the institutional church, but that their church was ‘different’ and didn’t have the same issues.
In fact it’s a dangerous thing to throw around the concept of reformation or renewal of the church as it insinuates widespread changes, and despite what each one of us believes of ourselves, we are mostly unwilling to change, and certainly not the way in which we ‘do’ church or ‘are’ the church.
I’m reminded of the story of Francis Chan (which happened long before COVID-19 FYI) and his decision to step down as the Pastor of Cornerstone Church in the US. I had heard him speak a few times (online/podcast) so when I read a news article that he’d stepped down from being a megachurch pastor because he felt that what he’d built wasn’t biblical, I was interested to read more.
Although he’d been on a journey after he stepped down, he now oversees a network of what we would describe as ‘home-churches’, which have no more than 10-20 people attending. His main reason for switching to this style of church is because he realised that people were coming to the megachurch because they wanted to hear ‘preacher man Chan’ (i.e. he is a gifted orator who people enjoy listening to).
In a recent book ‘Letters To The Church’ he explains how he often asks church leaders what their congregants expect on a Sunday. Standard replies include: “A really good service, strong age-specific ministries, a certain style/ volume/length of singing, a well communicated sermon…parking… coffee.” He 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?” You can read more from Premier Christianity’s article ‘Francis Chan: Why I quit my megachurch and started again’
After reading this book from Francis Chan myself, although I don’t agree with all of his points, I personally feel challenged by some of the parallels he draws between the New Testament Church and the modern Church – spoiler alert, the modern church is indeed missing the mark in some important areas. And here is where I come back full circle.
As we close out 2020 and look back at this year – we have an opportunity to seek God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal things to us about what the church should be like. Have we fallen short of glorifying God and staying true to the Church as described in the New Testament?
Here are some questions that I’ve been asking myself, some that have arisen through writing this article, and some which have been asked by others in conversation.
- Why do we consider people to be ‘members’ of a church when the only commitment they have is to turn up to a church service for 90 minutes on a Sunday?
- Why have we created churches where the ‘leaders’ are the ones doing the ‘ministry’ and the rest of the congregation are just spectators or ‘supporters’?
- Have we (as the Church) created Christians who are infertile when it comes to being effective disciples of Jesus in today’s world? And if so, how and why has this happened?
- What does it mean to be a ‘good’ Christian? Is it attending, volunteering, being a part of a small group + a hundred other measurements, or should it have more to do with something(s) else?
- Have the programmes within church become more important than the people themselves?
- Have we turned church into more of a social club with rules and regulations rather than an entity that is here on earth to outwork God’s will?
- How are we changing in acknowledgement that there are serious racial and gender issues in churches across the world today?
Concluding thoughts on A COVID-19 Reformation
Renewal… Reformation… maybe they’re strange words to consider in todays world, but maybe they’re the very things that are needed in our churches and in ourselves when moving into 2021 and beyond. I just have an overwhelming sense that major changes will be needed in the years to come if the church is the be the light of the world – a city on a hill that cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14).
I wonder what God does actually think of churches today, or even what the protestant reformers would think, or the Apostles… are we being too influenced by wider culture and society? Has the busyness of the world infiltrated our churches and removed the rest we need/have in Jesus? Have we removed the need for the Holy Spirit in our midst by creating layers of programmes and structures? Do we truly know how to be disciples of Jesus Christ and are we discipling others?
All good questions to ask ourselves and consider in these times – but can I also encourage you to seek God and find out for ourselves about what God wants to speak to you in this time?
If you have reflections/additions/ideas to the above – I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
