Churches are embracing change out of necessity

What we are experiencing as a society with the coronavirus will be remembered as a significant historical event. It is hard to say what changes will remain permanent. My motivation to close my church to public gatherings is the health and safety of our community. The Bible admonishes us to respect those who are placed in positions of authority, Romans 13:1-7. At the same time, in the book of Acts, the government officials overstepped their authority when they told Peter and John to cease preaching in the name of Jesus. Their response is as relevant today as when they first spoke the words, "Whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide; for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard," Acts 4:19-20.

Most churches have been willing to comply with the requests to practice social distancing, and not to meet in groups larger than 10 people. Church leaders have exercised a high level of creativity to continue to preach the Bible to their congregations. Some churches were already innovative and offered online services. Almost all churches have websites, and many have at least one form of social media. Many churches did not keep their online information up to date in the past. Now that it has become our sole means of communication, it is essential to keep it current. Technology has gained a new level of approval among churches and places of worship.

My prediction that livestreaming thousands of church services would completely crash the Internet was incorrect. For the most part, this new approach is working well. My preference is to prerecord the message, then to release it at a specific time. A lot of us would have never put our messages into this format if it wasn't for the coronavirus. We have the false notion that we must have a slick production to share the message of Jesus. Not true, if the content of our message is solid, God will bless it.

Some of our area churches are using the drive-in approach to worship. Everyone stays in their vehicles, and the preacher preaches over a PA system or through an FM transmitter. This works well for many churches, but in Mississippi, parishioners were fined $500 apiece for worshipping in their automobiles. Although some government figures abuse their authority, God is using this current struggle to strengthen our churches. We are confident that sanity will be restored -- in the meantime, we will continue to find new and exciting ways to communicate the gospel.

It is no surprise that churches are on the front lines of disaster relief, medical care and community service. Some of our churches have many elderly members who are the at-risk group. The best thing many of those congregations can do is shelter in place. It is difficult to reach out to older church members when we are not allowed to visit hospitals or nursing homes. We are choosing to avoid in home visits as well. Instead we are making phone calls, writing cards and letters, sending email and even text messages.

My church had entertained the idea of online giving for more than a year. Within a week of being closed, we were using this means of collecting offerings. Our staff has been scrambling, putting in extra hours learning new things in order to meet the needs of our congregation. We plan to continue online giving and streaming our services long after this crisis is over.

Technology will never replace meeting together in person, but it has been good to have in a time like this. Many pastors have reported that they are reaching many times more people than in a typical worship service. The story of Jesus is known in Christian circles as the "Good News." Maybe people are tuning in because they need the good news? Some claim that this year more people experienced an Easter worship service than ever before in American history. The message we are compelled to preach life changing. Things will never be the same, but that could be exactly what we needed.