With daily new Covid-19 cases rising to over 90,000, the situation in the UK has become more serious. This week, a 70-year-old but healthy pastor involved in the Korean Churches in the UK association passed away from Covid-19. Naturally, as a pastor I couldn’t help but think about how, as a church, we should grapple with this problem.

My eldest son, Joshua, was infected at school and spent ten days at home in quarantine, and now I hear of people around me being infected with coronavirus quite often. Of course, with most of our church being made up of young people they are able to recover from infection, but because they could also infect others through church meetings, we can’t help but pay attention to this issue.

At the beginning of last year, because we didn’t know much about the coronavirus, we thought it best to move all worship services and small groups online. Thinking that the virus may last for five years, we decided to take a forward-looking approach. At that time, we thought of building a church community online and I think that is where the future is going. Anyways, at that time I encouraged our members to practice spending time alone with God and, although it was awkward at first, we had all of our meetings online. For a year and three months we met online and God poured out his grace on us. So even if we need to continue in this, way I am not really worried.

From June we divided into two teams and met online and offline with half of our church on alternating Sundays. It was necessary to start offline services when considering both our existing members who had spent a lot of time alone during the pandemic and new students coming to London. We purchased new equipment and are putting out high-quality broadcasts so it’s easy for people who live far away to participate. I was a little worried that some would find online services too convenient and stay within the comfort of their homes. But everyone diligently participated in offline services and meetings and followed the church’s decisions.

So recently, as the situation in the UK became more serious, I received a new unyielding spirit rather than a spirit of worry and I was convicted that God would lead us. I believe the best thing we can do is limit the number of people at meetings while still holding offline services as long as there isn’t a lockdown in place.

At this week’s Wednesday service, I was surprised when I read a prayer request for their someone’s home church in Korea. That past week they had had their first in-person Sunday School meeting but only had eight people in attendance. The young adult service used to fill the sanctuary but now you could easily count the number of people in attendance. It is quite a famous church in Korea so I was really shocked. I don’t know the situation at that church, but I thought that if they had dealt with the situation better and started face-to-face services earlier there may be more people in attendance. Instead of the church acting on world news and vague nervousness, it’s important to listen to what the Holy Spirit wants and obey. Let’s not just survive, but thrive through prayer.