Many are suffering during this COVID-19 pandemic, and our church is no exception. Many Christians find the strength to live on each week through Sunday Services; it is therefore troubling to see that churches around the world are facing difficulties with holding Sunday Services. Some may ask why – arguing that Christianity is all about your personal relationship with God, and that it is perfectly possible to worship God alone and individually. Of course this is correct, but there is a special blessing that comes through church services in particular.
When I try to spend time alone with God during the week, there are times when I feel spiritually oppressed, in a way that I find hard to overcome by myself, even as a pastor. But that oppression has always disappeared after the conclusion of a Wednesday or Sunday service. Those experiences have helped me realise that God is powerfully present among church services.
It worries me to think about the difficulties Christians face during these times where offline services are either prohibited or subject to strict limitations on numbers. Churches are trying their best to encourage participation – by holding online services via Zoom or Youtube, and by increasing the number and frequency of their services. But they still face many struggles as the world frowns upon group gatherings, even for religious purposes, and as the numbers of those participating online continue to decrease.
Our church has been holding online services only for the past nine months, since March. It was difficult for us to gather offline in the first place as we borrow the Welsh church building for our services, and as our church is in central London, which requires access by public transport for most members. It also looked like this situation would last for a while, so we decided to take a proactive approach, and deal with the issue we faced as if the pandemic would last for five years rather than disappear shortly. As means of online communication were gaining popularity anyway, I’ve encouraged our church to use this as an opportunity for our church to adapt to the real world, and to reflect on our relationship with God and develop it further. Thankfully, we have persevered well and it looks like our church has become spiritually stronger than it was before. The rate of participation is increasing every week as well.
On reflection, I think this was thanks to the fact that we really focused on our cell group meetings. A lot of Korean churches focus on their official services, but they seem to forget that those services are supported and kept intact by small group meetings. It’s very hard to beat the quality of online services by big churches – but small groups give people a sense of belonging, which leads to participation of online services at that church, despite its shortcomings due to size.
Our small groups worked well thanks to our leaders uniting in one mind, and also through the several sermons leading up to Café Talk which inspired our congregation to focus on the importance of interaction with fellow Christians. These types of sermons have the potential to be ill-received, but our congregation have accepted it with an open heart, and followed my leadership despite all my inadequacies. While there seems to be a lot left to this tunnel, as we prayed towards the start of this year, I am certain that our church will not only endure, but break through.
