Post-COVID church life has been draining.
So many people stayed away in fear of a virus that could kill millions… but the reality was that this was a bad virus for such a small segment of the population, actually being fatal to about 1/10 of one percent. But people stayed away, and it appears that church church life was not as important as we first believed. Many are still away.
Those who returned expected everything to be the same as when they left back in March 2020. At King’s Grant, we closed down and went 100% online March through May 2020. We came back to in-person services in June 2020, with social distancing and sanitizing the area between services. New people showed up and got involved. Classes and groups met using Zoom or they met in the fellowship hall which provided plenty of space for keeping our distance. The church was growing. New leaders were emerging.
We anticipated the day when the Virginia Governor would lift social distancing restrictions, so classes would be able to gather once more on campus on a Sunday morning. We came back on father’s day, 2021.
The expectation of returning to normal was overwhelming. People were angry about everything. Those who stayed during the crisis adjusted to a new normal, while those who returned felt they lost their church. Complaining was incessant, and damaging. After a year of tremendous church conflict, our contemporary worship leader had enough and resigned in March 2022. By May,. our senior pastor accepted a great opportunity for ministry in a non-church setting. Then in July, our pastor of worship threw in the towel and retired.
Several people tried to “rescue” the church with the goal of “taking back the church” which meant, take it back to the good old familiar days, which no longer exist. During this time of turmoil, I searched the Scriptures hoping to identify with the writers of the Bible. How did the prophets and apostles address the people who refused to surrender to God and what he was trying to do with his people? How did they deal with rebellion? Disobedience? Sin in the camp?
I found comfort in Jeremiah and Paul and in the life of Moses. Below are verses and commentary from the fall of 2022…
All this was before we called our current transitional pastor (in December 2022) to lead us toward healing and becoming a healthy congregation that a new pastor would love to lead and serve.
- Identifying with the Weeping Prophet (Jeremiah)
- Identifying with the Apostle Paul
- Identifying with Nehemiah (Teaching from Nehemiah 6)
- Identifying with Moses (From Lord Change My Attitude) Complaining, Covetous, Critical, Doubting, Rebellious Attitudes (Teaching on mp3).
- Identifying with Daniel