In a transition period like this, there are so many unknowns and variables that it is difficult to anticipate how life will look for British society in the months ahead. Talk of a ‘new normal’ is unsettling when we have little idea of what it might entail. But what of the Church? What will have changed in our worship and mission as we emerge - even temporarily - from the Lockdown that has dominated recent weeks. And how ought we to be praying as we prepare to resume, or perhaps to re-invent, ‘normal’ Church-life?
The Church will inevitably have been spiritually weakened by the last three months of closure. If we believe that we need fellowship, corporate worship, sacraments, live liturgy and preaching in order to thrive and grow, then our being deprived of all of these to some measure will have had a hugely detrimental effect on the Body of Christ. Among other things, this means we will need to remember that we are the people of the Spirit, and to very consciously allow His fruit to mature in our character and dealings with each other (love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, patience…) as we stumble back to strength. Praying that these aspects of our fellowship find themselves front and centre stage, for love, patience, gentleness, humility, patience, servant-heartedness and so forth to characterize the people of God, has rarely been more urgent.
We also face renewed potential for division. In a few weeks we will be thinking about the importance of unity to the Holy Spirit. The timing of such a service could hardly be better as we find our together-ness under siege. In part this will be because of a variety of responses to the easing of Lockdown. Some will be eager to meet together, others more reticent. It is likely there will be limits imposed on the size of congregations. There will be tensions about what our services should be like and the role of technology during the transition period (which could last for several months). There is an important lesson we can learn as many schools prepare to open, with parents and schools being vilified on social media for the decisions they are making (feel they have to make) about re-opening and children being sent to school. We will need to guard against such temptations in our own midst as our buildings re-open and people make different decisions about whether and when they will come. Let us pray and work for unity amongst God’s people.
Thirdly - and still looking simply within the life of the Church - the credibility of the Church’s leadership has been massively damaged in the eyes of society, and indeed many Anglicans. Institutional self-interest and protectionism has seemingly prevailed over self-sacrifice and costly, cross-bearing service, and it has been humorously suggested that our Bishops should have been furloughed! NHS staff have been expected to care for the sick, whilst clergy have been banned from visiting even the dying. The closure of Churches even for private prayer in the name of good citizenship feels ominously like a capitulation to the idea that a Government can bestow on its citizens the right to worship, or not. You’ll be aware of my own feelings on this from previous emails, but whatever our own views of decisions made in the past, let us pray for our Bishops as they seek now to lead the Church out of Lockdown, and to re-establish the Churches mission and worship across the country.
This feeds into our fourth area for prayer - the witness of the Church to the nation and the community. It is widely felt (by secular press as well as Church commentators) that the Church’s response during the pandemic has critically undermined our mission, and place within the life of the nation. That a secular body-politic should see the Church as a privatize-able and marginal activity, rating somewhere below DIY and non-essential shopping is regrettable, but understandable; the fact that the Church has largely acquiesced with such a judgement, simply re-enforces in the minds of many that the secular analysis of religion and its place in the public discourse of a nation is basically correct. At a local and even personal level, we might find that our witness has fared better than at a denominational level, but in spite of much self-congratulatory rhetoric to the contrary, we may find our faith increasingly relegated to the category of ‘hobby’.
Fifthly, I believe we will find evangelism harder than ever. The mood of our culture is dishearteningly triumphalist. We are more entrenched in the notions of our own sufficiency and goodness than ever. Previous generations may have resorted to national days of prayer, but we know better. We’ll turn a blind eye to several disturbing indicators that all is not well with our society, such as the rise in domestic violence, or the concerns about children’s vulnerability in their own homes that drives much of the discourse about re-opening schools. We’ll trumpet the sacrifice of the NHS (forgetting that we sent them into battle without adequate resources); we’ll trumpet our ‘pulling together’; our charitable efforts; our self-sacrifice… all of which may be legitimate, but all of which subtly underpins the narrative that we don’t need God. Evangelism will be tough in an era saturated by the sense of ‘common good’.
A sixth area for us to pray about focuses on the potential for discouragement and disillusionment in the Church in both worship and mission. Again let me stress that it is difficult to anticipate the reality of what will unfold in the next couple of months, but if commentators are to be believed, we will see diminished congregations when the dust has settled. For many, the routine of going to Church, which has been increasingly tenuous in the midst of pressured lives, has been broken. Will it be recovered? Or will our venture into online worship convince people that they can get by without physically having to carve out time for gathering with the saints in real time and in real space for worship? This increasing fragmentation of the Body of Christ, and the decreasing commitment to the corporate life of the Church will not be without impact - for the Church of for individuals. If we come out of Lockdown, not valuing more fully our life together as a Church, we may have failed to learn the lesson our Father sought to teach us.
And seventhly (seven seems like a Biblical place to stop!): Have we unwittingly succumbed to a pagan-esque dualism that will accelerate the decline of the Church in Britain? Paganism, especially where rooted in or influenced by ancient Greek philosophy, separates out the spiritual from the physical in a way that Christianity cannot countenance. In the Bible, what we do with our bodies matter. Where we are matters. As one mystic puts it: it makes a huge difference whether you see yourself as a soul in a body, or a body with a soul. Our enthusiasm in having made it online with services needs to be qualified by our recognition that God created us embodied. Our online worship services have been brilliant. They have achieved everything that could be asked of them. But what can be asked of them is less than what can be expected in the physical gathering of the people of God. If we fail to understand this, it will further weaken our life and witness in the months ahead. Pray for the people of God to grasp the critical significance of meeting together, and to have a renewed commitment to this fundamental aspect of our faith. Many seem relatively untroubled by the current circumstances and speak of thriving successfully ‘online,’ some even envisioning lasting new iterations for ‘how we do church’. This – if undermining offline ministry - betrays a surrendering of a Biblical vision for humanity, and for redemption. Whilst there may be extenuating circumstances, such as illness or persecution that means we aren’t able to meet with the Church, any vision of discipleship that marginalizes the essentially corporate nature of our faith is deeply flawed to the point of becoming sub-Christian.
…and there are others. But these are a good place to start to prayerfully prepare for life after Lockdown – not just in MIE, but for the Church nationwide, and of all denominations…