Tag: Pandemic

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One of these days, Chicken Little will be right.

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“The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.” ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It seems that every generation feels that things have gotten so bad, the end MUST be soon. I wonder if Noah thought the same thing – because, in his case, it was true! I don’t see a lot of apocalyptic references throughout the Old Testament, but there are a few. Isaiah, Daniel and Ezekiel have some visions of what the future held, and they were strange and mysterious.

For Peter to write the church and say this, he must have taken Jesus word’s seriously – he was coming back soon. John, the revelator writes, “behold I come quickly” Rev 22:12. But, what is quickly, especially to God, who is outside of time itself? FYI, I absolutely believe Jesus is returning and that God will wrap everything up according to his will and plan.

For us earth-bounders, we only see history and human behavior in cycles. Looking backward from these days, all the way to Peter’s days, we know that some behaviors have been atrociously worse. There have been so many global episodes of bad actors perpetuating on the masses in their respective domains of control. I have a friend who believes that earth is looking more like heaven than ever before! I don’t.

When Peter encourages the Church to be earnest in prayer, I wonder what that could have meant? In prayer for one another? It seems likely. Especially because he drops the famous line that “love covers a multitude of sins.” More sin, needs more prayer and more love, right? Then he backs up the idea of us needing MORE support while watching and waiting for the world to end with this – hospitality!

If you haven’t noticed even the entertainment industry has really ramped up the futuristic, syfi, apocalyptic shows and movies over the past few decades. Even non-believers in God are trying to figure out what the future holds. Of course, many of the future-casters are just trying to force behavioral change surrounding the hot topic of global climate change. In almost every one of their future scenarios, humans are the enemy that needs to be destroyed. Feels like they are just lashing out at God like petulant toddlers.

Peter reminds us that when everything gets bad, we should share goodness, like meals and shelter. If the global pandemic was a test run for an “end of the world” scenario, believers did NOT pass. I don’t think most of us were in a sharing and caring mood – we treated our own family members like the infected on The Walking Dead! There seems to be a particular idea from Peter that when the going gets tough, the tough should get together – not separate, and hunker down in isolation. I have a feeling we’ll get another chance when the next rotation of the “world ending” comes into view. We can do better then, right? One day, the sky will fall and this world will end. Chicken Little will be right.

Prayer

Dad,
I agree, things do look bleak. There is a lot going on in our country and in our world that makes us all nervous about the future. Yet, I know you hold the future! And, I know you are bringing about the most amazing plan of your Kingdom coming and your will being done! In that I find peace, comfort and even an excitement in the finality of waiting. I want to be ready. I want to stay alert and aware of what you are doing. This is not an escape prayer, but it is a “let it be done” prayer – Come quickly Lord Jesus!

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The Church responding in crisis

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“During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.)” Acts‬ ‭11:27-28‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Go Agabus! We’ve often talked about a prophetic word being an encouragement or an exhortation, keeping things uplifting or giving poignant reminders. I’ve heard it said that prophecy is more forth-telling than it is foretelling. Yet, Luke’s words attest to the fact that God still speaks to warn believers of what’s ahead. Luke also let’s us know the famine did indeed come while Claudius was in power.

What should believers do when given this kind of warning? This group started raising money to get it to Jerusalem BEFORE the need became a reality. This wasn’t some “whoa is us” kind of warning. This wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario. It was a now-that-we-know, let’s get busy response. This is a picture of how and what the modern Church should look like! A Church, led by the Spirit of God, getting future tips of what will happen and then making plans to meet the crisis head on. In their case, it was sending money.

It could have been a lot of things – sending money is great for buying, and storing ahead of time then distributing supplies afterwards.

However, the Church needs a few things for this kind of scenario to happen today: We’ve got to be people of the Spirit. We’ve got to listen to our gifted men and women whom God will speak to. We’ve got to tear down our denominational divides and be willing to come together for action. And, we’ve got to quit worrying about who gets the credit for best response and see ourselves as ONE! Basically, we must fulfill the prayer Jesus prayed in John 17 – we must be in unity!

Looking back at the Church’s response in a global pandemic, individual churches did some spectacular work and responded by collecting and distributing millions of pounds of food with a government program called farmers to families. The first round of purchases occurred from May 15 through June 30, 2020 and saw more than 35.5 million boxes delivered in the first 45 days. In total, USDA has distributed more than 167 million food boxes in support of American farmers and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and spent about $5 billion. Churches linked arms with nonprofits and had weekly distributions on their own property. The church I served on staff with, Mesa Church, had a weekly food distribution that went from May through to August in 2020. One nonprofit in Costa Mesa, called Trellis, headed up a massive, multi-nonprofit, multi-week distribution in an Ikea parking lot. It was a perfect picture of unity! We were also able to pray with families as their trunks were being filled with fresh groceries.

Yet, even in the midst of great opportunities to serve, we (the Church) still struggled with being horribly distracted by politics, conspiracy theories, and internal infighting over race, masks, vaccines and meeting indoors. Churches NEVER did shut down, never closed! Yet we squabbled over indoor services, creating unnecessary tension between being a super-spreader event and our “religious” rights to gather in a building.

This was ridiculously embarrassing on the Church! Many rallied behind churches that proudly never stopped meeting inside the building. Others stayed home and participated in church online. Still others just took the church out to meet in parks and parking lots. I thought parking lot church was the most exciting thing I’ve seen happen since the 70’s! Bottom line – we divided when we should of and could of been united! And even worse, we took our griefs and gripes to the public forum of social media and made ourselves look like fools!

As Pastors, we were not prepared to mitigate between two vocal, almost militant groups of Christians. Next time I hope, I pray that we get our love-act together and behave and serve as one.

PRAYER

Dad,
I don’t know what grieves your heart more, our sin or our inability to be united? We have done so much better in the past. We need to be better in the future. I believe the last time we had a global pandemic, the church did a better job both in serving and in coming together in agreement on what we should be doing in crisis. I think that may be some of the reasons folks aren’t returning to gather together. It may take awhile to forgive us for acting so poorly.