Hey guys! Hope you are well!

Well, here we are in lockdown 2.0, for the second time this year, we will be under strict circumstances where we can’t meet socially, have to go to lectures which will be all online and we have to queue up to simply get the one thing from Tesco’s or what not!

But I don’t want to dwell on the negatives too much, in today’s post I want to discuss doing church without the church! How to continue on your consistent routine of listening to a Sunday preaching, but most importantly how to still fellowship with one another through virtual means.

Let’s Differentiate:
I titled this post ‘Church without the Church” for a reason, to simply emphasise that we have to differentiate between the two. I can’t lie, if it were a few months ago in the first lockdown I wouldn’t be writing this post. I was so bummed when I found out my church was going to close due to the lockdown. For me, going to church was a day when I can go to a building other than my workplace, settle in with my church family and maybe go out for a meal afterwards but, most importantly fellowship. 

Considering the fact that I was working from home at the time, so Monday-Friday was stuck at home, Saturdays were cool, but I couldn’t do much except go for walks or go shopping for the house. So, Sundays were something I could really look forward to. You can imagine my reaction when I found out it was going to close.

For me Church just wasn’t the same, having to sit and look at a screen, as if I wasn’t doing that all week was really hard to grasp at first. Having to do bible studies and fellowship meetings all through group calls and the infamous Zoom was beginning to do my head in and quite frankly, I was getting fed up. I can go on and on about this, but I hope you guys get the gist.

The point is, I realised I was fixated on the ‘Church’ being the building itself and not the people. I was to focused on the process of getting ready for church, meeting friends to commute there and sitting in an actual building with a pulpit and section for the choir to stand. That wasn’t the church. The people there are the church, are my family and that was what was most important. 

Gratitude:
If there’s anything I’ve learnt from this pandemic is that we are becoming very dependent on technology, whilst this may be seen in negative terms- I guess we can see some positives out of this. The fact that we can use these platforms such as Zoom, to still connect with each other and discuss is a privilege. Once we start to practise ore gratitude for these things, they won’t seem so bad

And owing it all to God, the fact that we can come together via technology to pray as a family and intercede for one another is something I also learnt I have to be grateful for. 

Understand the season: 
For many of us this is a season we have never experienced before. For many the lack of fellowshipping physically may have been detrimental to their Christian routine. Hey, it may have even meant they would doubt exactly what God was doing in their walk with God, having a pandemic come on that would disrupt their weekly routine. But remembering that this is just another season that happens in our life (a rather long and continuous one at that lool) would help get by. 

One thing my mum always says whenever I am going through a strop is “this will pass” and, I truly believe this applies to our current situation!

Thanks for reading!