The extrovert is dying to resume interaction with fellow church members.
Actually, I won’t do one of them at all. ;)
This is the message I gave them at my church. I told them to let me know when it is “business as usual” and I’ll be back. But not until then.
And business as usual means no mask requirement and no social distancing requirement, etc.
Wow... all five are number 1.
That aside, he missed the fundamental reason... lack of faith. We have allowed our faith in God to erode in this country to the point that freedom of religion is all but meaningless. When the Church and Her members are all looking to the State and secular authority for wisdom and permission, we have lost our way.
Fine. Let them disagree. But let them decide for themselves.
How hard is it to follow civil authorities? The church isn’t a building... it’s the people.
Easy solution. People afraid of the virus can stay home. Problem solved! ...and it didn’t require a CEO or PHD
The bottom line is: americans are dumbed down on viriul infections, how to protect themselves and family, and news media and democrat demogogery is rampant. A fearful people are easy to control.
I’m a committed Christian and I’ve attended church weekly (or more often) for over 35 years. I live in a very blue county of a very blue state, and during the lockdown my Sunday morning worship now looks like this: a recorded sermon from my pastor (or another pastor I like from RightNowMedia) on youtube, some Bible reading, and then I play Christian music for a few hours. We’ve kept our financial contributions up to our home church. It hasn’t been a huge deal, this break from “church.” The church is its members, after all, not a building.
For church reopening, I’d prefer first home gatherings in backyards or parks and outdoor services for the rest of the summer. I’m a huge believer in fresh air/sunshine. The virus just doesn’t seem to get transmitted much in that environment this summer. I went on a trip to Israel last fall with a group of 50 with my church and the pastor would preach to us outdoors, at every holy site we visited. It was great.
Shouldn’t it up to the local bishop(s)??
Too complicated.
Here:
Liberals want to stay closed. Conservatives want to open.
I’ve found that rule tends to work fairly well.
They left out ignorance/ lack of faith as the number one reason people don’t want to re-open.
EVERYONE in our congregation wanted to open ASAP — didn’t even want to close.
I had a long conversation with one of our elders yesterday.
I shared my opinion that the Church bears a greater responsibility during a Constitution crisis as our state is embroiled in.
Joe's dry cleaner isn't specifically enumerated in the Constitution but the Church is in the First Amendment.
I told him that I believe this is our hill to die on.
To show that I didn't say it was his hill to doe on, I told him that I was an organizer for a ReOpen rally last weekend and was fully prepared if the State Police showed up to be handcuffed. It's my hill to die on too.
Churches make hero's of Rahab, Corrie Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoffer for their civil disobedience yet when they have the opportunity to step out, they fall back on obeying the authorities, kind of forgetting the Constitution and the whole We the People, consent of the governed, of the people, by the people and for the people part. Lives fortunes and sacred honor actually means something
Compounding the problem today, the virus is not the real fire but it’s the spiritual warfare that is taking place. Different members and churches as a whole are listening to differing news sources, few people are actually researching on their own. Much of the news is misleading by design to drive this wedge in the church.
Add to the issue is that most of the big churches in the USA have worship services run by millennials. Many worship teams at the larger churches are all under 30 and their source of news is just what ever yahoo or google wants to push as trending on the top of their favorite app as to melt the snowflakes.
Few to none of the mellennials are actually research any of the facts, for example most deaths are older people whom can’t get out to go to church anyhow, and a good percentage died in nursing homes, where even without the virus half of all nursing home patients will die within 5 months. Take away nursing home deaths from the stats and also all the extra deaths that are being added from car crash victims or gun shots that killed people with the virus, the virus death stats are no worse than a flu.
As churches re-open it is the millennial worship team leaders ironically that are leading the charge to for people not to sing! The diabolical spiritual warfare going on now on churches is astounding, there are worship leaders who think their new commission instead of encouraging singing is to keep people from singing !
Its the news sources people,read or don't read as is the case by which is driving churches to split on this issue. Take for example, just today a study found that a supermarket is a least likely place were the virus is being spread based on the numbers of fatalities of the workers, owed to clean practices and people not spending all day confined inside closely like nursing homes.. How many church leaders will read this study today and apply it to their own assessment of risk?.. perhaps zero for those listening to CNN...
We have some who think they should follow their view of the Bible, that God commands corporate worship.
There may be some lingering hard feelings, brought to the surface by the stress of the issue.
Even in this thread, you see the fear of people. Our hope is not in government or medicine, if you are a Christian, your hope should be in the Lord. Period.
How weak we are - at the slightest indication of a problem, the church folds like a cheap suit. The early Christians were willing to DIE for the faith. We cannot even be inconvenienced or perhaps made sick.
Does anybody recall the scripture “do not forsake the assembling together” (Heb 10:25). Yes we are to obey the civil authorities, but NOT when it is in direct contradiction to the word of God.
If the government outlawed religious meetings at any time - should Christians obey that order too?
Having listened to my neighbors and other young parents, is that many of these parents both hold full-time jobs and when they attend church, expect and even demand child care on Sunday as well!
So long as they would be expected to sit with their own children for 10-20 minutes, is an activity they will avoid: witness parents with young children in restaurants, their kids run amuck throughout the restaurant while their parents visit with their other friends while no parent even notices what their kids are doing!
There is only one reason. Because an church is made up of individuals. Which means they all have different opinions.
There you go. I just saved you fifteen minutes of reading.