Particularly in these pandemic days, businesses are going out of their way to make these quick, easy and touchless for consumers. Both our boys recently got jobs working in the exploding “e-commerce” fields at the Fred Meyer grocery chain. People select and pay for Fred Meyer products, and the consumer arrives at a pre-arranged time, ready to pick up their order.

Meanwhile, the boys have been running around picking up the requested items, bring them out to the car and load them for the person. All very quick, easy and touchless.

Other businesses are doing similar styles of “e-commerce.” Drive-in movies have been around a long time, drive-in pharmacies and drive-up banking are a bit newer. So that got me thinking if church can work that way. These days, most (or all) churches are restricted from meeting together. So we are watching church through livestream or from recorded videos. Most agree that it is sub-optimal, but in these times, there is little choice. But when the pandemic passes, can we keep doing church this way? Many may be inclined to think this is church 2.0. Especially in the West with our consumer mentality and rugged individualism, this sounds like a smashing success. I shop around to find a church offering what I want, then view the service from the comfort of my own home without any of the intrusion of Sister Gertrude passing the offering basket or Brother Clarence giving me a hug and telling me another war story. I get a good dose of music, preaching, and other “churchy elements,” and then shut off the screen and go on with my day. Is this hitting the mark for church?

According to our collectivistic brothers and sisters globally, and more importantly to a host of biblical writers, this is falling far short of what God intended church to be. As I’m talking with African pastors, they are sharing stories how they and the people in their churches are languishing, spiritually starving (maybe physically too!) in these days when they can’t meet together. Africans are generally much more relationally-oriented than we are, and they show it in their services. They oftentimes will meet Sunday morning and Sunday night, and just hang out in between. Then they have prayer meeting Tuesday night, Bible study Wednesday night, choir practice Thursday night, all-night prayer and fasting meeting Friday night, an outreach event Saturday, and then they are ready to hit it again Sunday morning. They LOVE to be together, and that being together helps them grow spiritually.

This is not the time for a full treatment of biblical ecclesiology, but Paul makes it clear in the book of Ephesians that the church is a special group of “called out” ones, who share all of life together, rooted in common biblical theology (ch.1-3) and living out their faith in practical ways (ch.4-6). The goal is “building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” (4:12-13) using the image of a “body” as a metaphor for the church. In Acts 2, we see a beautiful picture of the early church meeting together day in and day out with each other. In Hebrews 10, based in Christ’s atoning sacrifice, we confidently enter God’s presence (v.19) through Christ (v.20), who created a way for us to come to God (v.21). Therefore there are three “let us…” that we hold to: 1) Let us draw near to God having been cleansed (v.22). 2) Let us hold fast to our faith for God is faithful (v.23). And 3) Let us stir up one another to love and good works as we meet together and encourage each other (vv.24-25). All of these happen in the community of the Christian church. Rather than church being viewed as a place where I get what I want and need, it is a time for like-minded believers to gather and center our focus on the Lord rather than ourselves. And along the way, God who is rich in mercy, will pour out His grace on us as we delight in His and each other’s presence.

So if you’ve made it to the end of this rather lengthy blog, I hope you share with me in being eager to resume corporate worship, in person, life on life, with other sinful but forgiven family members, as we draw near to our holy, righteous, gracious, loving God. May we never settle for “drive-in” church, or online services when meeting together corporately with those who are “in Christ” is at all an option.