Coronavirus and the Churches: Time to Pivot Again

At the end of March, hundreds of British churches switched overnight to running online Sunday services in response to the national lockdown imposed by the Government. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on churches was sudden and dramatic.

At the end of June, as the lockdown begins to gradually be lifted, has the time come for British churches to pivot again? Not this time back to congregational Sunday services - which remain banned under the terms of the emergency powers granted in the Coronavirus Act 2020 - but to much smaller expressions of church, meeting outdoors. With groups of six in England (or eight in Scotland) now being able to gather outdoors at a social distance, is it now time for churches to put their energies not into Zoom meetings but into multiple face-to-face gatherings in much smaller numbers?

Photo by Nandhu Kumar from Pexels

The case for a rapid pivot to smaller expressions of church could be made on several grounds:

• The people of God desperately need face-to-face fellowship. From the point of view of pastoral care alone, most Christians and church leaders would agree that it is desirable that we see each other in real life in order to enjoy fellowship. Where this has not been possible, we are grateful for tools of technology that can at least provide some measure of human contact. The ideal, however, remains a gathered church in person - the body of Christ in the flesh (so to speak). Where two or three gather in his name, Christ is present in the midst.

• The opportunity is safe and easy to implement. Just as creative minds were quickly able to apply practical solutions to running online Sunday services, we can now quickly move to weekly small gatherings of church members outdoors. These can take place in parks, gardens, on beaches and in the urban environment - anywhere outdoors where people will not be competing with traffic. We can limit the numbers and maintain social distance so that the gatherings are safe and comply with the law. A typical church of 100 members could expect to launch between 10 and 15 such groups next week. 

• Traditional church services may not be possible till 2021. Research is showing that indoor groups of people are high-risk for covid transmission. Activities such as singing and physical contact increase this risk further. Pubs and nightclubs are high-risk environments; church services are not far behind in terms of their capacity to spread the virus between members. The outbreak in Korea was initially centred around a church. In Germany, churches have been able to partly reopen but congregational singing is banned (!) Against this backdrop, are church leaders genuinely committed to running Zoom services for another 12 months or more? And if a vaccine is never found, what then? Do we have a plan for socially-distanced indoor church services that provide the level of fellowship that Christians need or want?

• Small groups at their best can be effective in disciple-making. In his compelling book John Wesley's Class Meeting: A Model for Making Disciples, Michael Henderson demonstrates the genius of the early Methodist movement in its ability to transform the lives of urban working class members who had been largely neglected by the established church. At the heart of this process was not only public preaching but a highly-developed ecosystem of close discipleship centred on the class meeting. It is fashionable in some middle-class churches to downplay the small group. The reality, however, is that there has never been a gospel-centred movement in modern British history that has made disciples of the urban poor as effectively as early Methodism. It is interesting that Wesley's class meetings, gathering weekly for fellowship, personal accountability and mutual instruction, were limited to six members each - the same number currently permitted to gather outdoors in England under current lockdown measures.  

• Small groups would benefit from input from equipping leadership. Just as the Jerusalem apostles taught 'publicly and from house to house', the small expressions of church that could start outdoors tomorrow should be accessible and accountable to those with gifts to teach, equip and serve the members. If there were no longer a need for church leaders to be planning, running and evaluating online services, could their time and energy not be better spent visiting a small group most days to support and give input? Again, in a church of 100 members, a full-time leadership team of two could realistically visit the 10 to 15 small groups almost every week if they wanted. The modern Wesleyian circuit rider already exists and is probably sitting in an office planning the online Sunday service. A pivot to a radical small group model would be possible, if there were a will to do it. 

• Small groups can sustain mission. I would not suggest that these groups of six to eight should try and replicate church services; nor should they be focused on the seeker. But, by nurturing the believers and providing fellowship and accountability, they can help to sustain Christians in their ongoing life as witnesses for Christ in their homes, families, streets and places of work. These opportunities are multiplying during the current pandemic.  There is no reason of course why those with the gifts to do so could not also start small groups for seekers that meet outdoors at a social distance. 

• The summer months provide a window of opportunity. Although June is looking a bit sketchy weather-wise in Britain, at least we are not yet facing the pandemic in January. By starting an outdoor small group ecosystem now - this week - churches can refine and learn best practice while it is still dry-ish. We can then also plan creatively for the autumn and beyond. Two principles that may help this process are time flexibility and creativity. As the weather turns, groups should plan to meet between rain showers or on dry-ish days, rather than being restricted to a rigid weekly time slot. This of course is easy to do with only six people. We can also learn from pubs which have responded to the ban on indoor smoking by implementing new ways of defining 'outdoors' through the legal and judicious use of gazebos and awnings.   

I'm ready to pivot. How about you? 

When a House Church Becomes Too Large

I've recently enjoyed interacting with Eric Carpenter at his blog A Pilgrim's Progress on the subject of How Big is Too Big? when asked of a church that meets in the home and places a high value on all-member participation in the meetings. Eric was a full-time salaried pastor who left this employment in pursuit of a "simpler form of church life."

In the comments section, I suggested a number of possible next steps that such a church could take when it starts to "feel too large." My option four was to "split the group into two or more smaller groups and try to replicate what you have experienced so far." Option five was to "intentionally start to dream, pray and prepare, for a long-term process of multiple future church planting."

Alan Knox then asked the following question: "I'd love to hear some examples of the outcome of #5 and how it differs from #4."

Rather than presume on Eric's bandwith, I thought  might make a few notes here in response to that good question.

Many groups respond to numerical growth by splitting, dividing or multiplying (option 4). Biological cell concepts are often employed to explain or in some cases justify this course of action.



In my experience, such an action can be a mixed blessing, with long-term relationships sometimes severed or at least placed under strain as a group that may have taken months or years to bond together finds itself torn in two.



Option 5 takes a more intentional, long-term view, rather than just responding to the immediate lack of space in a home. As such, it allows the possibility that some of the more difficult aspects of "splitting" a group can be avoided, or at least mitigated.

In essence, I would distinguish option 5 from option 4 by comparing the ways that a cell divides from the way that a family grows and reproduces. In the latter scenario (option 5), we are not looking to divide a group but to start a new household - specifically a household of faith.

In my own limited experience, pursuing this latter option involves looking for and recognising those individuals who have the capacity, character and inclination to become spiritual parents. They should be supported, empowered, trained and encouraged to intentionally begin the process of opening their homes with the aim of forming a new community. This should happen while the existing church is still quite young and while it is itself forming and developing. The intention to plant out is therefore sown into fabric of the church from early on in its life. As I have said, however, this process becomes part of the ethos of the church, but is not done in such a way that "splits" the existing church in two.

Again, in my limited experience, I have seen this process undertaken resulting in the formation of six new churches that I have had a part in helping to plant in the west of England, during the period 1997 to 2004. At least one of these, becasue of the gift mix of the couple hosting it, started as an Apha course and was composed overwhelmingly of new converts. All of them began as home-based churches. Because of where I was with my ecclesiology at that time, most of these churches went on to become somewhat larger mono-congregations rather than remain small and reproduce smaller household-style churches. Having said that, because of their theological values, these churches do tend to have a higher level of member participation in the meetings than might be experienced in a more traditional "church service" model.

Ed Stetzer - Lottie Moon and House Churches

Image via Wikipedia

Ed Stetzer - Lottie Moon and House Churches:

When the gospel is allowed to grow naturally in China, without forcing processes of development, the "church in the house" is usually its first form of organization. God grant us faith and courage to keep "hands off" and allow this new garden of the Lord's planting to ripen in the rays of the Divine Love, free from human interference!

- Lottie Moon, Pingtu, September 10, 1890

Was Lottie Moon right for China at that time?

Is she right now for Europe? America?

I've been increasingly struck in recent years at the way Paul preached the gospel and "allowed" it to take root in its natural, culturally appropriate context. In the case of the first century Greco-Roman world, this natural context was the extended household.

Is the same true in twenty-first century Britain?

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Urban Church Planting

Thoughtful piece by David Broodryk on David Watson's blog on the dynamics of urban church planting - especially looking at the important question of what "is" a church.

The concluding definition Broodryk offers, after considering the dynamic of smaller homogeneous groups which might be considered too small and unstable to be described as churches in their own right, is as follows:

“Church is the collection of baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in a given locality (city or network), who gather regularly (in one group or several) for the purposes of worship, discipleship and nurture, and who depart those gatherings with the intention of obeying all the commands of Christ, in order to transform their families, communities and cities.”

There are omissions in this definition, of course. One addition I would want to make straight away is to add the phrase "who have received the Holy Spirit" after the phrase "Lord Jesus Christ" and before the phrase "in a given locality." I would also make the intention of the believers' obedience more explicitly focused on the glory of God, with any attendant cultural impact as secondary.

I appreciate, having said this, that Broodryk is not writing a theological treatise but a summary that addresses the specific and limited question of whether a church has to meet all-together in order to truly be a church.

Very interesting article, in my opinion.