Good Morning God, can you hear me?

 

I’m not in church this morning God can you still hear me?  No one else is around me and I’m not really singing alone, but are you still there?  I’m in my pajamas for zoom church but I’m trying; are you still there?

As a child, the message that I got from my church was that if you weren’t in the building, there was no sense in praying or any sort of worship because God wasn’t listening.  To be fair, I don’t know if that was the message they were actually portraying but the important part for me, is that I interpreted it that way.

When I was 19 years old, the first of a few health scares hit my siblings.  There was a lot of fear and a lot of tears and a lot of anger at God during these times.  The one thing that I didn’t do was darken the door of my childhood church; to my knowledge, none of my family did.  Lo and Behold, the health crisis was dealt with by doctors and a full recovery was made.  Again, this is entirely anecdotal because It’s creating a theory based on my own personal experience, but I truly believe that my prayers were heard. 

Now however I see a quiet farm town in rural Ontario, Canada being torn apart by a group of Christians who refuse to follow government orders amidst a pandemic not to gather.  I’m seeing a town divided because of a leadership encouraging this.  Leadership who compare the local police force to the Gestapo and leadership who think the pandemic is a hoax.

As I sit here this morning, I fear for what is happening in that town.  I fear for what this morning may bring as they can no longer defy the orders because the police have physically locked the doors. 

I hurt for the animosity this has caused in the town.  The majority of the parishioners are doing what they feel they are supposed to and they are doing it out of their faith.  I fear they are being manipulated but that’s a topic for another day.

This isn't the norm however, most of the western church through the pandemic has found ways to adapt.  Whether it is limited capacity service or becoming YouTube and Zoom experts, to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, the Church finds a way. 

More than shifting church to a new medium however is what I’ve personally experienced over the last year or so.  It’s been the community that I’ve been able to become a part of through the joys of the World Wide Web!

A few years back, whenever I hear the term podcast, I’d think of someone in his mom’s basement talking about coding or Magic cards.  Even if there were people producing content out there, it was the same as TV only nerdier.  It was a one-way conversation with no interaction.

The past few years however and especially the last 14ish months, through podcasts like Can I Say This At Church, What If Project and Heretic Happy Hour especially, I’ve found a community that I didn’t know I was missing.  I’ve found individuals that have helped me along my faith journey but help through life itself.  I’ve been able to hear from people from all different backgrounds and even some different faith groups.  People who are deeply entrenched in the church, some who have been scarred by it and some who have left it behind all together.  I get to learn and dialogue with members of the LGBTQ community that I may have never had the option to before.  This is because through these groups, we can talk with people around the world about their life and their struggles. 

What I would like to propose to you may seem ridiculous to you or it may seem plausible.  I’m 100% sure I’m not the first to say it but this is how I experience it.

What if an online group really is Church?

What if logging into social media is the same as walking through the doors of a cathedral?

Matthew 18:20 says “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them” and I believe that this extends to the online community.

Social media apps like Facebook and Marco Polo are allowing us to be in Church any time we want.  We can go and learn from others who have studies specific topics.  We can cheer the victories of our online friends and we can mourn and grieve their losses. 

I would have never thought that someone I’ve not met face to face could be considered a friend but this past year has taught me differently.  I’ve developed a strong friend base in the online world as well as in person and it has been facilitated by these groups.

I look forward to the day when we can have our Sunday service again but my prayer is that these online groups will continue to thrive long after that happens.  These groups provide something a Sunday Service never has for me and I don’t want to lose that. 

Church can be a pastor in a pulpit, a Sunday morning Zoom call or even text conversations between people thousands of miles apart.  The Church isn’t a building and it never has been.  Church is a community of followers who are trying to figure out this world and how they can best model the man of Jesus and his teachings.