Doing and Being Church in a Pandemic World

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, 
acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3

As we follow Jesus to the cross this Holy Week, may we see those around us who are suffering and in pain. May we not seek a short cut and celebrate the resurrection without facing the destructive power of death and its impact on our world. We find life not by avoiding death, but being with the Suffering Servant who will meet us, wash our feet, eat with us, remind us to serve each other, put away our swords, and expose death and violence of this world. And on that path of discipleship, we will discover abundant and resurrected life. 

By Hyun Hur

The COVID-19 pandemic, brought radical changes to how we do church. Gatherings in congregate settings became a challenge for preventing the spread of infection. Not being able to meet in person became a problem on many levels including the risk to ourselves and others. For some time, churches had no choice but to hold online worship services. This has led to numerous perplexing questions, including: Is “online worship” truly worship? Should public worship not be held in a church building? Does proper worship not require us to go to a church building on Sunday? These queries forced the question: What, then, is the church? etc. The inquiries came as a flood. All church members, not just theologians or pastors, struggled to find answers to these questions.

1. Modality or Sodality
In the early 1970s, missiologist Ralph Winter applied the concepts of modality and sodality, which are sociological terms, to understanding different expressions of the church. His argument was that the church expressed itself in two structures: the modality(the static local church , and sodality (an expression of the church in specialized, task-oriented, or missionally engaged form). He contrasted the outward focused sodality with the more inward focused modality which tended the life of the worshipping community. Many people in the church do not believe that the missionally active and engaged sodality is a complete and sufficient expression of the church. So even if a worship event occurred as part of the missionary activities of a sodality during the week, it was still deemed necessary to go to a local church and hold a public worship service on a Sunday in order to keep the appropriate Sunday observance. Consequently, worship by mission entities on weekdays are not recognized as a complete and legitimate worship service. 

Even if missional engagement is understood as an important part of the church, the local church as a community for worship, education and discipleship is deemed to be primary. Winter believed that for the church to thrive, both of these expressions must work together for God's redeeming mission.

2. Church: The Building or the People?
The clear preference for most Christians is the building in which the followers if Jesus gather to be called the church. Many commentators have stated quite forcefully, however, that we do not go to church, but gather as the church. Thus, they contend, the church is people, not buildings. Nevertheless, the reality remains that our default is to think about the building as the church. While this doesn't mean that the building isn't important, the church spoken of in the New Testament is, to be sure, not a meeting place, but a gathering of disciples who follow Jesus.
 
What then is the reason for gathering as a church?Those who have studied theology or the Bible will draw on the book of Acts and answer worship, education, service, missions, and fellowship. Most people who don't refer to the broad range of activities in which the early church was engaged will answer that it is for worship. It is equally important to realize that worship can also be experienced alone. The desert fathers worshiped God alone, underscoring that fact that worship is possible even if or when the church does not gather. If worship is the core of a church gathering, then it can be argued that a single individual alone at worship can be seen as a “church.” This is an inevitable consequence when we see the church primarily through the lens of worship.
 
This does not mean that local church worship is unscriptural. Even in the Old Testament, there are scenes of the Israelites worshiping God as a group, and early Christians participated in Jewish worship together. However, if we look back at the early history of the church in any nation, most of the churches did not have this form of public worship. This was because they had to flee due to persecution. This meant that it wasn’t only public gatherings for worship, so-called public worship, that were seen as true worship. When we are able to think of the church as people-centered rather than building-centered, we are freed from obsession with public worship.
 
What then is the core reason for gathering as a church? One suggestion is it's for fellowship (koinonia).Unlike worship, fellowship is not something you can experience alone.Of course, fellowship itself can be an expression of worship to God. Worship can occur naturally when the triad of 'God-others-me' fellowships together. The reverse is also possible. As we know from Acts of the Apostles, the early Jerusalem church was like that, where the dividing line between worship and fellowship was unclear The recently deceased professor, Alan Kreider, an Oxford historian of first-century Christianity, said that the fellowship of the Eucharist in worship engraved the character of Jesus into the hearts of Christians. This, and their Jesus-like character, allowed the gospel to spread most rapidly and widely during the period of the most severe persecution in history.

3. Worship or Fellowship?
Where worship, not fellowship, is the center of the church’s ministry, the appeal of the megachurch becomes inescapable. From the point of view of fellowship, it is ridiculous for members of the same community to call each other brothers and sisters, even if they have never spoken to each other after having attended the same church for over 20 years. From the perspective of fellowship, mass gatherings are not the essence of the church. It is clear from the biblical witness that the reality of the church is closer to fellowship than it is to worship.

The church is the followers of Jesus, and whenever they gather, they are, and become, the church.The daily life of followers of Jesus is filled with meetings at irregular times and places as scattered churches. I call this form of the church anepisodic church.These encounters also deserve to be called the church. In these encounters with God worship can occur; education, service, and missions can also occur. If fellowship becomes the main reason for church gatherings, many of the parts of our ministry that have been traditionally done can change and be transformed

4.  The Opportunity Before Us
The COVID-19 pandemic left much devastation and pain in its wake. Can it be that it has also left us with an unexpected gift? With it, also comes an opportunity for the church to foster a new imagination about the form of the church and break away from the dominant influences of the era of Christendom, when the church pursued and gained the power of the empire. That church shaped by Christendom which pursued power and money is being pushed to the periphery of society. The world, however, waits for a church that is appropriately prepared in the current situation to serve with compassion and care, becoming an instrument of healing and hope in the midst of despair and pain.

This article was first published as a feature article for Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference e-Update. Reprinted with permission.

SAVE THE DATE

The 9th commemoration of the Sewol Ferry Disaster will take place at
Immanual Presbyterian Church on April 15th @1:30pm - 3:30pm.
A special print exhibition by the Print Group from 우리 나눔 문화회 will be showcased in the lobby. 

**Prints will be on sale and all proceeds will go to victims of Sewol Ferry Disaster.