Your Pastor May Not Open the Church

Everywhere I go people are talking about COVID-19 and how life has changed.  Debates abound as people interpret the data in a way that allows them to make salient points about death rates, public schools, mask-wearing, business openings, politics, mail-in balloting, and sporting events. One thing remains objectively true in this subjectively driven climate: we have lost faith in objective truth. Perhaps when we turned from God we also turned away from the exercise of faith and the process of learning where to wisely place our trust. 

If there was ever a need for the church, a need to worship, a need to pray, a need to find hope, a need to receive inspiration, a need to connect positively, that time is now. Now, more than ever, we need the church. Yet many churches will not open for corporate worship leaving some parishioners upset and confused.  

On one level I understand the frustration. Walmart is open, it never closed, why not my church? People are in the streets protesting, huge crowds, no social distancing, why not my church? Bars and restaurants are open, why not my church? Schools are opening, teachers are taking precautions, why not my pastor? The NFL, NBA, MLS, and MLB, all opening – teams playing, why not my church?

I served as a pastor for 25 years. So, I am going to attempt to suggest a few reasons why your pastor may be reluctant to open the church for worship. 

Reason One: Your pastor knows the church is not a business. I know I frustrated some on the Finance Committee of the churches I served. (God bless you, J.C. Calder, for your patience.)  While the church must operate in a financially responsible way and exercise great care with the resources entrusted to the ministry; your pastor does not believe the church is a business. I write this to let you know that withholding your giving to your church (or to God) will not influence your pastor to open the church for worship. Your pastor knows that the church is not a Walmart, the church is not a group of people protesting injustice, the church is not a school, the church is not an entertainment venue, the church is not a competition event. For many pastors, the church is the bride of Christ and the witness of Christ’s love for the world. The church, as a collective group of people, must have the same compassion, the same love, and the same concern for people that Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels. This is the same Jesus who told the story of a heroic shepherd that left ninety-nine sheep to save one (Luke 15). That Christ-like concern for people may be leading your pastor to delay opening for worship. You can be upset, make phone calls, send letters, and fire off e-mails. Yet, be aware that in seminary your pastor studied the life and writings of St. Stephen, Polycarp, John Wycliffe. John Huss, William Tyndale, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more recently Martin Luther King, Jr. All of these pastors died for their witness and refused to give in to what the culture wanted them to do and say. If your pastor is reluctant to open the church for worship, he or she is probably dug in. 

Reason Two: Your pastor has spent significant time in hospital waiting rooms. Most people simply do not understand the life of a pastor. I served as a pastor for over 25 years. There were 1,300 weeks in those 25 years or 9,100 days.  Most of those weeks, and too many of those days, I sat with families in a hospital waiting rooms while someone’s husband, wife, father, mother, son, or daughter lost the battle for life. I have seen the kind of grief, shock, and loss that cannot fully heal. I cannot tell you how many times I sat in an empty, closed, hospital cafeteria crying into a thirty-five cent cup of coffee because the prayers I offered up were not answered the way I had hoped. The thought that someone’s child, someone’s spouse, someone’s parent, someone’s grandparent might be sitting in a hospital waiting room, or sitting in a hospital parking lot, while their loved fights for life hooked to a respirator because I led the church to open for worship would be more than I, or most pastors, could bare. I know and have heard all the arguments about the odds, the cost-benefit analysis, our rights under the constitution, and the ratio of those who recover; but pastors by their very nature value life and despise loss. It is not a sign of weakness or laziness; it is knowing all too well the pain that death causes.  

Reason Three: Your pastor experiences the sacred outside the walls of the church.  I know how special it is to have a place where God can be found. I spent most of my career building such places for adults, youth, and kids. For many people, there is something transcendent about getting away from the world and connecting to God in sacred space. Vocationally, I pivoted to the non-profit world and today I deeply miss corporate worship and the connection to God I feel in its midst. Pastor’s love to have people in worship. It is exciting, affirming, and brings a lot of joy; but Sundays can be emotionally and spiritually draining. Your pastor has been connecting with God outside Sunday morning worship for a long time.  Whether it is through reading, fishing, photography, cycling, serving, or study he, or she, has created a bridge to sacred space. It is a habit, a way of life, a sabbath-pattern of disconnecting that refreshes their spirit and helps them reengage the community. They believe you can have this too. Perhaps, through COVID-19, God is seeking to teach all of us how to daily connect with the sacred on a deeper level. Peter, preaching in the temple was bold to point out, “The Most High does not live in houses made with human hands...” (Acts 7:14).  

Reason Four: Your pastor may not believe the church is about you.  Really. I suspect this may come as a shock to you. It is a hard pill to swallow because so much in the world is about us. We have become consumers in all we do. We shop for clothes, cars, houses, electronics, pets, and vacations. We shop for what we need and more significantly what we want. Often, we forget the difference between the two. The same is true for the church. We have become church “shoppers” and our wants have blinded us to our needs. Your pastor, however, may not see the church as a product to be consumed.  For him, or her, the church is not about what you want, it is about what God wants you to become. As a pastor, I hoped that when people committed to the church, they were seeking to follow Jesus in community, to serve together in unity, to encourage one another, and to be accountable for their walk and witness. Ultimately the goal is to draw people to the Gospel by the way we individually and collectively live our lives. Central to that purpose is exercising the kind of leadership that is consistent with the message and ministry of Jesus Christ with an eye toward those in life who are hurting, searching, and longing for a deeper and more eternal way to live. Your pastor may believe that it may be difficult to make a compelling case for living a life of sacrifice, self-denial, and devotion to God if its actions jeopardize the health of others.

The church in which my family worships is not open and has no plans to open for worship in the immediate future. Part of me understands it, part of me does not. All of me is committed to the leadership of my church. So, I have chosen to trust the leadership and witness that first drew me to the church. And, I have chosen to mistrust the louder voices I hear in the public square.

Your pastor may harbor some of these assumptions, and perhaps a few more. The church is a not a business. Death can be devastating to families.  The sacred can be found outside the walls of a sanctuary. The church is not about what you want but about God’s preferred future for others. 

A Word to Pastors. 

I suspect that people are hungry for meaning and connection to God. Teach them about weekly and daily sabbath and how to find sacred spaces. Help people explore and identify their spiritual gifts and how to use those gifts in the midst of COVID 19 to serve God. Now is a strategic time to introduce the classic spiritual disciplines.  Help people discover what you have come to know about connecting to God outside the walls of the church. 

Create online forums for people to share their experiences and how they are using their time, talent, and resources to give witness to Christ and the life of faith. Challenge and recognize sacrificial service and witness. When you see it, hear about it, go over the top with cards, messages, and posts that affirm the ways your people make Christ real. You would be surprised to discover how affirmation can lift people spiritually. 

Be transparent and authentic. Share your heart, not your vacation pictures. Many of your people are worried about so many things and many are not taking vacations.  Connect with them and carry some of those burdens. Do not ignore people who disagree with your decision to suspend corporate worship. Instead, hear their longing and share in their need for community. 

In all that you do and say, remind people that the church is not closed, but that they are the church to a world desperate for the living water Christ provides.