by: Dave Harkey
Well, we have just gotten through what may be one of the toughest weeks we’ve been faced with in who knows how long and are well into the second week. There has been so much change in a very short period of time and, no doubt, it’s been stressful and there are tensions. It is times like these that I love to go spend time with my church family in discussion and worship, to get comfort from the storms of life; it is these times I love to be around people. I truly believe God made us to be relational and that He wants us to be together. He tells us in Hebrews 10:25 to not neglect our meeting together, but this seems hard to do right now in this time of social distancing.
We need to make sure we meet together and encourage each other. I don’t know about you, but as we go through this, I certainly can use some encouragement. Working from home, schooling from home, staying home – I see the challenges of this every day. I do thank God my kids are grown (those with little ones trying to do this are probably wishing they were grown). Who doesn’t need encouragement now (and maybe some other voices or faces)?
In James, we are told to be doers of the word and not hearers only (James 1:22). What is interesting to me is that the Greek word that was used for “doers” was taken from the word “poites”, the same word that was used for a poet - It carries the idea of creativity. So, one could infer from this that, when times make it difficult to be doers of the word, we have to get creative. I think that applies to us right now – especially when it comes to meeting together.
So how do we do this, how do we ‘meet’ while still keeping our distance and get that much-needed interaction that God has so wonderfully designed us for? It’s time to get creative! It’s time to use the tools that God has given us. For this, technology can be a wonderful thing – let’s use it to our advantage:
We can still meet as groups via a number of ways – we can video chat, we can use conference lines. We should make this a priority. Most of us already do this at work, let’s do it for connecting to one another
Make a phone call or face time a friend. We have a tendency to default to texting; but what a blessing it is to hear a voice or see a face. It’s happened a few times for me this week and, man, what a bright spot in my day it was.
Do church on Sunday morning via the live feed. You can take comfort in knowing others are there with you. Get the family in a room together and worship. Yeah, it’s different (a little, ok a lot, weird) but so worth it. We did this last week, our church did a great job with it. In our house, you would have laughed at us trying to sing together; but, for the first time in a long time we prayed together in a setting that wasn’t around a table of food or in a church setting – it warmed my heart. I’m looking forward to it again.
“And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
Hebrews 10:25
Amen!
God’s Peace,
Dave