What a bewildering couple of years.
When the pandemic began, Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard wrote, “We need to treat COVID-19 as an economic and cultural blizzard, winter, and beginning of a ‘little ice age’ — a once-in-a-lifetime change that is likely to affect our lives and organizations for years.”
Last week, Andy Crouch added, “Our core argument was that the epidemiology, per se, was not going to be the big story of the ’20s. It would be other, more consequential cultural events downstream.” It feels like we’re living through that now: convoys, polarization, economic uncertainty, war, and more.
Crouch suggests that we respond by praying, showing mercy, making and keeping promises, and mending the damage caused by broken promises. We need faithful Christians to respond in all kinds of ways: by advocating for peace, practicing law, running for office, teaching children, changing diapers, and more.
But we also need the church to continue to be the church.
In times of crisis, it’s tempting for the church to get distracted from its mission. Assembling for corporate worship, the preaching of the Word, baptizing, teaching and catechizing all seem like inadequate responses when the world seems to be falling apart.
What the world needs most from the church, though, is for the church to be the church. Every week, the Word of God advances as it is faithfully preached. Disciples are made. Prayers are offered. People are loved. People are baptized. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated. It all happen in slow motion: we don’t see the results right away, but the ordinary means of grace accomplish more than when the church gets distracted from its mission by the pressures of the day.
Don’t get me wrong. The church must address the issues of the day. John Stott’s image was right: we preach between two worlds, a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other. We don’t stand aloof from the issues our people face. We pay special attention to the cultural drifts that threaten to move us from the gospel.
But we believe in the power of the Word. We believe that the Word will do its work as it’s preached, that it will train men and women for godliness, and that the church’s ordinary ministry will, in the long run, accomplish more than anything else the church can do. The early church affected change through its patient, faithful work of making disciples, and we must too.
The gospel will outlast wars and empires and provide hope in times of crisis and upheaval. It all may happen much slower than we’d like, but it’s happening. It’s unstoppable.
So this Sunday, we’ll gather again as God’s people. We’ll pray and lament. We’ll sing and remind ourselves of what we’re quick to forget. We will open Scripture and be reminded of what God says is true. We’ll come to the table and be reminded of what Jesus has done for us. None of it will look like much, but it’s exactly what we need.
And then we’ll go out and, with God’s help, use our lives to love God and others.
The world needs a lot of things right now, but what it needs from the church is for the church to do its work. Drip, drip, drip. Keep preaching. Keep praying. Keep hoping.