According to Barna, one in three practicing Christians has dropped out of church (even online) during COVID-19. Only 53% say they have streamed their regular church online within the past four weeks. Bible reading is also down.
Many churches I know are struggling to start meeting again. One church started Sunday services and then stopped again. “Since reopening … in early July, we haven’t had high enough registration numbers to continue our in-person services over the summer. We have decided to hit pause on our regathering … until the fall.”
“When will guests return to worship?” a mass email in my inbox asks. “This is not likely to be a time for new people to ‘check out’ your on-campus worship services. … Even online attendance from first-time viewers grows smaller as this time of pandemic extends farther.”
It’s easy to get discouraged because we’ve been at it so long, the results are so meagre, the appreciation so limited, and the obstacles are so huge. Sometimes we may even want to quit.
Let Us Not Grow Weary of Doing Good
“Let us not grow weary of doing good,” Paul writes (Galatians 6:9). It’s amazing how often Paul said something similar. No wonder: Paul faced a slew of issues that dwarf the issues we’re facing now. Paul is well qualified to speak to our weariness.
Paul’s message is clear: don’t lose heart as you do good. Persist in holy living, and help others — especially believers — even when you feel like giving up.
“Active Christian service is tiring, exacting work,” writes John Stott. “We are tempted to become discouraged, to slack off, even to give up.” Paul knows that we need this reminder because he understands how we’re likely to feel.
In Due Season
If we persist, here’s the payoff: “in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
I’m tempted to give up when it looks like my efforts aren’t paying off. Paul challenges my self-assessment: all faithfulness pays off, no matter how it seems to us. Doing good is like sowing seed. If we want a harvest, we must continue sowing seed even when we can’t see immediate results.
Paul directs our attention away from our present difficulties to the future harvest. Our job right now isn’t to measure results. Our job is to stay faithful, trusting that our sowing will produce results in the future as long as we don’t give up.
“We need to look ahead, to anticipate, to look forward to the eternal glories gleaming afar,” said Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “The Christian life is a tasting of the first-fruits of that great harvest which is to come.… Go on with your task whatever your feelings; keep on with your work. God will give the increase, He will send the rain of His gracious mercies as we need it. There will be an abundant harvest. Look forward to it. ‘Ye shall reap.’”
Don’t lose heart. Look to the future. COVID-19 is hard, but God’s people have been through hard times before. We’ll reap in due season, so don’t give up.