Over the past few months we have all had countless concerns about how life is going. We have concerns about our physical health, we have concerns about our extended family’s health, we have concerns about our job and financial situation, and concerns about whether or not the stores will have what we need. As a pastor of a church, all of those concerns are mine also; not just for me personally but for the flock as well. I want our church family to be physically safe, I want our people not to lose their job, and I want us to be taken care of. But if I were to be honest, the biggest concern I have for our church is the spiritual health of the people.
Now that is a concern regardless of the situation in the world. Of course I am just as concerned for the spiritual health of the people during the non-pandemic times as I am during the pandemic times. But it makes assessing the spiritual health of people much more difficult when I don’t see them for 8-10 weeks. Normally, I get to see most individuals every Sunday, and sometimes Wednesdays as well, and I can catch up with them to see how things are going. In fact, attendance itself can be a partial barometer of the spiritual health of people. If you show up week after week, ready to worship with your Bible that can lead me to believe things are going well in your walk with the Lord. If I don’t see you for weeks on end, or I see you looking saddened or distant, that might be communicating that all is not well in regards to spiritual health. Well, when I don’t see anybody for months then I have no idea of the spiritual health of the people.
Generally speaking, people fall into 1 of 3 categories when it comes to their spiritual health. First, there are the passionate people. They are on fire for God, excited to learn, and desire to be with other believers. They are happily engaged in the spiritual disciplines of Bible study, prayer, and worship. For these people the pastor must try to keep the flame burning bright. Second, there are the indifferent people. They are not really on fire for God, but they aren’t rejecting either. They are just stuck in neutral. Sometimes church is great, sometimes they casually ignore church. Sometimes they engage in the spiritual disciplines, other times the disciplines are absent for a time. These people need the pastor to splash them with gasoline to get that fire blazing. The third group is what we might call the disobedient people. They are actively living in violation of all the spiritual disciplines. No Bible reading, no prayer, no church attendance, etc. Or, the spiritual disciplines are shoddy at best. These people garner the most concern for the pastor. These people need to get lit up with the pastoral flamethrower.
Ideally the pastor wants to see all of his people in the passionate group. His work and his prayers center around moving people from category 2 and 3 to category 1. But now we throw in the curveball of a quarantine lockdown that requires people to not gather together around the Word. This causes the pastor to wonder where people are at, and if the passionate have moved backwards to indifferent or even disobedient. Or, have the indifferent regressed back to disobedient.
The church meetings are not only for worship and learning. They are also a form of accountability. If I’m not there for a while, someone might reach out to me and ask why. That is one of the blessings of a church family: mutual accountability. When you are not allowed to meet, that accountability goes out the window.
So, what I’d like individuals to do is to consider how this shelter-at-home has affected your spiritual health. Have you remained on fire for God? Are you just as passionate for the Lord as before? Or, have you begun to move towards indifference or disobedience. Thinking to yourself: ‘The live stream is coming on but I’ll go do other stuff.’
Of course, people can always move the opposite way as well. Maybe the disobedient are moving towards passionate now that church has been taken away. Maybe the indifferent see the need for individual spiritual disciplines because of the increase in free time. Where are you at in your spiritual health?
I now have a better understanding of what Paul meant when he said in 2 Cor 11:28, “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.” He had multiple churches to be concerned about. And, he couldn’t regularly see those believers for months at a time. Now that it seems that church meetings are able to continue, hopefully we will be able to continue that good work of seeing people become passionate about the Lord.