Your God is too small

 

Your God is too small - Churches breaking Covid guidance

At the end of March churches closed along with almost every gathering place in the UK.  Since the summer we have begun to reopen – some churches, with careful planning, covid risk assessments and measures.   Some are not yet open, those that are open follow careful guidelines to protect us from spreading even if someone carried the virus.

In the meantime we (the church in general in its many forms) have discovered online meeting – by broadcast or interactive methods; we have supported people through phone calls and doorstep distant visiting.  We have conducted funerals, offered recorded school assemblies, delivered worship resources to those not online, supported foodbanks and much more.

The Welsh ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown includes three Sundays – just three. Yet one church at least has refused to comply and then claims persecution when neighbours reported their gathering and the police arrived to investigate.   Police who allowed them 5 min to finish their service; police who did not fine them although they had the right to.  Whilst the misnamed Christian Concern have made lockdown closures a matter for legal action, in the name of ‘church leaders’ which turn out to be a very select few.   Comments on their facebook posts give worrying insights into a paranoid faith, suggestions that zoom is not worship, that only in gathering face to face can God speak to the church.

When a few individual churches and their leaders cry persecution for being asked to close their buildings to help public safety I think they have too limited a view of their faith and of our God. When they complain that they are being prevented from worshipping they show that they do not understand that worship is not dependent on being physically in one place. Many of us have learned how real online meeting can be, more than virtual.  Would we like to be back to life BC – Before Covid – with songs of praise, hugs over coffee, face to face church? Of course we would, but that is not where we are.

We are in a place where wearing masks show care for those we may encounter; where living with restrictions is part of love for our neighbours, a willingness to walk with others.   If being treated the same as all other gathering places, as all other faiths is called persecution then what are you saying about your community?  Those who claim special rights for the churches place themselves aloof, separate, thinking they are better than the people they live among.  This is not the way of Jesus, this is not my understanding of God.    I prefer the Zoom Blessing

Your God is too small

When you say that only meeting in person is being church

        Your God is too small

When you say that you need to sing to worship

        Your God is too small

When you say you have been banned from worshipping

        Your God is too small

When you plead persecution rather than care for your flock

        Your love is too small

When you fight against public safety to score points

        Your love is too small

When you think you are above the law

        Your love is too small

God came among us as 'word made flesh'

        How vast is the love of God

Jesus sat with the marginalised, the vulnerable

        How vast is the love of God 

God's Spirit is with us in all places and times

        How vast is the love of God