For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Romans 12:3-8
When COVID-19 embedded itself into our society, it leveled the playing field. We were all immediately faced with the question, “How do I do this now?” Whatever “this” is. We all were starting from the same point… brand new uncharted territory. For some people it was how do I teach? For others it was how do I keep my restaurant open, and those in the medical profession wondered how they could see their patients. Churches weren’t any different. They too asked the question How do we do church when we can’t come together?
The blessing is we have started collaborating and supporting each other. Immediately people started to come together and brought their gifts of creativity, communication, big picture visioning and innovation. Bishop Hagiya sees the value in the sharing of ideas and innovation so much that he has set up a place for this to happen virtually. Messy Church USA has brought leaders of Messy Churches to share with others how they have continued to worship with their Messy Church congregations. Our Vacation Church Camp was the result of a few people collaborating together. At our staff meetings we regularly share ideas that we have come across while talking with others.
There are a couple of ironies in all of this collaboration. The first one is that while we are in a time where we have to socially distance ourselves, we are connecting with those who are not geographically close. They are people we would have never thought to collaborate with. In Romans, Paul tells us that we all have been blessed with different gifts and that together we make up the body of Christ. In this time, we all are using our God given gifts and coming together as one to be the church in the world. We have never been the church more than we are now. And that is the second irony.
I wonder how you are using your gifts to collaborate with others to be the body of Christ we’ve been called to be?
Dear God,
You surprise us all, just when we think we are in the dark you bring light to show us a new way. We give thanks for the opportunities to come together in different ways, near and far. We give thanks for the many gifts you give us to bring to these collaboration efforts so that we can be the church without coming together in one time and place.
Amen
Marty