In China, house churches meet secretly in small groups because of increased persecution. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, if believers meet (and many times they cannot), they do it in secret. In India, the pro-Hindu government is using their lack of formal education to deny pastors the ability to preach. The Rwandan government is using building codes to close churches and educational requirements to silence pastors. Churches in Egypt are firebombed, and Nigerian believers are being exterminated in the northern part of the country. In much of Africa, churches meet in the open air because they don’t have a building. Israeli Christians meet on Shabbat (our Saturday), while in many Muslim countries, Christian congregations meet on Friday.
All over the world, Christians are persecuted, opposed, regulated, silenced, and challenged. In every case, God’s people adapt, change, and flex in order to obey the Biblical imperative to worship God “in Spirit and in truth”. The same should be true of us as we adapt to the new realities of a society under siege by the coronavirus.
Corporate worship seems to be the New Testament norm (see Hebrews 10.25), but worship is the imperative (see John 4.23-24). There are times and circumstances that require us to adapt our practice to avoid abandoning worship altogether. Scripture, itself, provides us with examples of circumstances where the norm did not fit: Paul holding Bible studies in a Roman prison, John in exile on Patmos, Peter preaching in Cornelius’ house, and the Ethiopian eunuch returning, alone, to an unbelieving country.
Even corporate worship can and does take many forms. When I travel to Ghana, I leave behind the calm, liturgical, scripted worship of CPC and enter an entirely different worship world. The worship in Ghana is loud, frenetic, and laissez-faire. It is full of ear-splitting music, simultaneous corporate prayer (often in tongues), dancing in the aisles, and immediate feedback to the preaching. Church bulletins are non-existent.
Worship in both of my worlds is joyful, reverent, and God-honoring, but they look and sound entirely different. The same Christ is Lord of them both, and the same Spirit animates their worship. I prefer our pattern, but I recognize the validity of theirs.
This virus has forced us to change our worship a bit. May God use this time of change to increase our appreciation for our many brethren who suffer under far greater hindrances, yet continue to worship the Triune God in Spirit and truth.
