Editor’s Note: 2020 has been a tremendously difficult year for the world. In fact, many of us want to throw it into a dumpster and forget it ever existed. But we know that God has been sovereign over and through 2020, and because of this, we know that there are real moments of grace and redemption.
To help us to identify these movements of God, we asked our SOLA Council members to share their reflections on what this pandemic and its consequences have revealed. We have collected their responses into a new SOLA series: “The Redemption of 2020.” We hope their thoughts and testimonies will be an encouragement to Christians and local churches as we enter into 2021 and beyond. This is the third installment of this series.
“The Power of the Church”
Owen Lee
When it comes to 2020 for me and our church, two things come to mind. The first is that it’s been really encouraging to see members of our church begin to see and assess the needs of our community, especially those who are really struggling.
Our church was blessed in that COVID didn’t impact us that badly in terms of people losing their jobs. Schedules had to get rearranged but most of us weren’t really hurting financially. So I was encouraged to see some of our members do things like organize drives.
For example, we started a new ministry where we partner with a local low-income elementary school, and once a month, we pack and serve 300 lunches to needy families. To see that grow legs, run, and have momentum has been satisfying for me as a pastor. It has been encouraging to see that happen at our church, where members are trying to be more mindful about loving our neighbors in our community.
The second thing is I’m learning to appreciate the things that we’ve taken for granted for so long. People are appreciating just how much we need community, how much we need fellowship, how much we need to do life and faith together.
On the last Sunday In October, we had our first communion in eight months. My goodness, that was the longest I’ve ever gone without having communion. There were about 35 or 40 of us gathered at the church, and that might have been the most powerful Lord’s Supper I’ve ever experienced. There’s just something about coming to the Lord’s table together.
There’s a sense of recovery of the sacredness and significance of the critical elements that we get to do together that we might have maybe taken for granted or we kind of lost the wonder of.
As we come back, I believe we’re going to come back appreciating a lot more the things that we just thought were there, or we just took for granted. Those are the clear blessings that I see emerging from 2020.
“The Resilience of the Church”
Michael Lee
When I think of the Redemption of 2020, I first think about the resilience of the church. From my vantage point and experience leading a church, there’s a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, and a lot of worst-case-scenario projecting. Pastors hear about church members not watching services anymore, people falling through the cracks, and the sheep getting scattered.
I had a lot of worry and anxiety for our church community and our church family. But if there’s one thing that I’ve really come to learn over these last eight months during this pandemic is that the church is much sturdier than I anticipated or thought. And it simply is because Jesus Christ is head of the church.
We don’t stand on our church programming, our church facilities, our church conveniences, or anything like that. But we stand on the rock of Jesus Christ, and he has carried us through some very difficult seasons over this past year.
I’ve often told our church that I’m just so proud of them. Seeing our church members continue to serve, give, worship, pray, and gather, whether it’s virtually or through some hybrid socially-distanced model, I’ve really come to be encouraged and remember that the church is sturdy and the church is strong because Christ is our head.
The second thing that encourages me and I see as a redemptive act in 2020 is that this has given our church a great opportunity to remember the importance of our witness and our mission — our mission to make disciples and our witness to be a loving, supporting neighbor to our local communities.
We’ve really been pressing and digging in on what it means for our church to be a church for the city. So this year, we’ve done more this year to support the homeless and to support those who are in difficult circumstances around us than we’ve ever done before. And it’s because our members have stepped up. They’ve really embraced this call that Jesus Christ gives us to be salt and light. That’s been really beautiful and really powerful.
I know that if we didn’t have this pandemic, there definitely wouldn’t be this kind of heightened sense of witness, responsibility, engagement, and concern for the poor, for the suffering, and the marginalized around us. And so, I think that has been awakening and re-centering for us.
At the same time, it’s also given us a reminder that we’re not called just to do kind of charitable things — we’re called to make disciples. We trying to continue to press into that great commission responsibility that Jesus has given us and so that’s been a good season for us as a church.