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 second in our series.
When I think of the Redemption of 2020, if you’re in Los Angeles, then we have to say the Lakers and Dodgers. Winning the championship was a common grace blessing of redemption.
But when it comes to the spiritual realm and when it comes to the church, one of the redemptive aspects of 2020 really is a re-emphasis on the family unit. Coming from churches where there are a lot of programs and a lot of ministries, when COVID first hit, families were forced to worship together at home. It may have been the very first time they were in the same room and going through Sundays together. And families who had relational issues had to bring it out and talk about it. So God willing, if you’re part of a Christ-centered family that’s grounded on the gospel, then COVID and this entire time have been a time to address the family’s needs.
For pastors and for churches, with everything going on socially and politically, that’s also an opportunity to equip families. What’s been encouraging for our church is to try to encourage our people not to be co-opted by any political agenda. So whether you lean to the right or to the left, teaching them to go back to a Christ-centered worldview and go back to Scripture.
We talked to some of our parents and certain members who were very concerned about losing religious freedom. We reminded them that ultimately it’s not litigation that protects religious freedom. Yes, that’s one way, but it’s really the family unit [that protects religious freedom]. Because whatever happens in the schools, in the government, the media, or on the playing field, nobody can come into your home and tell you what you can or can’t say around the dinner table. Nobody can come in and tell you how to raise your kids or whether you could preach the gospel to them or not.
So if you’re afraid of losing your religious freedom, it comes back down to equipping the families to make disciples of Jesus Christ within the families and in subsequent generations. These are the families that are going to generate future voters. And if [their children] go out there, remembering the ideas that they’ve been taught in the home, then you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to get angry, and you don’t have to be co-opted by politics.
If you’re more fearful of losing civility and you’re troubled because of injustice that you see, it’s the same thing — it’s back to the family unit. It’s what parents and siblings talk to each other about. It’s the conversations that happen around the dinner table about how to view people, how to love our neighbor, and how everyone’s created in the image of God.
At the end of the day, for us, as Christians, we have a higher kingdom that we live for. We have a king, and his agenda is very different from any political agenda.
Even in dealing with conflict and dealing with generational conflict within families, it’s been an opportunity to talk about how the gospel is our anchor for unity, and the gospel is our hope for the future. So being able to refocus on the family unit has been one of the most redemptive things happening in our church.