It might be an alarming sight if you go to your church and find that on the entrance is a notice to say your church is closed but proceed to a certain address to find the same activities taking place there. A change of venue does not happen in some places, because the church building is a centuries-old venue that double as town hall and many other purposes and functions. As we learned from the 2020 lockdown, the effect might be felt in the same magnitude of previous flu pandemic or major wars, closure of such activities do happen, and these venues have themselves shut and locked, with the authority given powers to make sure that is so, in order to uphold necessary laws to control Covid-19.
Primacy of buildings is put in to wider context in this April 2020 interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
The early church met in synagogue and then increasingly in their homes. More critically, it then began to disperse, out of the synagogue, out of Jewish liturgical and cultural ways of doing things, out of the cluster of believers, and beyond. It did not have a geographical boundary. It might have a heaven-ward orientation than many of us can understand today. The point is that much of the “earth-bound” things are secondary.
It is dangerous to apply a broad brush to centuries of history.
The allegiance to a church building is probably not something the many early Christians have strong feelings about. If they could not meet in a building, room, or some venue, they organise themselves to meet elsewhere; underground, mountain top, early morning, large or small groups, and various other adaptable arrangements fitting for the time.
| What this could mean to us is that as lockdown begins to ease, and even one day we might be able to mingle in the same old way as before, greetings with kiss, handshake, hugging to console and congratulate etc., I don’t think we resume the kind of “sameness” as before the lockdown. We hold on to God, not tradition. Traditions give us identity, God gives us purpose. |
The greatest effect is the outcome of having used technology during the lockdown to maintain fellowship, care, support and whatever limited way we could do for wedding, funeral and baptism. Out come devices to get the latest hymns or poems, just plain projection will not do, why not use the picture as background, use that short clip to create atmosphere, and so on.
Those who are still need close contact that only personal visits and unrushed chats can satisfy. The use of technology is not far away; taking out the mobile phone require less use of “could I turn on my phone to show you a lovely poem?” It might not be rude or intrusive anymore.
A big sigh when we can meet again without lockdown rules.
It will have a sense of starting again.
Some church matters will need to pick up from before the lockdown. When the “freedom” returns, it might be that we have not met fully and “properly” for a year or more. Who knows, at the time of easing of lockdown, some church buildings might need to have their own lockdown due to repairs or some other major maintenance that the community of believers still can not meet fully and properly.
The point though is that the sense of starting again could be overwhelming. By then, the look and feel of the place that we so love, because we had not had used it continuously, we could feel a growing distance from it. In any case, their condition might have deteriorated. There could be then a long period of mental adjustment, as well as financial adjustment to restore working conditions. Or even replacing them with what is more contemporary, when many of us would have been using the latest version of social media and meeting software, because these are constantly updated without much of our choice.
