Chaos

I was wondering what would happen last week when I heard the Governor of Washington calling for no large gatherings. I saw a CFAN posting and wasn't sure how they were going to handle this, they are one of the larger congregations in Tacoma. I wondered what will happen if it happens here locally in Mississippi. And it did. Our Governor followed suit. So this morning we are seeing what will happen as our larger churches are facing the same thing. I am getting my answer. Hope Church Tupelo which has an attendance of 500 to 600 on a Sunday, I am not exactly sure of the numbers but it is large enough that we in obedience to civil authority, our Sunday service was shut down. We have live stream via Facebook. I see some differences, the drummer cage was moved to the center of the stage. The worship team is there, the Pastors and probably some of our support staff, which may equal the number in attendance of the churches I grew up in. Right now the live stream is showing 170. I know that when in attendance this number would be larger with all the families. It is comforting to see how the church was prepared ahead of time as we started showing our worship services some years ago on Facebook.  We will come through this storm, this chaos stronger as we do every storm. I was encouraged when our President in response to our present national crisis requested a National Day of Prayer. I know we have had a National Day of prayer for a long time. And in recent years it has been held in May. This one is different because it is in response to the Coronavirus. I am really encouraged to see what is happening and how our church is handling this crisis. Coronavirus is new and it has been spreading rapidly, but think back it is not the first new virus/disease to pass our way. Remember when we first heard about Aids or Ecoli, Swine flu, Bird flu, and so many others. Remember how fearful we were as we approached the year 2000 and the Y2K fears. Nothing happened. We have more deaths each year with the regular flu. But Coronavirus is new. I don't understand why the toilet paper shelves in the store are empty.  But we will get through this. Barbara and I made a choice to distance ourselves with some of our activities because this had already been a rough year with respiratory sickness and feel we would be vulnerable to this new virus if we came in contact with it, we are both in our mid-sixties.  One point I would like to emphasize is that the church is not that building that we meet in every week. It is us, individual Christians doing what we do outside the church building. I miss the gathering together, I really do. I remember the sign I saw when leaving the parking lot at CFAN in Tacoma years ago. It said you are now entering the mission field. This blog is just one little thing I do to be part of the church, by telling my individual story to anyone that will listen. I have tried to get the 12 or so Churches in Verona to meet once a month to pray for our town and our nation.   Our next meeting is April 4th in front of Verona Elementary School at 9:00 AM.  We are more the Church outside the doors of the church building than we are in it and this present crisis is bringing that to the forefront and we can thank God. There will be some good things that will happen because of this crisis, I believe that. God bless, LVZ.