CTK And Coronavirus (I know I know. Just hear me out).

Love God. Love Neighbor. Love Savannah

That's why we are here (Jer. 29:4-7). What does that mean for our church during the time of coronavirus? It's not a simple question to answer- most of us exist along a continuum between EVERYBODY CALM DOWN and PANIC! I'd like to offer a couple thoughts, as well as deal with some practical matters as it will affect our community. 

1) What will we do?
A. We will obey all government instructions and restrictions about meetings, if such a thing occurs.
B. Until that time, we will continue to meet for worship and a meal, with appropriate hygienic considerations for the meal and communion as the situation calls for. Those preparations have already been made.
C. I have contacted the Chatham Emergency Managament Authority (CEMA), volunteering our congregation to help in case we are needed in the Edgemere, Ardsley, or Parkside area. I will be in touch about what that may mean for us when I hear back from them.

2) How should we feel?
At the beginning of the Second War World, CS Lewis gave an address to young scholars who were attending university at the beginning of a world- and epoch-defining event. He argues that the war (or in our case, the pandemic) is not an abnormal event; instead, it is an event which pulls us closer to the truly normal which we are prone to forget. The speech is worth quoting at length (simply substitute "war" for pandemic):
"The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life". Life has never been normal."
Because of this, Lewis argues that we should fight our own tendencies to excitement (thinking about pandemic when we should be thinking about our daily lives), frustration (anger that we will not be able to finish what we have started because of our lives being disrupted- this is what it means to live in a community!), and fear ("The Christians of the past thought it was a great blessing to be aware of your mortality... That is one of the pandemics great blessings. I am inclined to think they were right."). Read the whole thing if you want.

3) What examples shape our imagination?
We must both live as people who are confident in the promises of God, and willing to love our neighbors in costly ways. There are numerous examples in church history of Christians who, motivated by faith in God and love towards neighbor, served and sacrificed for their community in various ways. Here are examples from the early church and its response to Roman plagues, and here is the personal story of Martin Luther during the Black Death. Here is the example of some Christians from the modern Ebola outbreak. Let their examples inspire and give you confidence, even as we recognize that the impact of coronavirus will be much smaller than these examples.

4) What is our spiritual response?
Here is a prayer from the 8th century which many Christians have found helpful to pray in times of sickness:

Almighty God,
you know that we are surrounded by many great dangers,
and because of our human frailty
we cannot withstand them.
Give us health of mind and body
so that we who suffer under sin
may overcome and win the victory in you;
Give us courage to be a healing people
in our place and time.
Through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
 

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions, needs for help, or suggestions. See you Sunday!

What To Do When Being Kicked In The Head

“When I was nine, some kid beat me up for amusement, and when I came home crying to my father, his answer- Fight that boy or fight me- was godless, because it told me that there was no justice in the world, save the justice we dish out with our own hands. When I was twelve, six boys jumped off the number 28 bus headed to Mondawin Mall, threw me to the ground, and stomped on my head. But what struck me most that afternoon was not those boys but the godless, heathen adults walking by. Down there on the ground, my head literally being kicked in, I understood: no one, not my father, not the cops, and certainly not anyone’s God, was coming to save me.”

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

James KA Smith calls this “a respectable atheism.” There is no pretense of cool detachment or objectivity; only the visceral emotional objection to an unjust world. What does Jesus say to people getting kicked in the head? Or better, what does he do when he is getting kicked in the head? Check out our sermon on revenge and love below!

The Dying Church

“I ain’t afraid to die anymore. I done it already.” - Hugh Glass, The Revenant

What kind of church is ready to plant a church? What kind of people are ready to be a part of a church plant? Its simple: the kind that are ready to die. Because death in Christ is life forever.

Our pastor had the opportunity to speak on this topic this past Sunday to our brothers and sisters at Reformation Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, NC. Listen here!

Ordinary Light

We live in a world where BIG matters- big money, big business, big followers, big. In a world that privileges economies of scale, it can be tough to feel like an ordinary life matters.

Jesus disagrees.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes a bunch of ordinary people and tells them that they can be the light of the world. The question is, How?

New Sermon Below!

Putting the "Local" in Local Church

“Rather than calling us to transcendence, God forms us and guides us through place.”

- Hannah Anderson

What if part of our problem as Christians in the West is that we have swallowed the lie of “liquid modernity”: That the place where you are at present is secondary to where you are going, and what you might become? Read this excellent article on the importance of place in the Christian tradition.