By Rev. Matt Young
I’m really excited to have the opportunity this coming Sunday to physically gather together again with our Drive-In Worship Service at 10am.
During this time of quarantine and COVID-19 we have all had to adapt to some new lifestyle changes. From work, to family, to schooling, to participating as the church, we have all had to make necessary changes for a temporary time.
One of the ways we had to adapt was by “gathering” virtually Sunday mornings.
I have personally taken away a lot of good experiences from this. In particular, the biggest thing I took away was a greater understanding of how absolutely necessary the physically gathered church really is.
It’s not that I didn’t think the physical gathering of the church wasn’t necessary. Certainly I did. Rather it’s that I had not experienced, in my Christian life, what it was like to be separated from the physically gathered church.
In Acts 2:41-42, Luke records this just after the Apostle Peter (one of Jesus’ inner circle followers) preached a sermon to a city filled with a diversity of people who didn’t know about the good news of Jesus.
“So those who received his word (concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) were baptized (that is they became Christians) and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
So these three thousand people who come to faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior all devote their lives to several essential things. But for the purpose of this devotional, I’ll just mention the second one.
They devoted themselves to the fellowship, that is the physically gathered church.
The church saw their physical gathering as essential to them being the church. Remember, the church isn’t a building, the church is the people of Jesus Christ. Therefore, they saw their act of gathering together as essential to who they are.
But why?
The Apostle Paul writes, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do no all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Why do we need to gather together? It’s because we were made to worship God with one another. We were made to complement one another as the body of Christ. So we are members of the body and the body is made up of each of us and each of us as individuals are accountable to one another. That’s a lot of focus on us as a collective worshiping church!
So let us devote ourselves to the fellowship as we have the ability to safely gather together this Sunday. Let us give our lives to worshiping God together, give praise to him and encouraging one another.
I can’t express this enough: I’m really excited to physically gather together in our Drive-In Worship Service this Sunday at 10am. I invite you to join us as we worship our God and gather together as his church!