Holy Week & COVID-19…It’s Different!

Undoubtedly you’ve poured enormous leadership energy into innovating the last few weeks. Preparing for “this” week.

Well done.

On Monday morning congregational leaders all across the US will wake up to a collective… 

• “What now?” …
• “How long will this last?” … 
• “All things finances…” (Read Todd’s blog.) … 
• “Wish we would have made changes sooner.”

And, PLI will be ready for next week…next week, to help.

Today, this is what hasn’t changed:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. 

2 Corinthians 5:19

I’m always at risk of thinking, like most people I suppose, of dismissing my desperate need for God to intervene.

Any time I stood in front of a group of any size I assumed someone(s) measured their stature with God, and their eternal prospects as well, by their perception of doing/not doing the right things…never conceding that we are desperately outmatched in that game. We’re actually hostile, enemies of God. There is NO good in us, at all!

The only “solution”–intervention–was for the Father in heaven to send his Son! Of course, fully God and fully man. Counted among the oppressed, the poor. Humble!    

“Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 

Matthew 8:20

Jesus… 

• Rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. 
• Ate His/the Last Supper with the disciples in a borrowed room.
• Was buried in a borrowed grave.   

Unfairly tried! Lynched! On a Cross!

Is it possible that the lethargy of the American church is at least partially rooted in a failure to value the sweetness of the Gospel? Things were so bad for us poor and miserable sinners that the only answer was found in the sacrifice by the One who had reigned in heaven and now reigns again. When we haven’t been saved from much it’s difficult to allow the wonderful grace of God to flow through our hearts.

Interestingly, most of my years as a pastor in a congregation were so full of worship services and sermons in seasons like this that I was challenged to help hundreds and hundreds of people hear with fresh ears while I was challenged for quiet “times” to allow the soberness of my reality and the sweetness of grace to course through my own heart.

Holy Week! Covid-19! It’s different!

Now might be the right time for a few moments to embrace the tragedy and the sweetness of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ.

Download today The Church in 2030 (download the epub or a PDF).  Invite your leaders to do the same. 

COVID-19: Surviving and Thriving Relationally and Emotionally

Join Gail Ficken and Rev. Dr. Justin Hanneman for a webinar on Thursday, April 16, 12:30 pm CDT.