TRC Questions #6: Why Zoom?

Why did we choose to use the Zoom platform for our worship services during the pandemic? Why not just use a streaming media service as so many other churches have opted to do?

To understand this, we have to first ask and answer the question, "Why do we worship corporately in the first place?" Why do we gather for worship as Christians?

In this week's video, I begin to answer the questions above. This will be the first of a multi-part answer that will be broken down over the next few weeks. Here's this week's video:

Over the next few days I'll provide further reflection on application and prayer, as I have been doing.

TRC Questions #5: Application and Prayer

In light of the discussion about trusting God versus testing God, and the brief synopsis the I gave about the decision-making process that Shane and I are employing, I wanted to offer the following reflections about application and prayer on this topic.

Application Questions

• What are some ways where you have seen God's providence in common, everyday ways? Can you make a short list of ways that God provides for you through ordinary means?
• Who are some of the wisest people that you know? What makes you think of them as "wise"? How do you see trusting in God's providence linked to wisdom in them?
• What are some ways that you are tempted to test God instead of trust him? 
• How are the wise people in your life responding to the pandemic? What responses do you consider to be foolish? Do you see others testing God in their words and actions, in response to the pandemic?
• What questions do YOU feel need to be answered satisfactorily, before you will feel comfortable with Trinity Church resuming regular corporate worship? Where will you turn for answers to those questions?
• What questions do you believe the elders need to ask and answer before we should call for resuming regular corporate worship? (Would you list them in the comments to this blog please?)

Prayer

• O Lord, give me patience and wisdom at all times, and help me to trust in you and your divine providence. Protect me from the temptations to doubt, act foolishly, or test you in any way.
• Father, during this season of isolation during the pandemic, grant me a particular wisdom to act in trust of your providence, and guide me away from testing you by my words, actions, or thoughts.
• Dear God, give me wisdom about how much I should expose myself—and through so doing, also expose others—even after civic leaders have lifted restrictions about "social distancing." Let my trust in you, and in the advice of those who know and understand how pandemics function, guide me in my actions. 
• Lord, grant wisdom and insight to the elders of the church as they seek answers to the questions they are asking regarding resuming ordinary worship services. Help them, that the decision to resume would be neither too soon nor too long, but when it is good, right, and fitting to do so.
• God, sustain all of us with patience and perseverance during this strange season of isolation, and help us to endure well through the remainder of the time when we must isolate. May it be all that much sweeter to gather once the isolation is lifted.

TRC Questions #5: Trusting God vs. Testing God

In this week's discussion, I talk about the difference between trusting God and his providence, versus testing God, during times of crisis or need. I also explain some of the practical considerations that the TRC session is taking in thinking toward resuming weekly public worship in a face-to-face, in-person way.

At the end of the video, I invite your feedback: if you have any thoughts about the kinds of questions we need to ask and answer in considering resuming worship in-person, we want to hear them. Please give your input in comments below.

Here's this week's video:

TRC Questions #4: Application and Prayer

Yesterday we looked at Luke 10, the parable of the "Good Samaritan"—and how that passage emphasizes for us some of the principles of loving our neighbors that are instructive during a pandemic crisis.

Today let's consider some possible points of application, and some ways we can pray, in light of this.

Application

• Who is YOUR neighbor? Make a list of everyone who you can think of that, according to the parameters in Luke 10, would qualify as your neighbor. NOTE: there may be people whose names you don't even know, but should be included (i.e., "the clerk at the store I visit weekly" or "that new employee I haven't met yet").
• Reflect carefully: if you found out one of these neighbors was in distress, how would you respond? What would you do, say, and/or pray for them? Be as honest with yourself as you can about what your instincts would lead you to do.
• How does neighbor-love shape the way that you have reacted to the pandemic isolation? Does it motivate you to act (or to opt not to act) in some way that you normally wouldn't? Does it give you patience and endurance for things that otherwise would make you frustrated?
• Consider what 1 Corinthians 13 says about what love is. Most often we consider that "love chapter" with regards to romantic love, but take a few minutes to apply it to the idea of neighbor love. How does that re-shape your picture of what loving our neighbors looks like?
• How can Trinity Church love our neighbors better as a congregation? Do you agree that, as an expression of neighbor-love, ceasing to meet in person for worship is a good decision? 
• What hopes do you have for Trinity to extend greater love to neighbor in the future? Can you think of something that we could do, which we haven't? (Reply or leave a comment if so, telling us what it is!)

Prayer

• Father, I pray that you would teach me more every day of how I am to love my neighbor and what that requires of me. Increase my willingness to do so, and give me motivation to expend myself for the sake of others.
• God, please reveal to me the ways that I have not loved my neighbors well, especially during this pandemic, and grant me a contrite heart for where I have fallen short of what you've commanded me to do. Turn my focus from myself and my own comfort and ease to the service and care of others.
• Lord, please use the many acts of loving neighbor—my own, those of my friends and family, and from Christians across the world—to bring hope and grace to those in need of it, and draw our neighbors closer to you through acts of love.
• God, also use the acts of social distancing (whether it is motivated by love for neighbor or not) to effectively reduce the spread of this virus, and bring us back soon to a point where we can make contact with one another again.
• Father, reveal to your congregation of Trinity Church, and especially to the elders, ways in which we might love our neighbors better, more fully, more completely. Help us to have the willingness and selflessness to carry out these acts as we are able.

Trinity Questions #4: What about those churches that ARE meeting?

The most recent question I was asked, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, is what my thoughts were about those churches that had determined NOT to cease meeting—and how that squares with the decision that we made regarding Trinity.

In this week's video I answer that question. Here it is:

Tomorrow I will post more, particularly with regard to application and prayer.

Trinity Questions #3: Fasting and Prayer—Resources and Prayer List

Yesterday I posted a video discussing the call for a congregation-wide day of fasting and prayer. Today I want to give you a few resources that will help you flesh out your sense of fasting and prayer even more.

Resources

To begin with, ByFaith magazine has a brief summary of the call for a day of prayer and fasting from the denominations mentioned in the video:

https://byfaithonline.com/a-call-for-prayer-fasting-good-friday/

Within that article, they provide a few links to other helpful resources:

• From the ACNA, the Most Reverend Dr. Foley Beach, archbishop, has offered A Guide to Prayer and Fasting.
• Dr. Richard Pratt, President of Third Mill Ministries, has also provided A Guide to Prayer and Fasting.
• There is also a Suggested Prayer List.

Finally, there is another article out there from Reformed Worship magazine, called A Primer on Congregational Fasting.

Prayer

The suggested prayer list provided in the ByFaith article is a very good resource. Some additional ways to pray beyond that, with more particular detail for our congregation.

• Pray for Trinity church members to remain healthy and virus-free, especially those who are older or have chronic illnesses.
• Pray for those of our members who must continue to work away from home to remain safe and protected from contagion and infection.
• Pray that Trinity would have ways and opportunities to minister to Rossville and Fayette County during the pandemic and following it.
• Pray that those in Fayette County and Rossville who are searching for truth and foundations would find it in Christ.

Trinity Questions #3: Fasting and Prayer

Continuing on through our discussions about questions and ideas about facing the pandemic, this week we will consider something that was announced on Sunday: that our Trinity session has called for a day of prayer and fasting on Good Friday, April 10.

What does that mean? Here's a video discussing it.

More to follow on Thursday.

Trinity Questions #2: Why? Prayers

Continuing on in our reflections about the mysteries of God, and how we live with them (and even embrace them) during challenging times, let's think about how we ought to pray about both the mysteries of God and the answers we sometimes seek.

Personal

Lord, for myself I pray that...

• I would learn to accept the limitations of my own knowledge and control of the world I live in, and that these limitations would increase my faith and trust in you.
• In times of crisis, trial, or challenge, I would embrace the mysteries of the faith and not push back against them, because I would see that your ways are higher than my ways, and your thoughts higher than mine.
• You would protect me from the temptation to think or speak with too much certainty or confidence in my knowledge of "why" things happen—from thinking that I am "wise in this age" and from "boasting in men."
• In times of anxiety, fear, depression, or doubt, that you would comfort me with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit and remind my soul that, while I may not know why things are happening the way that they are or how you will bring redemption during difficult circumstances, YOU know all things and can (and will) bring redemption to even the most challenging experiences.

Community/Church

Lord, for our church and community I pray that...

• Trinity Reformed Church would be a community where it is safe and healthy to embrace the mysteries of God, and not one in which we presume to know more of your ways than we actually can or do.
• In our local area—Rossville, Fayette County, the metro Memphis area—we would be a beacon of hope and encouragement even during mysterious times.
• All Christians would trust more, and believe more, in your higher ways, not boasting in men, and that our faith would draw unbelievers to you, inviting them into faith.

Trinity Questions #2: Why? Application

As we think about how to apply the idea of these "mysteries" in our lives—particularly during the hardest times—it can be challenging to make any sense of it at all.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the foolishness of boastful knowledge or certainty about the ways of God. Isaiah, centuries earlier, prophesied similarly, saying, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8–9). And Job, when faced with immense personal tragedy about which he had no understanding or justification, said of God, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him"—but he also said immediately following, "Yet I will argue my ways to his face" (Job 13:15).

It may be helpful in this case to ask application questions, rather than instruction-like statements.

Personal

• What drives you to feel the need to ask "why"? Is this a question of simple curiosity? A longing to know the reasons for everything? A sense of "deserving" to have the wrongs of the world justified? Something else? Does Paul's admonishment in 1 Corinthians speak to our hearts about this at all?
• Why do we, like Job, feel that we have a right to "argue our ways" to God's face? Do we have a right to know why things happen to us, or to others? How did that work out for Job?
• When bad things happen to you or around you, is your instinct to think, "God has it in for me"? Why do you think people—especially Christians—think of crises and tragedies as punishment? Are there other ways to think of them? How does this sense of punishment fit with Christ's atonement through the cross?
• Often, the objection that a good God wouldn't allow bad things to happen is offered as evidence that God doesn't exist. What is the weakness of this argument? Would it be more comforting to believe that there was no God, rather than to believe that, for some reason, God allows bad things to happen? Is it arrogant to think that, if God exists, we must be able to understand all that he does and allows? (How does that fit with Isaiah's prophecy?)
• What does it take to embrace "mystery" as a Christian? What does it require of you in terms of trusting God? What stands in the way of trusting him in that way?

Community/Church

• People often look to the church and/or to God during times of crisis. What are some of the answers they would find? What comforts do the church offer to those seeking solace?
• How does the church's identity as "the body of Christ" fit into this puzzle? Is there a sense that the church, as Christ's body, is a comforting presence in itself, without being able to offer clear or comprehensive answers to these hard questions?
• The members of Trinity are no strangers to the trials and hard parts of our fallen world. What comfort can we offer to one another through our own experiences of grief and personal crisis? How can we offer those comforts to our neighbors outside of Trinity?
• In what ways does the worship liturgy that we use call us to see the "higher ways" of God, and to embrace the mysteries of the faith? How about other aspects of our life together as a congregation? How could these fulfill those goals more fully?

Trinity Questions #2: Why?

Continuing with our series of questions asked during times of crisis, today we look (way too briefly) at one of the biggest: Why? Why do these things happen? Why does a sovereign God allow them to happen?

This is an age-old question, not unique to any particular time, circumstance, or crisis. Nevertheless, it's a question that gets asked frequently, by believers and non-believers alike.

Here's our video:

A couple of side notes:

First, my apologies for the lateness of this one. Circumstances prevented me from getting it completed sooner.

Second, my apologies also about the quality and unfamiliar setting. This was actually videoed in my home office/study space, because appointments I had on Tuesday and Wednesday kept me from having time to do this from my study at the church.

More to come tomorrow!