Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

I was struck by how quickly our local Presbytery (“Giddings-Lovejoy,” western Illinois, eastern Missouri) suggested the shutdown  of worship services last Sunday (March 15).  Unfortunately the attendance in many Presbyterian churches would make the six-foot distancing recommendations easily practiced. We had already learned on previous Sundays how to “pass the peace” without physical contact. And corporate worship is what the organized church is all about. How did the church get ahead of the curve, while almost every other place of assembly from movie theaters to restaurants remained open?

We do not live in a high-risk zone as far as the early onset of the coronavirus is concerned.  It took a full week for Missouri to catch up with Illinois by regulating the numbers of people allowed to assemble or to shut down the schools. It was a full week before the order came from the city and county of St. Louis for area residents to stay home, although there was earlier caution about assembling in groups of fifty or larger.

So why were we worshipping at home on March 15?  Maybe Presbyterians are over-cautious. Maybe we are over-represented among the 70+ demographic that is at high risk for the virus. Or maybe we recognized danger, because we knew the “conviction of things unseen.” While every institution of society was calculating the political or economic impact of closing down, the church was praying and seeking discernment of how to protect its people.

Maybe this is a little smug for a Presbyterian to be proud of his church getting ahead of the curve for once. The decision to stay home came very late last weekend, and the church was challenged to reach members who did not use the internet for information. Our skeletal worship service still went out on YouTube with some challenges to WiFi. We missed the opportunity to sing corporately and to collect the offerings, but we tried to conduct worship as usual.

” . . . for we walk by faith and not by sight,” (II Corinthians 5:7).  We knew three things, based on faith and hunches:

1. We did not need visible evidence to believe that there was a pandemic.
2. We did not need physical presence to conduct worship
3. We did not need to decide based on the economic impact on local churches.

Although we lived in a state where the earliest impact of the coronavirus was not significant, we could believe in its potential impact. Probably you just need to follow the media to figure this out, and yet authoritative media, such as Fox News were still denying the impact of the virus ten days ago. We did not need to know somebody with the coronavirus to believe there was imminent danger from the virus.

We understood that corporate worship was more than the physical trappings of a church. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).  I cannot claim that all members of the denomination observed worship last Sunday, but I know some of us did, based on the YouTube feedback. I know we will be better prepared this Sunday, especially those of us on social media and familiar with the church’s website.

We decided the loss of offerings in the plate we pass in church was not a consideration in closing the physical doors of the church. Admittedly many church-goers are contributing by monthly electronic deductions, but the plate is still passed, and it does not return empty.  Naturally church members are encouraged to send in their tithes and offerings, but we know some will not.

Faith is the deciding factor in each of these considerations. We walk by faith, even to the extent of closing the doors of the church. How will we survive this practice for weeks, even months? Can the church exist without a physical assembling of its members? We don’t know, but we walk by faith.

How will we worship God “in spirit and in truth”? We are not sure, but we will try again at YouTube church today. We will celebrate over social media,  we will try to identify each other’s needs locally and globally, we will get into the open air when we can, and we will tell stories about meeting God in unfamiliar places. It is all new territory for a church of brick and mortar, but “faith is the conviction of things unseen.” We are doing what we have always done, but without the physical evidence, without knowing what is to come.