Why We Won’t Gather This Sunday
We want everything we do at Cities Church to be for the glory of Jesus, and that includes deciding whether it’s wisest for our church, and for our neighbors, that we gather by the hundreds this Sunday morning in light of COVID-19.
The pastors met last night to pray and wrestle on this important topic in these unusual days, and we have decided not to gather this Sunday (March 15).
We want to be part of the collective preventative effort to stem the tide, and we have particular dynamics in our older building to navigate. We also are postponing tomorrow’s workday at the building until a more opportune time.
The pastors have been following the updates about COVID-19 this week, and we did our best, as a team, to evaluate what might be the best course for our congregation and neighbors.
We realize that there are good and bad reasons to cancel, or not cancel, and as we engaged the topic last night we humbled ourselves before our Father in prayer and asked for a special unity to emerge among us.
We believe God answered that prayer as we sifted through the available information and tried to discern, as your pastors, the best plan for our particular church.
Why Not Gather?
We want to be clear that we do not believe that our plan for this weekend should be the plan of every church. It’s been disappointing to see the ways that some have seized this strange situation as an opportunity to virtue signal online or stigmatize groups that decide to cancel or not. We don’t want any part in that, nor do we want to react fearfully and spread panic. In fact, to be clear, as of this morning, the Minnesota Department of Health is not yet issuing a recommendation that churches cancel their services. [UPDATE: A recommendation has now been issued as of March 13, 5:29pm.]
Our decision is due in part to our limited capacity to take the level of precautions necessary, in our particular facility, to guard against this virus that we know so little about.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend a long list of precautions that we are not prepared to implement in our space for this Sunday. Therefore, it seems best to employ a “doctrine of carefulness” (as we talked about with the sixth commandment) and not gather this weekend.
What Is Cancelled and How Long?
In addition to this Sunday’s service, we are also cancelling tomorrow’s workday in the building. We have had a wonderful response to the workday this week, but it seems best to postpone this first-of-its-kind event. Instead of hosting the full workday, a smaller group will focus on deep-cleaning the kids’ toys and childcare space.
At this point, we are only cancelling the workday and worship services for this weekend, March 14–15. We have not yet determined whether we ought to cancel or postpone any other scheduled events.
As we closely monitor the rapid inflow of new information, we will maintain regular communication with you about our plans for our rhythms of life together as a church in this season. Also, as your pastors, we hope to use the technological means available to us to not only keep you informed, but also fed spiritually.
The main essential of our church is the worship of Jesus together — which is much more important than anything the NBA or NCAA does. So while we’re not gathering corporately this Sunday, we do encourage families, households, roommates, and other smaller groups to keep our 10am commitment to worship Jesus together this Sunday morning.
Pastor Nick is currently crafting a liturgy for household worship that we plan to send to you by Saturday evening. [UPDATE: view that liturgy (PDF).]
Opportunity Before Us
As your pastors, we want you to know we are not sitting this one out. We’re leaning even further in. This is our time, church. We have a message and hope tailor-made for days when Disneyland is closed. Might God be pleased to use us in these days to love our neighbors in some previously unforeseen ways?
As a church, we are not risk-averse, but we want to take the right risks at the right time, so that our light shines (Matthew 5:16), like Christians of previous ages, who made a name for Christ in pandemics by not simply running to protect themselves but were ready, knowing our Lord has defeated death, to expose themselves to risk to help others in their suffering. If the worst eventually comes to our city, we want to be ready. And we want to do our part, under God, to prevent the worst from happening.
Would you join the pastors in praying about what God might be calling us to as a church in the days to come for the name of Jesus? We can’t make perfect calculations about that. Yet we’re not left to ourselves. God has given us each other, for collective wisdom, and God has given us his Spirit, who not only leads and guides individuals but also churches. And perhaps churches all the more!
Let’s make this pandemic, among other things, a call to prayer, that God, who is already being amazingly merciful in this (it could be so much worse), would stem the tide even more, pour out even more mercy, and protect, in particular, our weakest and most vulnerable who seem to be most in harm’s way as this virus spreads.
Our God is sovereign over disease. This we know. And our God has removed for us in Christ the sting of death. In Christ, corona cannot kill our souls. The mortality rate for humans in this age is already 100%, unless Christ returns first. Corona is not introducing any fundamentally new threat to our lives. But it is changing the nearness of death for many, and it’s giving us all the grace now of reckoning with the fear of death that so many try to avoid and build their whole lives on repressing.
So, Cities Church, let’s be ready. Not just with groceries and disinfectant for ourselves. Yes, let’s do what we can, within reason, to protect our children and aging family members. But let’s be ready, when love calls, to care about something more than our own protection. For the glory of Christ, seeking the good of our neighbors and our city.
– Pastors Jonathan Parnell and David Mathis
On behalf of the pastoral team