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Feldhahn: Christian love in a time of coronavirus | features

 


The impact of the coronavirus is an ongoing global natural disaster. The disciples of Jesus have a choice to make.

When COVID-19 was mainly in China or Italy, it originally looked like a horrible car wreck on the highway which we couldn't look away from. But in the past few days, it has suddenly become Category 5 towards our city. Or the earthquake that destroyed our businesses and sent our friends or family members to the hospital. And we know we still have weeks or months.

For Christians, this is the time when Jesus calls our light his light to shine before men. Will we respond primarily by thinking of ourselves and the logistics of how we can broadcast the church live or manage the school online? Or are we going to raise our heads and enter the gods calling to love and serve those who are afraid, displaced and in need around us?

As in any other natural disaster, when schools, businesses and entire industries close or face drastic disruption, when people worry about how they will support their families, when society is beginning to see panic behaviors, this is the time for the body of Christ to be a voice of faith instead of fear and a source of practical help.

There are dozens of examples. Here is just one. As Harvard University and dozens of other colleges close their campuses, students were suddenly asked to pack up in a matter of days, leave campus with all of their belongings, and return home.

If this is not a problem for some, for others, it is catastrophic: where are they going? How do they move and / or store goods for a year? While some international students who cannot afford a last minute ticket to return home to China or Egypt are accommodated, many are not so fortunate. Thousands of domestic students can't afford last minute plane tickets to go home, and their parents can't afford days off to travel across the country and pick up their child and their personal effects.

I hope that every church near a campus that closes will see this as a time to be a city on a hill that every believer will hear the call of God to reach. We are here for you, it must be said. Our employees will take you. Our employees will store your furniture. Well, stay here as long as you need it.

If they meet, each of these churches should announce this need from the pulpit and list potential foster homes in the hall. Imagine the impact on the thousands of students to hear this hope and the help of a group of people that many of them do not know at all: the disciples of Jesus.

Two weeks ago, Jeff and I were talking at Every Nation Church, not far from Columbia University in New York, which also encourages students to move. When I heard this, I reached out to the pastor, Ron Lewis. He told me: Was reaching out to the leaders of the Columbia and NYU international student programs now. What can we do? Now is the time for a one on one. Everyone is afraid. The fear pandemic even exceeds the virus itself. For this reason, we suddenly have an environment not only to help but also to speak, to share the faith. To soothe these natural fears with real security.

Dear friends, every church today probably plans for physical contingencies and live broadcast services. But the contingencies of the ministry are just as important. We need to look away from the news and ask the Lord: what can we do?

Two millennia ago, during another series of pandemics, the church did the same. In 165 and 251 AD, two great plagues swept the Roman Empire. Where the Gentiles tried to avoid contact with the sick, Christians put themselves in danger to rescue the sick and the dying, taking care of those who had always treated them with contempt. But with the love of Christ in their hearts, how could they not move forward when so many people were suffering and in need?

Many have paid the ultimate price. But as Rodney Stark concluded in his 1996 book The Rise of Christianity, this visible love so overwhelmed the prevailing philosophies of the time that he so showed Jesus that he was one of the most important factors behind the explosion of our faith in all corners of the empire. and beyond.

We hope and pray that this pandemic will never reach the scale of these plagues, which have killed millions of people. But the fear today is real. May the Body of Christ be and show perfect love that drives out fear.

Shaunti Feldhahn is a social researcher, speaker, podcast host and author of For Women Only, for Men Only and, most recently, Thriving in Love & Money.



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