The Church is Essential

The Church as a Gathered People

In March of 2020, churches in North America and around the world were instructed by governing authorities to shut their doors. A deadly pandemic was said to be sweeping the globe. Only essential services should remain open, and the church was not essential.

Many churches complied. In fact, famous pastors like Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, and then Southern Baptist President J .D. Greer said they'd keep their churches shuttered until the next year.

People on the other end of this argument, I keep hearing them say over and over, the Lord commands us to meet, the Lord commands us to meet. He does not.

God requires us to meet. The very nature of who we are.

The ecclesia.

We are a gathered people.

Persecution, Church Meetings, and the Meaning of Ecclesia

In the 17th century, John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, was arrested and put in prison for holding unlawful meetings, preaching to groups of more than five people outside his own family. During the COVID restrictions, Canadian pastors like James Coates and Tim Stevens went to jail for having church, and very few Christians stood by them.

Hebrews 10:24-25 and the Duty Not to Forsake Assembling

Hebrews 10, 24 to 25 says, let us consider how to stir one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

The church is essential. When it happens again that a tyrannical government wants to impose its will on the church, remind them that Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church. Stand with the apostles who said, we must obey God rather than men, when we understand the text.