April 9, 2020 Show with Rev. Bill Shishko on “Ministry in a Post-COVID World”

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this ninth day of April, 2020.

And I'm thrilled to have return as my guest today a very dear friend for many years, going back to the late 1980s when

I was still whipped behind the ears from my baptism as a very brand new Christian, Bill Shishko, who is the pastor of The Haven in Deer Park, Long Island, New York.

That is a congregation in the denomination known as the OPC and more specifically the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And today we are going to be addressing ministry in a post -COVID world.

Are we ever going to have a post -COVID world? Welcome back, my dear friend, Pastor Bill Shishko.

That really is a good question, Chris, because in a sense it's inaccurate. Until a vaccination can come for COVID -19, which

I think they're thinking now maybe September of 2021, we're all going to be prone to get it if we haven't had it and built up the antibodies.

The issue is really more the hospitals not being glutted with patients as they have been recently.

But good point, good point. But let's think about it in practical terms. Once this period of isolation is done, then what's ministry going to look like?

And for those of our listeners who may be joining us for the first time and have never heard you before on the show, or maybe they have never heard of your show, which is currently on hiatus, a visit to the pastor's study, perhaps we could have you give again a brief summary description of The Haven.

I'd love to talk about The Haven. I wish I could meet publicly. Well, after 35 years of ministry at the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, during which time you and I met, I had a little period, a few years, where I was what was called a regional home missionary working with Orthodox Presbyterian churches in Connecticut and southern

New York. I always hankered to be back in the pastorate, though, and at the urging of the men who were overseeing my work,

I was urged to start a church plant, which we were familiar with from what we've done in Franklin Square.

And as a result of lots of work with a number of families, in April of 2019, we began public worship for The Haven Mission Church, and we use

Psalm 107, verse 30, the Lord brings us into his desired haven from the storms of life.

So we are delighted to be ministering to all kinds of people, not least to those with substance addictions and homeless people and others, and ministering to them about the

Lord Jesus as the halfway haven on the way to heaven. Great.

Well, I want our listeners to know that that website for The Haven is thehavenli .com

Let me also give you the website for the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination, because you can perhaps, if you don't have a church home, find a church near where you live anywhere in the world at opc .org,

opc .org. And before I forget, I just want to let you know that my dear friend

Jeff Thomas wanted to send to you his warm greetings. He was on the show twice last week, and he's going to be on twice again in two weeks.

He's going to be on from Monday the 20th through Tuesday the 21st of April. And I am just so thrilled that he loves doing this program.

Yeah. We're cut out of the same cloth. A little different denomination, but also you had my dear friend

Joe Morecraft on. Oh, yes. He also sends his greetings. Yeah, it's like old home week, working through iron sharpens iron.

Yes, and Joe's coming back on Tuesday the 5th of May. Great. Excellent. Good, good, good.

Well, let's start with this ministry in a post -COVID world, I guess a lot of this, or at least some of it, is going to be assessments from knowledge of your work that you've been involved in for decades in ministry, because some of this is a mystery that we see ahead of us, or that we envision,

I should say, ahead of us. Yeah. Well, let me take a few minutes,

Chris, and just give a couple of reflections on the pandemic. There's many that I could make.

These are the ones that really stand out in my mind. Just in general, we all have to keep in mind, it's very, very difficult to assess something accurately when you're right in the middle of it, and especially for Reformed people, which is a lot of your audience, and certainly the thrust of your program.

We're bent on bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, but we've been broadsided by COVID -19, as everybody else has, and it's a little bit like being in a car accident or an earthquake.

You go through a shock period, and then there's a disorganization period, what's happened, and then there's a reorganization period.

I think we're not really yet at the reorganization period, but I'm hoping

I can offer some thoughts on that. But anyway, you have to have a framework.

What do we see in the Scriptures that would give us a pointer to how we look at this?

And I constantly, Chris, gone back to 1 Corinthians 7 .26. And it's an enigmatic text.

Paul simply speaks of a due to the present distress, and people have wondered what that is.

Was it a plague? Was it a famine? Was it persecution? And we don't know, and we're not intended to know, the

Holy Spirit intended we not know it, because you can import a lot into that.

This is a period of present distress. Then it was Paul saying maybe we ought to consider that the ordinary social pattern of marriage should be something we think about for the present distress, because it would make it difficult to fulfill the duties of marriage in it.

An analogy would be a couple wondering whether they should get married if the husband's going to be shipped overseas to do tour of duty overseas.

Well, this is a present distress. There's a suspension of the ordinary social patterns, and we're in the middle of extraordinary patterns, both in church life and social life.

So I think that may be helpful for your audience. But anyway, these would be the first of my reflections on the pandemic.

One is this, quote -unquote, virtual worship phenomenon.

Frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of the term virtual. Me too.

I really am. I mean, virtual... The word virtual means something that is not real.

We're going to deal with that maybe more a little bit later. Let me get into that a bit later. But this virtual worship phenomenon is really not new.

Back in the 1990s, you had the beginning of cyber -churches, and evangelicals were appalled at the very idea that church could be something you did in a building in front of a camera with sophisticated acoustical equipment where people listened at home like an audience to The Tonight Show.

But now you see what's happened in the present distress. I get it.

I understand it. People want to still minister to their flocks. They want to have some semblance of having a corporate gathering.

But they get on the bandwagon of this, quote -unquote, virtual public worship.

Again, I want to deal with this more at length. As you and I discussed, I want to do a whole show on this with my dear brother

Greg Reynolds, Dr. Gregory Reynolds, because this is important. But people need to realize that the medium always affects the message.

This is not corporate public worship, period. It may be an augment to family worship.

That I can see, a minister leading the heads of households and families that are there, talking with them, ministering to them, so that they can be worshiping in the home.

That's the model that we've followed. But that is not corporate. This is not corporate public worship.

And the point to make is we are not disembodied spirits. Worship is far more than communication of information.

The term that's been used is cyber -gnosticism. Gnosticism is the idea that the only thing really important is the head, and what we understand, and what we know.

And if you can communicate information and people get it, they're in the spiritually accepted.

And cyber -gnosticism feeds into this idea that the only thing that's really important is that people hear their minister, or whatever.

I don't want to overstate it, but it's close to it. And here's my fears with that. And I realize you've got time constraints here.

For America, convenience is huge, and it's convenient for people to stay at home.

I'm concerned that the discipline of corporate gathering is going to be breaking down. And then, for ministers, it's very easy to succumb to the intoxicating effects of visual media.

I'm on television, I'm on Facebook, I'm on YouTube, or I am whatever it is, and I'm not judging motives.

Right, James Montgomery Boyce, as you may remember, was very leery about visual media, which is why he much preferred radio and audio when he was doing the

Bible Study Hour and other things. Exactly, that's also true of Dr. Joel Niederhood and the Back to God Hour, and the outstanding study that he led for the

Christian Reformed Churches maybe 30 years ago, 40 years ago, when they ditched doing a television program when they realized that the visual alters the message.

And Chris, quite frankly, I am afraid that ministers have jumped into a swamp with this and not really thought through what that means.

And you have a similar thing. I mean, when emails became popular, well, ministers thought they could do their work by emails, and they would send emails to people and so on.

And there's a place for that. Then there was texting. There's a place for that. There is no substitute, as we'll deal with this afternoon, for person -to -person contact.

And Chris, throughout the program, I am going to mention some books, most of which would be available,

I would think, through Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, which is one of your sponsors. Yeah. And it's an excellent book service.

Yes, cvbbs .com. This one wouldn't be available, but the book by Sherry Turkle, who is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, haunting title,

Alone Together, where she deals with, from a secular perspective, she deals with the effects of what really is isolation that comes when people are not together.

It is an absolutely riveting book full of anecdotes, but it's a technical study.

But the title says it all, Alone Together, and it brings very pernicious effects by the way of depression, anxiety, and suicide.

We're seeing this with the COVID -19 isolation. People, I mean, you have even secularists who are saying what the

Word of God says, it's not good for a person to be alone. We need social contact.

There is no substitute for it. And if churches fall into the trap, and it is that, of thinking that now, in a post -COVID world, we can be doing all of our work by telecommunication, that is not only a massive mistake, it is a horrible, and I'll even go so far as to say, it is a horrible anti -Christian error.

But I'd rather deal without. You want iron sharpens iron, brother. So that's going to hopefully do the sharpening of iron.

We have a question, I think, that is great to start our discussion, because it relates to what you just said in some very significant ways.

We have, let's see here, RJ in White Plains, New York. And RJ says,

Is there not something supernatural going on when we physically gather together as saints for a corporate assembly, where Christ is uniquely present amongst us?

Well, that's remarkable, Chris. That's the first time I've ever heard a New Yorker actually ask a question.

Normally when you want a question, they give you a dissertation. One of the reasons I prefer email questions than phone calls.

You're smart. RJ, spot on. Absolutely. Where two or three are gathered together, there

I am in the midst of them, and I'll use this word, although I don't want people to misunderstand it, there is an existential element in preaching, not the way the error of the orthodoxy teaches that somehow

God works through an imperfect word to do whatever He's supposed to do, impressing certain things on our spirit.

I don't mean that. But there is something in the moment when a minister, a pastor, called to deal with a particular flock is dealing with that particular flock and visitors that are present when they're called to worship, whether it be the

Lord's Day or whatever other day, there is something that happens in the moment at that time that you can't replace with sermonaudio .com

and you can't duplicate it via Facebook. So RJ is spot on.

Paul, when he says in 1 Corinthians 14, you're gathered together, and an unbeliever or an ignorant one comes into your midst and he has the thoughts of his heart exposed, and he falls down on his face and confesses

God is with you of a truth, whatever else is being said in there, there is a dynamic and a body of God's people gathered together hearing the

Word of God that does something that a mere communication of information through a microphone does not.

In fact, let me just take one more question because it also relates to things that you're saying right now. Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania says,

I am getting sick and tired of hearing Matthew 18 verse 20 for reasons that it was not intended.

People are using it as an excuse not to gather because they say, hey, wherever two or three are gathered in my name,

I am in their midst. So therefore, we don't have to go to the larger assembly. We could be at home with a couple of other

Christians. I really appreciate the question and say, oh man, the actual context of that is church discipline.

And that's something we've experienced over the years when we're wrestling with very difficult disciplinary issues and gut -wrenching things.

And you sense the Lord's presence as we're gathered in His name trying to know how to deal with the soul.

And that is the context, but the truth is there. I mean, but our woman,

I'm sorry, the name was Mary Margaret, was that the name? Susan Margaret. Susan Margaret. Yeah, she's absolutely right.

There is so many things. We'll deal with it more later, but you rejoice with those who rejoice.

You weep with those who weep. The concept of a body, you don't have a body if you have a hand in one room and you've got toes in another and you've got feet in another.

It's ridiculous. He assumes a body even when he says, I mean, just think of this in the

New Testament. He talks about the church as an army where he says that the

Lord shall soon crush Satan under your feet. He's dealing with a church.

But yeah, and that is missed very much by American individualism too.

And plus, if I can use the word, an interiorizing of religion. What's most important is that Jesus is at work in me.

Well, I'm glad Jesus is at work in you. Jesus is at work in a body as well. So, okay, but that's a good point that she makes.

Okay, well, let's continue on with your perspective. Right, yeah, so I'm dealing, these are just a couple reflections and one is this virtual worship phenomenon.

The second, I want to guard my words carefully. I'm concerned as a minister about government overreach.

COVID -19 really has made us a whole lot more aware of our civic responsibility, and I get that.

We shouldn't be sneezing in other people's faces. And if we're ill, we really ought to be self -quarantined.

I mean, frankly, if you have to have advertisements in the United States of America telling you to wash your hands a lot, we're really in bad shape.

So, I mean, I get all of this. But, and I also get the fact that it is legitimate in its place for the state, the government, to say that for a time, churches ought not gather for worship.

And I have a very dear elder friend of mine, a man that I worked with for many years who was wrestling with this in the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church at which he's a part. And one of the elders in that church brought these fascinating quotations to him from Richard Baxter's Practical Works, a

Christian directory. Richard Baxter was a Puritan pastor from 1615 to 1691.

Interestingly, he was in England, and that was he ministered during the time the bubonic plague ravaged

London in 1655 and 1656. Anyway, his Christian directory, he answers questions.

And one of them is, may we omit church assemblies on the Lord's Day if the magistrate forbid them?

And Baxter the pastor's answer was, it's one thing to forbid them for a time upon some special cause, as in, listen, as infection by pestilence, fire, war, et cetera.

See how contemporary? So don't poo -poo the past. And another to forbid them statedly or profanely.

In other words, just to forbid them, period. He also says it's one thing to omit church assemblies for a time, and another to do it ordinarily.

He says, and there's a lot more in it, but I've called some things, if the magistrate, which would be the governor or the president, for a greater good, has the common safety forbid church assemblies in a time of pestilence, assault of enemies, or fire, or the like necessity, it is a duty to obey them.

Because positive duties, which is a specific law, give place to those great natural duties which are their end.

And an example, you have a house with a no trespassing sign on it, they would have a swimming pool, they should have a fence around it, but let's say they didn't, you see a child drowning in that pool, yes, there's a property right, that's a positive right, but there is a natural duty, as he would put it, which you go and you rescue that child.

And that's the analogy that he uses. He says, now if princes profanely forbid holy assemblies in public worship, either statedly, or as a renunciation of Christ in our religion, it is not lawful formally to obey them, but it is lawfully prudently to do that secretly for the present necessity, which we cannot do publicly.

So we talk about maybe family worship or so on, instead of public worship, which we cannot do publicly, and to do that with smaller numbers, something like today, which we cannot do with greater assemblies, yay, and to omit some assemblies for a time that we may have opportunity for more.

That's so insightful. You do this, frankly, so that you don't decimate the church members by illnesses.

And I get that, and I think it's important for your listeners to realize it has been addressed in the past, but here's the thing.

There's a real tendency to overreach. Mayor de Blasio in New York City saying bluntly, if I need to shut down churches and synagogues permanently,

I will do it. Maybe he has at least apologized or asked forgiveness for that, as he's been asked to do by religious leaders, but I haven't heard it.

That is positively scary, and here's the other one. There's been a debate in states about whether the work of the ministry or public worship is essential work.

Now, that's an interesting distinction. Is it essential that we meet publicly as a church on the

Lord's Day every Sunday? Well, I think Baxter addressed that. If there's a legitimate reason for the common good not to meet, then

I don't believe it's necessary we do that. I think you can meet in smaller groups.

But here, as I wrestle with this, Chris, is where I draw the line. The work of the ministry is to prepare people to die, to be quite frank about it.

We talk about telling people to come to Christ and praying that they be saved and discipling them.

It's about preparing people to die. And in a culture that has become acutely sensitive to death, as our culture has, along with the medical work, which deals with the body, the most essential work is the work of ministers dealing with people who are afraid, who are anxious, and quite frankly, people who are out of Christ, are afraid of death, and need to hear the only antidote that's even better than a respirator.

So hopefully that's a little bit helpful. And that's what I mean by overreach.

I think to see what's going to happen down the line, it's one thing when leaders for a time will use, we'll say, war powers, as President Trump has done.

And the United States has accepted that. It's a total other thing to give up those powers that are being used.

And I want to see what's going to happen there. Edmund Burke, who was a great exponent of freedom and of liberty, had said the true danger is when liberty is nibbled away for expedience, like COVID -19 and by parts.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away for expedience and by parts.

So those would be my two big reflections right now as a minister in the midst of the pandemic.

We do have an anonymous listener. Not sure why they would be anonymous over this.

But the question is, our catechism has something very important to say on the issues of national emergency.

Question 72. What is the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment is, Thou shalt not murder. Question 73.

What is required in the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment requireth all lawful endeavors to preserve our own life and the life of others.

Question 74. What is forbidden in the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment absolutely forbidden the taking away of our own life or the life of our neighbor unjustly or whatsoever tendeth thereunto.

So I'm assuming that this is being put in relationship to the fact that we are perhaps going to infect someone resulting in their death or become infected ourselves resulting in our death by haphazardly or just not being extremely careful in our social communication and assembling and so on.

But if you have any comment on that. No, I agree. Well, as an Orthodox Presbyterian minister,

I love quoting the catechism. And I thought of it myself, Chris. That's exactly right. You take all lawful attempts to preserve your own life and the life of your neighbor.

My wife and I are taking a lawful attempt to preserve our own lives. We're staying inside.

We're observing social distancing. We're washing our hands.

We're careful when we shop. And I'll reflect on that a little bit in the second hour and how that really bears on how our disciplines have changed.

And at the same time, you don't do on any occasion, you don't cough in somebody's face. And the other,

I don't know, should be arrested for, but I can see the point. In New Jersey, there was a man, I think he coughed, had

COVID -19. He coughed in the face of a police officer and he got fined. Well, that's legitimate.

That's bringing harm on our neighbor. And becoming sensitive to those things we haven't thought about is one of the purposes in God bringing plagues like COVID -19.

We have time for one more question before our break, and this is from a mutual friend, James Brewer.

I usually don't mention people's full names, but Jimmy in Deer Park, Long Island. And in fact,

I have to enlarge his question because the font is microscopic in the email.

And let me use this time to repeat our email address, chrisarnsen at gmail .com if you have a question as well.

Pastor Shishko, with mandatory quarantine for much of our country, are you concerned that domestic and child abuse will be even more on the rise?

And how can we as a church minister to that after police and CPS have been involved?

And if you want, why don't you answer that when we come back. Yeah, I have that, Chris, in the second hour of the program.

I mean, once the break is done here, I really want to start getting into ministering in a post -COVID -19 world.

But it's in the second hour that I have that. It's an excellent question. But it's part of a much bigger issue when it comes to ministry in a post -COVID -19 world.

Okay, Jimmy, you heard Pastor Bill, so please listen to the whole show so you can hear the answer to your question later on.

And as I said before, if anybody else wants to join Jimmy with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous. If the question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

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Solid Rock Remodeling Bringing new life to your home. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than 90 minutes to go is

Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an OPC or Orthodox Presbyterian Church Congregation in Deer Park, Long Island, New York.

And today, we are discussing ministering in a post -COVID -19 world.

And I know that you want to discuss changes come after every personal and national crisis.

Yeah. Well, Chris, as you alluded to in the earlier part, it's always dangerous when it comes to trying to predict the future.

I'm not a prophet. I'm not the son of a prophet. That gift is completed with the completion of the scriptures.

And predictions of the future are often, if not always, notoriously off. I think of the fascinating volumes by Alvin Toffler in the 20th century, 1970s,

Future Shock, and then 1980, The Third Way, which really were quite influential and people getting an idea of what would come with technology and so on.

And while he had certainly pointers in the right direction, there were so many things that were dramatically different.

It's almost kind of humorous, in a sense, to read them now. So I'm aware of that. On the other hand, I've been in the ministry now 39 1⁄2 years, right here on the front of things in New York.

And what we're seeing is essentially what happens when you have an earthquake.

I'm going to use the phrase tectonic shift a little bit later, the shift of the plates of the earth. Well, when there's been an earthquake or a tectonic shift, which this is, you can see where certain changes are going to come, areas that become more prone to earthquakes, some that might become a bit stronger.

And that's sort of what I'm doing here in this material on ministry in a post -COVID -19 world.

So yeah, as you said, changes come after every personal or national crisis.

There's your tectonic shifts and the plates of our social life.

Israel is in exile for 70 years, and then it comes back after the exile.

Well, it's the same Israel, same ordinances, but they work themselves out differently in that post -exilic situation.

The church is in Jerusalem in the honeymoon period following the giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

And then the church is ejected from after Stephen is persecuted.

They're ejected and they go into the world, and it's still Christianity, but it affected the way the

Lord's people were meant to intersect with the world and deal with it. So those are biblical illustrations.

The Depression that began in 1929 radically affected our culture.

World War II did, which I think may be the closest analogy to the pandemic.

I wasn't alive then, but from what I've read, I mean, it's a war in the wartime economy. 9 -11 is similar, but as many people have commented, you mentioned

World Magazine, and I appreciate your promoting that outstanding publication, everything they do, but Joel Bell's had a recent column where he mentioned, what

I've heard, too, people who were alive in World War II or the Korean War, even some that are old enough, they remember the

Depression. They'll all say, this is different. And why is it different?

Number one, you can't get over the fact that the mass media is a huge driver in this whole matter of the pandemic.

Certainly, we're dealing with a virus that's serious, it's highly infectious for people with previously existing conditions, it's much more medically intensive.

Again, we get that. But the way this has been blown up in the media so that it's the only thing that people are talking about is something vastly different than the past.

The other, and frankly, I find this ominous, the

Depression was the stock market, the Depression came because the stock market crashed.

Here, the stock market crashed because the government said, you can't work.

And that makes it different. And the other is, unlike 9 -11, this is protracted, not as long as World War II, but it is protracted.

And habits, really only, people's habits in the United States really didn't change after September 11th.

The airlines changed, and our habits there were made to change, but we didn't change. It takes a couple of months of an enforced, unusual situation for people to change their lifestyles.

You find out you have terminal cancer, or you have some kind of cancer, and you have to change your diet, your exercise pattern, well, it takes a while to do it.

Anyway, so those kinds of changes come, and this is different, largely because it's more protracted.

And here, I think, the text in the Old Testament, the sons of Issachar understood their times, what

Israel ought to do. And Chris, what have I got, about eight minutes left before your break with the long commercial?

Exactly. Yeah, okay, great. Let me dilate a bit on this, that clearly is something that as a media guy very much exercises me, specifically ministering in a post -COVID -19 world.

We've got to wisely use telecommunications and social media, not against these.

In fact, frankly, I'm thankful to be learning some new things about teleconferencing myself.

But different media are used for different things. If a military man is killed in action, the military does not text the mother and father that their son or daughter was killed.

You go to the home, and you communicate that to them. And in ministry, we need to be very, very much aware of the formal term as how the medium affects the message.

Virtual is not a substitute for the real. In fact, virtual worship isn't even virtual worship.

I think of your question from the last portion. Virtual means, here's a dictionary definition, being in essence or effect, not in fact, not actual, but equivalent so far as effect is concerned.

Virtual worship isn't even virtual worship because that dynamic of what happens when

God's people are gathered together is missed. Now, yes, there are things that we can do.

Certain meetings can be done. Go to meeting .com or Zoom. You can use it for certain studies. You can do certain discipling.

Today I had a phone call with somebody who couldn't get together with him. We had an hour discipling meeting on the phone and some counseling.

Just more efficient use of time. Okay, great. Wonderful. So long as you're not radically affecting how you're doing, what you're doing, great.

But the Christian faith and Christian ministry are a religion of incarnation.

We're not Gnostics. We're not Gnostics. We don't believe it's just a matter of imparting knowledge.

We're not Docetists. Docetism in the early church was the idea that anything that was physical was detracted from the

Christian faith. Well, in the scriptures teach that for so many things there must be physical presence.

As I mentioned, rejoice with those who rejoice. You can send a card to do that.

There's nothing like being at a wedding or being at a baptism or being at a birthday celebration for that matter.

Weep with those who weep. You can't virtually...

The idea that you would be virtually present at a funeral? And I'm not questioning people's motives in all of this.

That's a travesty. You're supposed to be there with people and literally weep with them and hold them and that physical presence is so, so important.

And to deny that is docetistic. In other words, it's the physical is not really that important.

Or it's gnostic. At least they knew I was there. Just some other... You probably have some questions of your own.

Paul, he says, writes, he says, I long to be with you that I might impart some spiritual gift to you.

And I don't know how he did it there. Today it would become, as we'll deal with a little bit later, by way of the context of ministering to people about the use of their gifts.

But he... Why did he write them about that? These were individuals and he wanted to be with them.

I write you with pen and ink but I would much rather come to you and minister to you face to face in the assembly.

And this, Chris, gives you a little window on the haven. We love our amens. We love our hallelujahs because the

Bible says where to say that. It encourages one another. It's painful to amen when you're muted at a meeting.

It's not the same. Greet the brethren with a holy kiss.

Now we're being told maybe we should never shake hands again. There's a biblical injunction to do that.

Why? We're family. We're a family of people. And a cyber hug is not the same as that.

And even within our worship, baptism and the Lord's Supper, these are physical things.

The book Truth We Can Touch by Tim Chester is excellent in that regard. People, you see someone baptized, they feel water on them.

They hear the rejoicing of God's people as they're marked out as the Lord's people.

And as their baptism is celebrated, it should be. And the Lord's Supper, Chris, when

I read the other day, I won't mention the denomination, talking about virtual Lord's Supper, I just, it popped my cork.

How do you have a virtual giving of the breaking of bread and giving of wine in a context in which

Paul says when you are gathered together as a church, not as a small group, but as a body of people, even you can make the case discerning the body is not just the body of Christ, the body of Christ, God incarnate, but it's the body called the church.

And we need to be with one another. We need to welcome one another. We need to ask forgiveness of one another.

You see, and these are so basic, but we've got to wisely use telecommunications and social media.

So that's, incarnation, Paul, and then I'll quit. One of my favorite texts, 1

Thessalonians 1 .5, my word did not come to you in word only, but in demonstration of the spirit and the power, and he's not mystical about this, he says, just as, and here the

New American Standards got it much better than the ESV. I'm pushing your DNA SP for you. Just as you knew what manner of men we were among you for your sake.

And the reason I said what I said in the previous part, ministry, ministry that vacates the public, or the personal, face -to -face ministry one to another, or by a ministry to the people, is at heart anti -Christian because Christ took flesh and dwelt among us.

And we're meant to do that in the world. So that's why I speak so passionately about this topic.

That is just part of it. And by the way, you might be interested in this as well, Pastor Bill, but on Tuesday, May 12th, 4 to 6 p .m.

as always, my friend, Pastor Jeffrey D. Johnson of Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, who's also the founder of Free Grace Press, he's going to be discussing counterfeit communion.

Oh, interesting. Interesting. So mark your calendars, folks. We're going to our midway break right now. Please be patient with us.

It's a longer than normal break because we have to have this break because our friends at Grace Life Radio who air this program twice a day in morning drive and also in the evening, they are required by the

FCC to have their own public service announcements and other things locally to Lake City, Florida aired on the show to localize it to Great City, Florida.

So therefore, while they air those messages, we air our own globally heard commercials and we urge you to use this time wisely to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, which we count on you to do if you love this show and you want it to remain on the air.

We need the advertising dollars from our sponsors to exist.

So please, try to patronize them as much as possible and sometimes that may even mean that you're just writing them to thank them for sponsoring the show, especially if it's a church and it's so far away from you you can't even visit it.

Send them a letter or an email at least or give them a phone call and say, I really want to thank you for sponsoring our

Entrepreneur's Iron Radio. But of course, if it's a business or something else, please try to patronize these sponsors as much as you can.

But also, send us a question to Bill Shishko about ministry in a post -COVID -19 world.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com Don't go away, we'll be back after these messages.

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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Before we return to Bill Shishko on our theme today Ministry in a Post -COVID -19

World just have a couple of brief announcements. As far as we know we are still going to be conducting our next free spring

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon on Friday, May 29th right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for the very first time at the

Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle and for the very first time we're also delighted excited thrilled to announce that we are going to be having

God willing Dr. Conrad M. Bayway as our speaker Dr. M.

Bayway has been my friend since 1995 of the church where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick was the very first congregation where Dr.

Conrad M. Bayway preached in the United States during a visit here and we have maintained a close friendship ever since he is absolutely extraordinary

I urge you if you are a man in ministry leadership this is not for the ladies this is for men in ministry leadership whether you're a pastor an elder and I think those are the same office by the way a deacon a parachurch leader whatever kind of leadership position you have if you're a man please send me a registration at chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com it's absolutely free of charge not only will you hear

Dr. M. Bayway preach for free and be fed a sumptuous meal by the Bon Giorno Conference Center for free but you'll be leaving with a very heavy sack of free brand new books donated by major Christian publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom which I have personally selected for the men attending and that's all free and this was a custom a tradition began by my precious late wife

Julie who is now in eternity with Christ back in the 1990s we have been continuing these every year and then when she went home to the

Lord I have relaunched these luncheons in Pennsylvania in 2015 in her honor memory and in tribute to her but of course first and foremost as she would want it in honor of Jesus Christ our

King but if you would like to attend please send me that email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

the luncheon again is on Friday May 29th 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. if you are pessimistic that this will occur because of the continued hysteria going on with the coronavirus send me an email anyway because this way

I'll have your email address on a list to let you know what the date to change is if indeed there is going to be one but as far as we know now it's still

Friday May 29th 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. finally folks if you love this show you don't want it to disappear please go to ironsharpensironradio .com

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click support then click click to donate now and last but not least if you are not a member of a local bible -believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one you are living in rebellion against god there is no such thing as a lone wolf maverick christian roaming around either bouncing from church to church to church without ever joining any of them or just staying home and not going to any church these kinds of christians do not exist in the new testament at least as a representative of christians that are obedient to god they don't so please if you need help finding a church no matter where you live on the planet earth i have lists of biblically faithful churches everywhere on the planet and i may be able to help you find one near you i have helped many people find churches that they have visited and some have joined those churches and some of them have just visited them on vacation and some of them have referred them to family friends and loved ones without a church home so please if you need help finding a church send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put i need a church in the subject line that is also the email address where you can send in a question for bill shishko that's chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com i forgot to mention also that if you want to advertise with us as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe you don't have to believe identically with me but you need to be promoting something that's compatible with what i believe then send me an email chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put advertising in the subject line and now we are back with the second half of our program today with bill shishko pastor of the haven an orthodox presbyterian congregation in deer park long island new york we are discussing ministry in a post covid world and you want to expand a little bit on ministry in the home yeah yeah let me on that everything you've said about supporting iron sharpens iron and about church membership too we kind of have a real privilege to be able to support this work it's wonderful that there's a program that doesn't back off on dealing with what the word of god says you know i appreciate that chris and i'm sensitive to time constraints here um we've got to realize these churches have to realize a couple things what's happening is for the good of the lord's people we ought not be giving into the fear that's so common the lord is doing good is doing and will continue to do good things from this at the same time pastors elders need to realize there is going to be a massive rebuilding work that's going to have to be done once people can come back to worship we should not think everything is going to be just like it was pre whenever they started putting in the home sheltering um disciplines have broken down the church is going to have to get much more serious about a related word discipling and making disciples of people and dollars it's important when it comes to giving i appreciate your emphasis on the tithe and priority of the local church but those disciplines are broken down anyway mention the home i mean the home the home is the basic unit of the church the lord told abraham and you and your seat all the families of the earth would be blessed and and um that and and it's interesting how covid -19 has affected the home it's fascinating and and and when we realize home has such an important place in the economy of god and the lord has brought this tectonic shift that has made us focus on the home pastors should be saying hey what should we learn from this and just a few thoughts it is fascinating to me that an establishment that has so looked down in most cases on home schooling has now been made by the sovereignty of god to do home schooling i just i can't get over that uh as one who we did home school our children we've had christian schools some of them been in public high schools too so it's not a statement about mode of schooling but it's fascinating that we have this move toward education in the home that is a tectonic shift and here is where pastors should help parents think through what they're going to do with the education of their children in a post covid 19 world um maybe they should schools are going to close there's no two ways about it that there's there's going to be a tectonic shift in schooling in the united states and pastors should be working with families about co -ops or or about home school co -ops or home schooling in the home how can teachers use use their gifts so we have a very dear sister in christ finishing her masters degree in education and she's wrestled with issues of working put it this way in the educational establishment or working in homes i would think that she's doing a lot more thinking now about the importance of working with the homes so that's that's that's that's that's in our country anyway they're not first the president or the vice president or the governor they are the constitution and the bill of rights we're a constitutional republic we're not a democracy french revolution was a democracy so so these are things i say tectonic shifts in home schooling there's a big one let me mention couple others here, and then,

Chris, we can dilate a bit more on it, or any questions. Home businesses. What a tectonic shift in the business world.

Our economy has been challenged by this, and that's for good as well, as well as along with the homeschool matter.

Now, church leaders are not always the best business people, and they're not the best with money.

I'd urge pastors, as we get through this COVID -19 thing and business people are getting their businesses up to speed, start talking with them.

What have we learned from this? How can we help people doing more business from the home?

That's going to affect the secular business world big time, and in my opinion, that's a huge plus.

But help people in the churches know how to do this, where the home is the basic unit of the church.

Home economics, in the standard sense of that word, what another tectonic shift.

Stewardship in the home. Praise the Lord that we are being made to think more carefully about when we shop, how we shop, what we shop for, getting things we can get them.

I got a kick out of it. Somebody sent me a thing the other day. It said, my whole view of, I'll use the more politically correct, bathroom tissue.

It says, my whole view of bathroom tissue has changed. I use the toilet paper,

I treat it like a roulette wheel, now I treat it like a safe cracker. But, see, this is what happened in the

Depression. By the way, I heard that there's somebody, an anonymous person, like Santa Claus, dropping off cases of toilet paper on people's front porches.

Okay, all right. Well, in that case, thankfully there is a

Santa Claus, but anyway, but those are things. Debt. And here, what

I say, I'm mentioning home, but if the home is the basic unit of the church, pastors need to be working with the people, and when we say, well, you know, there's unbelievers in the home, work with them and evangelize them.

Debt is such a huge, huge issue. And there, we can learn a lot, the children of this age are shrewder in their generation than the children of light.

Learning, our daughter, actually, is linked up with a Mormon couple, and not for the religion, clearly, but there are so many helpful principles about budgeting that she's used, that she's gotten more serious.

Well, we should be on the ball, on the cutting edge, dealing with people, women's studies, women's service, and so forth, but elders, think through what this is doing to the culture, what it's doing to the home, and how we can help.

I've mentioned family worship. I make a plea, elders, think through, for the remaining time that we're going to have, not be able to meet on Sundays, whether it's not wisest to be able to help heads of homes lead their own families in worship.

That's part of piety in the Scriptures, in church history, and it's something we need to have re -implanted in our own culture.

I'd add to it pastoral work, too, that just dealing with young people about their calling in life, how do

I use my gifts to be useful in a post -COVID -19 world? So it's going to take work, but the ministry's going to take work.

So let me stop blathering here, Chris, I do want to deal with the issue about domestic violence, but I don't know if you have other questions that have come in or what.

Yes, we do, and by the way, folks, please, as I keep repeating, people wonder why

I have to keep repeating, please give me your name, your city and state of residence, your country of residence. So many people just send in a question without any of that.

That's why I keep repeating it. So please, folks, when you're sending in a question, please include your city and state of residence and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA, unless you're remaining anonymous for a good reason. Okay, we have

Ruth from Flushing, Queens, New York. Now, I don't know what happened there where I don't remember you making this comment, because I usually listen very intentively to every word you're saying, but this listener says, would you please elaborate on what you meant by teaching people how to die?

Oh, yeah, she's referring to my comment that the work of the ministry is to prepare people for the life to come.

I think that's what she's getting at. Yeah, this, the COVID -19, whatever else it's done, it has made people acutely sensitive to their own mortality.

And we've needed that in our culture that can be very cavalier when it comes to those things. We're a culture where people don't, they'd rather go to a drive -in funeral service where you can press a button and see the casket come for 20 seconds and quote -unquote pay respects and drive off.

And so we're a culture that has particularly tried to be antiseptic when it comes to death.

Well, you can't be that way in our culture now. What I was getting at is when the issue is raised, is the work of the ministry essential?

It is, because you're preparing, you are preparing people to die, you're really preparing people for everlasting life.

That's why I say your most important work in this life is to prepare for the life to come. And quite bluntly, you've got someone that you minister to, all pastors are familiar with this.

They are afraid to die. A faithful pastor is going to say, outside of Christ, you should be afraid of dying.

That's right. Because he died already, but you've got to get to the nitty -gritty with this. You should be afraid of dying outside of Christ, because there's a very real hell that can only be taken away for you by a substitute in Christ.

That's why I have a huge, huge problem with a lot of hospice care ministries or organizations,

I should say, because many who are, and please don't get me wrong, there are wonderful people involved in hospice, but there are many hospice workers that their main goal is to remove the fear of death from the people, no matter what they believe, or no matter what state in life they are.

Yeah, there's workers. Hospice care is a very important area for ministry. Christian ministers have often shown the most, ministering to plague victims in many cases, that they died from that themselves, but they knew that they were to minister to the dying.

And this, Chris, is, I think, it's a lesson. All ministers need to kick in the pants about this.

People who die outside of Christ are going to be in hell, and the only place for deliverance from hell is

Jesus, and when people are petrified, they're on a ventilator, they're on a respirator, they're on a, they're just in their homes, and it is essential to tell them.

So that's what I'm getting at, for Ruth, I think you said it is, in Queens. Yes, in fact,

Ruth, send me your exact, your full mailing address, because you have won, by virtue of being a first -time questioner, you've won a free

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

who will be shipping it out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. So send us your full mailing address.

We have Maggie in Plano, Texas. She says, I help homeschool my grandson.

I'd like to include studying the Constitution from a biblical worldview. I'm barely constitutionally literate myself.

I try to rectify this, or I am trying, I should say, to rectify this.

Is there a program or book you recommend? And she has one more question after that. I can't think of one.

We used material when we were homeschooling our children years ago. We used material from Christian Liberty Academy, which you might want to look into.

They had some material, but here I'm going to refer your questioner to your previous speaker, a good friend of mine,

Joe Moorcraft. Yeah, I was going to mention that. That's his field more than mine, and he could recommend some excellent resources.

I know for myself, I've made it a practice every July 4th to read through, again, the

Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. That's kind of a basic thing that you do.

As far as a Christian school curriculum, I would defer to Dr. Moorcraft on that. And he's going to be our guest, as I mentioned before, on Tuesday, May 5th, and we're giving away, again, free copies of his book,

With Liberty and Justice for All, Christian Politics Made Simple, which has some reference to the

Constitution. It's not an exhaustive commentary on it, but win the book by sending in a question,

Maggie, if it's a good question and if you're one of the first six people to send in a question. Her second point of concern, as she puts it, essential workers is a term used in Germany of the

Jews. Some were essential, some were not. Do you have any concerns of this moving us toward socialism?

I hadn't thought about that particular area. That's interesting. I believe it's also used in China today.

Well, there's really two questions. What is essential work? And I do have a concern that that has been ill -defined by states.

I've been thankful at certain states, for example, Texas is one, I think Florida's another, where they very clearly said that ministerial work is essential work.

And I, in fact, even in my own circles in our presbytery, I want to make a point of that in the meeting this month, as we've got to be clear about that.

The second thing is, am I concerned about socialism? That would take up a whole program, and the answer is yes.

In my view, my personal opinion, I think that socialism is contrary to what the scriptures teach, and the reason

I say that is pure socialism is, and I can say this having been part of a socialist slash communist group back in my early teenage, in my...

Yeah, I remember you telling me that you're a Marxist. Yeah, and when I was converted, and I was thinking through a lot of things, the way

I'm urging people to think through COVID -19, what struck me, again, the commandments, the commandment, you shall not steal.

Well, in socialism or communism, say what you want, it's stealing. It's taking an undue amount of the means of production, or fruit of production, from people to be owned by the state.

And so, I mean, it's not for the program today, but am I concerned? I definitely am concerned about this.

When I hear our senators say the other day on the radio, I hope he retracts it, he wants a certain massive amount of money given to each health care worker, part of it basically extracted from businesses that have remained open during the

COVID -19 virus. Sorry, that's socialism, pure and simple, and it should scare us as another example of governmental overreach.

All right, I'm going to ask you one more question before the break, and you can answer it when we return from our final break.

And this is someone who did not give us their location of residence, but Daisy, and if you could, if you're hearing me speak right now,

Daisy, please send us your city and state and country of residence. Salvation is not by information virtual.

Salvation is by incarnation. It is by God who doesn't just speak, he became man and dwelt with us, and we saw him.

Salvation comes by incarnation, or by way of the incarnation of our Lord, and by the fullest meaning of that word, communication.

Communication in its historic meaning does not simply mean to speak. If you want to say speak, you speak.

Communication is the giving of a whole being to someone else, a whole thing, a whole entity to someone else, hence we have a communion service.

Do you agree, and would you elaborate on how technology is warping this incarnational truth of our historic

Christian faith and identity? And that was Daisy, and we'll have you answer that when we return.

And folks, if you want to join Daisy with a question, do so immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

And once again, please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, unless you're remaining anonymous for a good reason.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we will be back after these messages with more of Bill Shishko on ministry in a post -COVID world.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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from Chris Orns in an Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. We are now back with the final segment of our discussion with Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven in Deer Park, Long Island, New York, and we are addressing ministry in a post -COVID world, and Daisy finally got back to us with her city and state.

It's Raleigh, North Carolina, and I wonder if you ever bumped into Andy Griffith or Barney Fife out there.

I think that's where Barney used to take Thelma Liu out on hot dates. It was out in Raleigh or perhaps even was

Mount Pilot. But anyway, if you remember, Daisy is basically saying that this virtual worship stuff is eliminating the incarnational aspect of Christianity.

So that was Mount Airy, North Carolina, which was the pattern for the Andy Griffith show, but that's for another day.

Yeah, I want to punt on Daisy's question. Chris, you and I have already chatted about May 7th.

God willing, we'll be dealing with that. I hope I can get Dr. Gregory Reynolds. I haven't asked him yet, so if you get to him this way, it'll be a surprise.

But he's retired. He's got time. But I'm hoping I get Dr. Gregory Reynolds to join me, and we just do a whole program on that.

We've actually been asked to write something on it for the OPC publication, New Horizons.

And just in that regard, the website OPC .org has a lot of valuable resources, and I believe the

May issue of our denominational publication, New Horizons, is going to be dealing with a

COVID -19 issue. So that might be something your listeners can do. I mean, and Chris, I just simply want to get to this question about the domestic violence and so on.

I'm not being facetious. John 316 is not, God so loved the world that he zoomed his only begotten son.

He gave his son, and Christian ministry is the giving of whole cells to whole cells.

So let me leave it like that. In fact, Jesus even, you know, he touched lepers and so forth. Right. Chris, this is on the administering of the post -COVID -19 world, and the third thing

I've said, and I'm going to mention resources because I don't have time to develop all of this, but I'm calling this getting down to the real world, ministering to heart issues, which

I think is the kind of thing you do with Joe Jackowitz on Friday on your program. But this is the overall statement.

The time, as a result of COVID -19, the time of using theological issues to buffer pastors from real human situations is done.

That whatever else COVID -19, and I'm one who loves theology, and I love reading a book on the

Covenant of Grace that's thick and deep and it's fascinating. As a pastor, I have got to at least be able to distill that stuff into the lives of other people, and what's more,

I've got to take Christ and bring him to people with their real heart issues, and COVID -19 has opened up, or is opening up,

I should say, a lot of those issues, and here I would highly recommend the materials of the

Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. I cannot praise that organization and what it's done enough.

There's a lot of good biblical counseling work out there. I just, they're the one I'm most familiar with.

But let me give you, dear listeners, five areas in which, as a result of COVID -19, things have been exposed, and we must deal with them biblically and forthrightly.

And I'll be this blunt. If ministers, pastors, elders, ministers, churches, don't care to deal with this, they should die.

Because the Church is about ministry to real people in the real world. And here's the five areas

I've got. Number one, as the caller James Brewer mentioned, is domestic violence, which is out there and it has been exacerbated by isolation.

It is a huge issue. The neglect of it has been called, rightly, the scandal of the evangelical

Church. I'm hoping, Chris, down the line, we can do a whole program on that.

The book I recommend of the many, Jennifer Michelle Greenberg's book that came out in August of 2019,

Not Forsaken. Jennifer Michelle Greenberg, Not Forsaken. Read it so you get hit in the face with what domestic abuse does, and with a lot of helpful advice about how to deal with it.

That's one. Number two is addictions that have been exacerbated by the incubation of people in their homes.

Not only pornography, the alcohol problems that are going to come as a result of this are huge.

It's interesting. An essential business may not be the ministry, but at least in New York it's a liquor store, okay?

And here in Pennsylvania, too. In Pennsylvania, too. Addiction to television. And for that,

Ed Welch's book, Dr. Welch, who's part of the CCEF, Addiction, a

Banquet in the Grave. You talk about a book that merits careful study in churches, first by elders, then by the people.

Very important. Number three, marriage problems. People are together.

They find out they don't like one another. They're getting on one another's nerves. They wish they'd never gotten married.

And those things are surfacing, and the church, as an ideal opportunity that therapy cannot take, can't do, get to the root of those issues.

On that, Paul David Tripp's book, of the many that are out there, Paul David Tripp's book, What Did You Expect?

is excellent for elders to be reading now, to prepare for after the, whenever we're through the isolation period.

Number four, financial issues. And here, I don't listen to him a lot. I've read some of his stuff.

I don't agree with all of it. I know he's a Christian, and I think that you've got to take the meat and spit out the bones.

But Dave Ramsey has done a tremendous service in our culture, getting us to think sanely about the fact that the borrower becomes the lender's slave.

And there's probably other things, but elders should be helping people with the funding issues and our financial issues.

And Chris, as you mentioned, at this time, no, we're not paying the money for sports. We're not paying the money for eating out like we did.

What are we going to do with the money? If we can't, if we're not going to spend it and we can't spend it on the leisure cruise, what do we do with it?

In my opinion, that's probably something that God, through all of this, wants us to really think about.

Because quite frankly, wealthy Americans have not always been particularly godly in the way they've thought about finances.

And here's where diaconal ministry is really important, principles of giving, and so on.

Churches that say our deacons don't do anything, they're going to have a lot to do after we get through this COVID -19 thing.

In that regard, the book When Helping Hurts by Brian Thickert and by Steve Corbett, When Helping Hurts, Brian Thickert, Steve Corbett.

I would think most of these books are available through Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, because they're not junk, they're worthy to be sold.

But that book will help you immensely knowing when, how you help the needy, and how in helping the needy you can really do more harm than help.

That's why the book is called When Helping Hurts. So finances, huge people with debt right now.

And hey, you can do 20 government stimulus packages, which is really borrowing money to give to people who've been borrowing money.

It's not going to address the hard issues of why people are having problems with finances.

And the last one I would mention is The Elderly. I was just reading

World Magazine, an article by Jamie Dean, between 1990 and 2010, the divorce rate among adults over age 50 doubled.

That means fewer older Americans have spouses to help with their care, about 2 million older adults without children, and often have no natural caregiver to help them.

And add to that the number of elderly people who for various reasons have become the parents of their own grandchildren, because of children that for various reasons can't do it.

When the Scriptures say pure religion and undefiled before God and the

Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world, where the

Lord is in his providence making us look at that and say this should be part of healthy church life.

So there's probably others, but I think that pretty much hits the main ones, Chris. Well, before I go to any listener questions,

I want to make sure that you have four or five minutes to really instill upon our listeners what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before this program is over.

During this time of anxiety, of stir craziness, of poverty, because people are losing their livelihood, don't we have to be reminded that God said, be still and know that I'm here?

Yeah. Oh Chris, yeah, exactly. I think that's the text for our day. Be still and know that God is

God. And keep in mind, don't end up on a negative with this.

That psalm that speaks about the shaking of the earth also says there's a river that makes stream, the city of God that comes from heaven and through Christ and the gospel, but it ends up by saying, be still, and it ends up by saying,

I will be exalted in all the earth, and he is going to be through this, to which we say, praise the

Lord. I should, Chris, in that regard, it was a question that came up on the last program.

Is this a judgment of God? And let me cite that great theologian, celebrity wrestler

Hulk Hogan, who said, in three short months, just like God did with the plagues of Egypt, he has taken away everything we worship.

God said, you want to worship athletes? I'll shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians?

I'll shut down civic centers. You want to worship actors? I'll shut down theaters. You want to worship money?

I'll shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don't want to go to church and worship me?

I'll make it where you can't go to church. Skip the media for just a minute.

That's profound. It is profound. But here's the thing, and yes, that is all true, you get it at Revelation chapter 18, but 1st

Peter chapter 4 and verse 17, if judgment's going to begin, let it begin with the house of God.

And in Luke 13, Jesus has people coming to him basically saying, hey, these things that happen to the Galileans when the leader mixed their blood with his sacrifice, this is the judgment of God.

Jesus says, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And I'm saying this to myself, first of all, as well as to all of my listeners, if we go through this pointing our finger at the

Democrats, at the Republicans, at the Socialists, at the Capitalists, or whatever, we've missed the point.

Examine ourselves, brothers and sisters. And what I've said in this program is a lot of my own self -examination as a minister, and if ministers have been lazy about their labors, they're trying to substitute the virtual for the real, and they're still trying to cocoon themselves and their theology, they better start repenting and get dealing with people, because our work is in Christ to save the lost, and you got to get out and be with them.

And yet the other thing I'd say, Chris, is, and I would say with that, getting out, let's begin with our neighborhoods.

We've also learned a lot about just getting to know our neighbors. But I urge all of you, the pastors, elders, deacons, all of you listening, think through now what you're going to do when we're in whatever a post -COVID -19 world is going to be.

You are not going to return to a pre -COVID -19 world. There is a certain social evolution and growth.

We call it church history. And we've got to see what God is doing. Don't go back to your sermon series on Leviticus when you get back to worship.

Take some time to show you have listened to what God is doing in his providence in this time, under the authority of the

Word of God, and preach on ministry in a post -COVID world.

Let's use our Sunday school classes, when we can get them again, to equip saints for the works of service.

Here's the reason. And this is going to happen. There is going to be a tsunami of needs out there, everything from people scared to death because they know they're going to die, to people ready to slit one another's throats because they don't like living together.

And as ministers, that is low - hanging fruit. Pick it and work with it for the purpose of the furtherance of the gospel.

Well, thank you so much. That was a great way to conclude the program today. And I'm sorry we don't have any more time for listener questions, but Pastor Bill has assured me he wants to return very soon.

We just haven't picked the exact date yet. And remember, folks, the website for The Haven in Deer Park, Long Island, New York, the congregation where Pastor Bill serves as the younger shepherd, thehavenli .com,

thehavenli .com, and also don't forget opc .org, the main website for the

Denomination Orthodox Presbyterian Church, opc .org. And by the way, Ruth in Raleigh, North Carolina, give me your full mailing address so that you could also receive a free

New American Standard Bible, since you are a first -time questioner. Thank you, Bill. Look forward to your return to the show.

And I want to thank everybody who listened today. And I want you all to always remember, for the rest of your lives, Jesus Christ is a far greater