I have a confession to make. I quite liked \u2018church at home\u2019 during Covid. Now I\u2019m not sure if I feel guilty about that. The reality is that for a few months we simply \u2018weren\u2019t allowed\u2019 to attend. I got it. The singing, the hugging, the way the seats work, the closeness of it all put church in the same danger zone as bars and clubs. Oh the irony of that!.
But we\u2019ve moved \u2018down\u2019 the levels, remember groups of up to 50 with \u2018appropriate spacing\u2019 . But it didn\u2019t feel good. It felt a bit like a restaurant putting me in the window to try and show \u2018passers by\u2019 that we were in a busy place. The singing sounded a bit hollow and I kept remembering the earnest scientist who shared with all of NZ that singing was a wonderful way of projecting the virus further than normal \u2018up and down the aisle\u2019 at the supermarket.
But another reason I liked \u2018church at home\u2019 was that very quickly pastors adjusted their \u2018style\u2019 and all of a sudden I felt as if he was speaking rather than preaching to me and I liked that.
Maybe, just maybe, the traditional model of church is yet again tipped on its head. The Greek word that means \u2018church\u2019 is Eklessia ….meaning \u2018anointed one\u2019…not a physical building. The New Testament dudes met in homes as well as in temples. As my wife says \u2018Gary…needs must\u2019. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s not a \u2018Pam original\u2019 but I get her drift.
Rather than get my knickers in a twist about so called \u2018right to worship\u2019 I wonder whether Covid is a bit like the i-phone…a \u2018disruptor\u2019 . The iPhone heralded the arrival of all sorts of cool stuff but it also caused a complete rethink of how we buy, save and play music.
My pastor is a natural \u2018one on one\u2019 guy, many pastors are \u2018one to many\u2019. Maybe its ok to have church at home via the Internet together with small home groups that stay within the legal number? Maybe the \u2018one-to- many pastor\u2019 needs to change more than me?.
That works for me. No longer will I have to pretend to sing \u2018How Great Thou Art\u2019 because the key its played in works best for sopranos!…and no longer will my wife say to me \u2018Gary, are you going to church in those pants?’. With Church at home no one else sees or hears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a confession to make. I quite liked \u2018church at home\u2019 during Covid. Now I\u2019m not sure if I feel guilty about that. The reality is that for a few months we simply \u2018weren\u2019t allowed\u2019 to attend. I got it. The singing, the hugging, the way the seats work, the closeness of it all… Continue reading Are you going to church in those pants?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.averytallman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}