Try this mental experiment. Imagine that a swine flu pandemic swept through your part of the world, and that all public assemblies of more than three people were banned. And let’s say that, due to some catastrophic combination of local circumstances, this ban had to remain in place for 12 months.
How would your congregation of 120 members continue to function—with no regular church gatherings of any kind, and no small home groups (except for groups the size of three)?
If you were the pastor what would you do?
I guess you could send your people regular letters and emails. You could make phone calls, and maybe even do a podcast. But how would the regular work of teaching and preaching and pastoring take place? How would you encourage your congregation to persevere in love and good deeds, especially in such trying circumstances? And what about evangelism? How would new people be reached, contacted and followed up? There could be no men’s breakfasts, no coffee mornings, no evangelistic courses or outreach meetings. Nothing.
You could, of course, revert to the ancient practice of visiting your congregation house-to-house, and doorknocking the local area to contact new people. But how, as a pastor, could you possibly meet with and teach all 120 adults in your congregation, let alone their children, let alone doorknocking the entire suburb, let alone follow up the contacts that were made?
No, if it was to be done, you would need help. You would need to start with 10 of your most mature Christian men, and meet intensively with them two at a time for the first two months (while keeping in touch with everyone else by phone and email). You would train these 10 in how to read the Bible and pray with one or two other people, and with children. Their job would then be twofold: to ‘pastor’ their wives and families through regular Bible reading and prayer, and to each meet with four other men to train and encourage them to do the same. Assuming 80 per cent of your congregation is married, that would be all or most of the married adults involved in regular Bible-based encouragement.
While that was getting going (with you offering phone and email support along the way), you might choose another bunch to train personally—people who could meet with singles, or people who had potential in doorknocking and evangelism, or people who would be good at following up new contacts.
It would mean a lot of personal contact, and a lot of one-to-one meetings to fit in. But remember: there would be no services to run, no committees, no parish council, no seminars, no small groups, no working bees—in fact, no group activities or events of any kind to organize, administer, drum up support for or attend. There would be just personal discipling, and training your people, in turn, to be disciple-makers.
Now here’s the question: after 12 months, when the ban was lifted, would you want to go back?
