COVID touched every part of life including changing relationships with worship

The list is unending as the effects of COVID on the lives of people around the world. Every element of society, government, international relations, transportation, finance, medicine, family life, and also religious life has been impacted. Church worship services, Christian education sessions, mission ministries, choir rehearsals have all changed.

Some congregations changed their times of worship. Some ceased their worship services completely. Still, others continued their services through YouTube and free conference call. Still, others have braved the onslaught of COVID and continued holding services. Every congregation and religious body responded in some way.

But the question before us is not how COVID changed your worship and ministry services, but rather, “How did COVID change your worship?” I submit that there is a great difference between holding and having “worship services” and “worshipping.”

Since the dawn of time, men have called themselves “worshipping” their chosen deity. The methodologies, procedures, elements, and participants may have varied, but the purposes and intents have virtually remained the same. The true “worship” of God transcends the person, posture, and practices that may be involved in the process. It is the objective that really validates the practice.

The Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament terms expressing “worship”, “worshipper”, “worshipping” distinctly involve and revolve around one’s personal acknowledgment of and relationship to God (YHWH) as the one and only true deity. Any expression of “worship” of anything or anybody else is considered idolatry and blasphemy against God. Worship then is an act and expression of one’s belief in, homage and submission to, and efforts to establish and maintain an ongoing and personal relationship with God.

Satan and his demonic horde, which was cast down from heaven to Earth, could no longer “worship” God, since they chose eternal rebellion against God. Thus anybody submissive to the reign of satan and his demonic hosts in their lives could not truly worship God either!

The biblical concept of “worship” then involves a person’s belief in and acknowledgment of his/her life and existence by the hands of God: acknowledging his/her willful disobedience of God’s word; surrendering to the will of and following the way of God; developing a personal relationship with God; believing in and accepting God’s eternal plan of salvation for man through God’s son Jesus; and promoting the same behavior from others to God.

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Regardless of whatever may transpire or occur in life, be it personal, physical, political, moral, economic, medical, or spiritual, true biblical worship of God remains the same.

So, the question is still before you. How did COVID change your worship? What changes took place in your concept of, belief in, commitment to, relationship with, affirmation of, trust in, and worship of God? What changes occurred in your personal prayer life? In your study of God’s word? In your desire to assemble with other believers? In your concern for the spiritual well-being of others? In your financial commitment to your house of faith? In your efforts to promote the ministries of your church? In your obedience to God’s word? In the spiritual nurture of your children and family? What changes did COVID make in your life?

Realizing that COVID is not God, what might happen if our efforts to worship God and to encourage others to worship God became as strong, intense, and extensive as our efforts to avoid COVID? Or if we were as intent in decrying the practices of injustice and immoral behavior as publicly as we have been in affirming the dangers of catching COVID? Or as determined to promote the word of God as intently as we have been in practicing social distancing and masking our faces from COVID infection? What if we practiced social and ethnic equality as systematically as we have practiced social distancing? What if we covered our mouths from lying and deceit as tenaciously as we have sought to avoid COVID?

How true and relevant is the declaration of Jesus about worship in John 4:23,24:

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

With or without COVID, any worship that does not involve one’s spiritual nature and is not truthful is not worship.

Maybe a more relevant question might be, “How spirit-based and truthful was your worship of God before COVID?

Now is the time for us to strive for the true worship of God by reaffirming God’s word. By deepening our belief in, our relationship with, our service to, our promotion of almighty God as the lord of our lives and the hope for all mankind.

The Rev. Samuel W. Hale, Jr. is the retired pastor of Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: In what ways did COVID change your worship?