5 Reasons to Stay Faithful to Your Local Church during COVID-19

Everyone, it seems, is broadcasting their church services over the web. Mega churches’ live streaming events are attracting higher numbers of viewers than ever before, and this is a good thing. Maybe their hits are coming from people who are seeking God for the first time, or perhaps the majority of viewers are Christians who can’t attend their local churches, so they’re diving into online “church.” 

While you can find a plethora of inspiring and educational messages on Facebook and You Tube, when Sunday morning rolls around, I hope you’ll tune into your local church’s service. 

Here are five reasons why: 

1. Your church (not Louie Giglio’s or Charles Stanley’s) will be there for you when this is all over. Your local fellowship and your pastor have walked through your family crises with you, preached your loved one’s funeral, and visited you in the hospital. They’ve prayed for you, cried with you, and rejoiced at your successes. Your church has been there for you in the past, and it will be there for you in the future. It deserves your faithful commitment. 

This is what one church had to do to broadcast their
service recently. Notice the computer powering the cell
phone on a tripod on a table sitting on another table.
The person standing on a chair is holding a microphone 
up to the speaker in the ceiling so everyone can hear.

2. Your church is working hard with limited resources to keep you spiritually fed and cared for. Mega churches have staff dedicated to media and technology, but your local church doesn’t have that luxury. Your pastor can’t call the sound and lighting guy to figure out why you can’t hear him. He’s broadcasting the service over Facebook Live from his cell phone. Chances are he’s the only one in the building. Or maybe his wife is there to push the record button. 

Unlike the Netflix chef broadcasting from a million dollar kitchen studio, your pastor, soloist, or youth minister is preparing a home cooked meal in a simple kitchen to feed you from the Word of God. It may not be perfectly plated or served with a flare, but it’s wholesome, nourishing, and prepared with you in mind. 

3. It’s lonely preaching to an empty church. When you watch your service in real time (not the replay) and comment, your pastor knows someone’s out there. He can’t see those little floating hearts and thumbs up now, but he will later, and it will encourage him. 

Your church also needs you to like and share the stream or host a watch party. Your contacts are part of the mission field God has called you to. Sharing your church’s services on social media can introduce your friends to the gospel or help them grow in their faith. Greeting fellow church members in the comment box makes everyone feel connected. Say Amen, too. A well timed Amen is like saying, “Good boy!” to your cocker spaniel. A pastor can go for days on a comment like that. 

4. Families stick together. 
It’s tempting sometimes to click over to the service with the professional musicians and the five-camera live feed broadcasting from California, but that’s not your family (unless you normally attend church there). God calls Christians to serve within local churches. To minister and be ministered to within their communities. While the various social isolation orders have made person-to-person ministering more challenging, with a little thought and creativity, it’s still possible. 

One of our members uses email to gather and share a weekly prayer list. Another sews cloth masks and delivers them. One of our artistic members painted small watercolor scenes and mailed them to people in the church. 

Some have called shut-ins and high risk members and offered to pick up groceries or prescriptions. Others have brought meals, dropped off flowers, or organized Zoom game nights. 


And our church members haven’t forgotten the pastor and others who minister. They know they’re under a great deal of stress as they struggle with unfamiliar technology and the other challenges of ministering to their congregations remotely. One member organized a drive-by We Love Our Pastor parade, complete with signs and a caravan of cars. 

5. God is using COVID-19 to strengthen and grow local churches. 
On an average Sunday, our church’s average attendance is fewer than 25 people. During the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve reached between 200-300 people with our Facebook Live feed. We hope, when we’re allowed to meet together again, some of these viewers will worship with us in person. Even if they don’t, they’ve heard the gospel. That’s a wonderful thing. 

“TV church,” as my grandmother used to call it, has a place. It’s okay to visit every now and then, but we shouldn’t live there. Only the local church provides what we need to grow spiritually, serve sacrificially, and provide community. Most important, it will always be God’s most effective way to advance the kingdom. 

This Sunday, if your local church broadcasts its services, I hope you’ll tune in. God’s command in Hebrews 10:25 not to “forsake the assembling of yourselves” looks a little different right now, but with commitment and creativity, we can continue to worship “together,” serve “together,” and advance the kingdom of God together—through our local churches. 





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