Apr 28, 2020
by Andy Samuels
Chief Executive Director
SDB Missionary Society
These are unprecedented times. In a very short space of time, a novel coronavirus, named COVID-19, infiltrated our world. It has come with a vengeance. The numbers are staggering. At the time of writing, over 2.5 million infections are confirmed in at least 185 countries and territories, including more than 186,000 deaths. It is possible that no one in the world can say that they have not been affected in some way. It has been popularly theorized that one of the main reasons that the virus has been able to spread so rapidly and so extensively is because of the proliferation of travel in our modern era. The existence of supersonic jetliners means that I can leave my home on any given day and be on the other side of the world in a matter of hours. Our lives are increasingly intertwined with those in other countries as we share technology, fashions, entertainment, sports, music, and even food. We are more connected than we realize.
The good news is that God is a global God. He cares about the entire world. And the times in which we live, as scary and as insecure as they seem, are simultaneously exciting and thrilling. What will our amazing God do in the midst of all this corona craziness? What miracle does He have up His sleeves? In what ways will He continue to display His glory and might?
I am suggesting that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to penetrate and saturate the world faster and more extensively than COVID-19. The question is, will God’s people be contagious in these dark and difficult days? Will we be contagious with His grace, with His power, with His love? Will we infect the world with large doses of spiritual vaccine so that mankind may be inoculated against the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and eventually the very presence of sin?
That is what I believe the church is being called to in this season. When Jesus told His twelve disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, that motley crew must have thought He was nuts (crazy). How were they supposed to do that? On camels and horses?
But today, transportation, technology, and the Internet have been created or exponentially improved, so that indeed it is now a small world after all. The whole world is at our fingertips. We can now engage in “e-vangelistic” interactions with people on the other side of the world without leaving our homes. The current opportunities for “E-vangelism” are limitless.
For the past few weeks, most church communities around the world have not been able to facilitate their conventional gatherings and assemblies. The corona pandemic has disrupted our normal routine. So, buildings have been empty. In the face of all that, where is the church? Let me suggest that the church has been deployed to be the church wherever we are. In our homes, in our limited physical interactions, and most of all, with our technology and media platforms, we now have innumerable opportunities to be light and salt to the world. A word of encouragement, a text, a voice note, a video, a post, a blog, a tweet, a page, can all serve to minister hope to a world that is full of fear and restlessness, nervously biting its fingers, because the future seems so grim.
But that’s not us. Whereas we take the physical realities of the virus seriously, we also maintain a confidence in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we trust Him to see us through this season. Your Missionary Society is busily engaged in helping our brethren around the world navigate the choppy waters of this season. So far, financial assistance has been given to our brethren in Uganda, Liberia, India, and Rwanda. Let spiritual media supersede social media. Let the people of God look for opportunities to show kindness, help someone prepare for eternity, give generously, and edify someone by the word of God. Let us not forget to bathe all our efforts in prayer. After all, the enemy is defenseless against our prayers.
COVID-19 came to destroy, but God has deployed His Church to be a beacon in the world, and we are assured that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.
