Funny or Fearful?

Seen this one yet?  Over 300,000 have.  It’s a well done Hamilton parody tapping into our church pandemic predicament. It will make you laugh and who doesn’t need a little of that right now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=CFduNE4pXAQ&feature=emb_logo

First time I watched it I applauded my clerical colleague for being so creative and wondered if he would let us use the clip in a Sunday worship video, a little holy laughter. Until it wasn’t funny to me anymore. The song, silly as it is in the musical, is deadly serious in its display of tyranny. The king is mad but not a fool and will do anything, including sending a fully armed battalion, to remind you of his love. What if the harmlessly intended, humorous skit was revealing more than it knew? 

Oh c’mon!  Over analyze much?! Maybe. And I’ll be quick to say this is not me critiquing my colleague whom I do not know and cannot, nor wish to, disparage. It's my own reaction and interpretation.
What I do know is that the church is in a tough place.  Like so much in COVID life, the tough spot is not created by COVID  but impacted and accelerated by this difficult time. For many decades the church, our own beloved community, and the Church in the Western world has been experiencing decline. In the mainline denominations, we watch churches close while multi-campus, modern mega-churches thrive.  But they are struggling too. The Evangelical church is seeing decline, and as some churches reopen, there are sobering statistics indicating that the attendance has been 20-50 % less than expected (and those are church numbers notoriously inflated as we love to count church attendance by rounding up by Easter plus Christmas).  There is concern amongst church leaders and members of every denomination that a lot of churches may not be able to weather this crisis.  Many will not return until there is a vaccine and that could be months or a year away. If these congregations were already hanging on by a thread, how can they manage expenses and survive? What if being out of the routine of Sunday morning will lead to new behaviours and patterns that do not include church on Sunday, that online worship is great— why go back? So many concerns and fears that are leading churches to worry and make decisions based on threats and numbers. You’ll be back!  Right?  Right?!

We won't be back. We are in the midst of a long revolution, a transformation, where God is leading us out of our past and into a future yet to be fully seen.  There are things that we no longer need, good things that no longer serve us, ideas that only confine rather than expand our hearts and minds. We might have to reclaim what we have forgotten or allow the Spirit to reveal what is utterly new, but we in the church have been on a long march to something new. Yes, we will need to hear the stories of our faith. We need the inspiration that comes from the Spirit. We need to be together in order to pray, to serve, to love, to forgive, to embody God’s mercy and light in this world. How will we do that in a faithful way for this time?
Here's a song I would choose to inspire us on our way:
My name is St.Andrews-Covenant, and there’s a million things I haven’t done but just you wait, just you wait..