Such places, a normal parishioner would be lucky to get 10 seconds of the pastors pastors time.
A pastor can be a source of spoon-fed attention. And people with personality problems can hook on to ministers they feel they can obligate to give them the attention they want. Instead, they need to be seeking and finding how to relate in love with various people, get strong so they can't get hurt, or sabotage relationships because of their temper and anger and mouth problems.
"swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (in James 1:19)
I have gotten very active during our church services, as a floor hospitality person. I could get to talking with and helping people before and all through a service, in one way or another. Then the COVID-19 thing came along. And I note with interest how no one seems to last more than a few minutes talking with me, on the phone or Zoom . . . except two people.
And I see I may be on time out. Possibly, I was making myself more and more the face of the church . . . too much for one person, anyway. So, this could be time for me to get a clue.
Because I am certain the real church can not be shut down by any sort of problem or persecution. It is reported how persecution can send the church underground where the church grows more than while it was accepted. So, my opinion is that now God's church has kept right on growing, while Sunday only and Wednesday-maybe items have been having issues.
I have read, over and over, how so-and-so misses everyone; but anyone could easily hold a service of five to ten or maybe more people in one's back yard, any time of the week, especially since more people now are not working; of course, they might be busy with their children being home.
Even so, how could that be harder than having a pick-up baseball game with ones distanced on seven positions of a baseball field? Ones all over the field have no problem communicating with one another; yet, ones have a major issue about being six or even twelve feet from each other.
And sports players have no problem being told to put on a mask. But they get what they want, from that.
Of course, people might not be able to afford the gas to go to other people's gatherings. But, then, where I am . . . I find it interesting how now members of our church are indeed some distance from each other. I can walk around, where I am, and not see one person I know from our church. And ones of my church and I do not even call each other, even though we are in the same town. I would say, that though we go to the same church, we never developed a relationship of ready access to each other.
But I have my lady friend and a guy I helped to trust in Jesus. So, I give them my attention as well as I can obey God guiding me. And I appreciate our sharing here in Christian Forums.
So, I consider God has arranged for us to deal more with what He wants each of us to do, versus depending on Sunday stuff to do everything. We can pray now and do all God has us do now.
