October 15, 2024 Devo

Covid changed a lot of things for us. One of the things most impacted was the church. For a while, no one could attend. Then, when we could attend, we had to minimize contact. It took a full two years for things to get back to any kind of “normal.” But it wasn’t normal. Many who attended regularly stopped coming. Some who stopped coming joined the ranks of those who watch online, while others just gave up going to church altogether. The loss that happened in all of this is more than most people know.
Many churches, because of the loss of funding, had to close. Some churches merged with other congregations to create a viable entity strong enough to survive. Still others had to scale back programming due to a lack of leaders, participants, or finances. But those are just the obvious and more measurable hits. I’m afraid the worst of it is more subtle. The world simply became a lot more self-centered and self-protective. In a nutshell, we stopped caring as much about other people. We lost the richness and the sacredness of COMMUNITY.
I remember during Covid how, as a staff, we decided to divide up all the names of the families in our church and try to call them over the course of a two-week period. We asked them how they were doing. We asked them if there was anything they needed help with that we could provide. We would then ask what their prayer needs were and would pray with them over the phone. Many people that I prayed with cried. We forget how EVERYONE needs to know that someone cares.
People still need to know that. Jesus couldn’t get to everybody. That’s why He told the disciples to pray for more workers. Jesus knew that if more workers didn’t join Him, there were people who would get overlooked and feel lost, lonely, and afraid. Let’s pray with Jesus for more workers. Better yet, let’s be a part of answering that prayer! Let’s get outside of ourselves and check in on each other, encourage each other, and pray for each other. It doesn’t take much to make someone else feel loved and valued. Let’s get back to caring again. That’s God’s Word for you today.