2 Years In: COVID Reflections from Canada
Dear Friends,
If I had a patron saint, it would be Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle. Worst-case scenarios present to my imagination, but I press on anyway. Two years (and counting) of living with COVID-19, the “doom and gloom all the time” Canadian media coverage, and the ever-shifting government regulations regularly brought forth my inner Marsh-wiggle. In Canada it seemed as if it was always winter and never Christmas.
I’m the rector of a small urban church in Ottawa, a metropolitan area where only about 2 to 3 percent are evangelicals.
Here are four reflections:
1. It was hard.
The lockdowns were sudden and unexpected. The government said it would take two weeks to flatten the curve. Our church, like most Canadian churches, was not equipped or experienced in online worship. There was tension over how to do this. Everything had to be done quickly. Government timelines were never as promised. Services had to be done with a small tech team in a room, the speakers and singers smiling at a camera lens, not at people.
At one stage, we could have in-person worship with reduced numbers. Then back to lockdown. Every change was decreed with only a few days’ notice. We weren’t living the dream, but rather living like a yo-yo. There was tension between people over the virus and the government and what the gospel commanded us to do. It was a daily temptation to become politically driven not gospel driven. There was tension, sometimes, between the denomination and the congregation. The lockdowns and rules caused stress, damaging relationships. It was often hard.
One Saturday afternoon we were informed that three people who had attended the church service the previous Sunday had tested positive for COVID. We had to scramble to figure out what the rules were and how to handle the situation. We decided not to cancel the services the next day but to inform everyone of what had happened (without naming names). People were left to make their own decision.
Nearly 38,000 people have died from COVID in Canada to date. I estimate that most of those who have returned to worship have had COVID. Fortunately no one in our congregation was hospitalized, though one person’s father died.
2. The triune God is kind.
Time and time and time again our church managed the changes. New workers stepped up. The council and the staff and the key volunteers stepped up and adapted. New ways of ministry developed on the fly. The money continued to come in to meet ministry needs.
Just before the pandemic craziness, we were told the building we rent to meet and do ministry was being sold. Despite not being able to do a proper campaign to meet people, answer questions, cast vision, and raise money, the Lord miraculously provided the money, and we were able to buy the building mortgage-free. We never had to apply for help from the government because of declining revenue. In fact, our giving went up. All I can say is, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. The Lord is kind.”
3. It was a fruitful season.
We know for a fact that more non-Christians than ever before tuned in to our services and heard the gospel preached. This wasn’t because we’re very good at advertising or promotion (remember my Marsh-wiggle tendencies).
As well, shut-ins and those who had soured on church in cities outside of Ottawa tuned in and found a renewed desire to know Christ and to walk with him. We planted a church in the suburbs. We just brought someone on board to get a university ministry off the ground. Our prayer going into 2022 is that the Lord would make it the most fruitful year in our history.
4. The future is his and he is good.
This season has revealed that we, like most Canadians, like to think we know the future and can plan for it. When stated so baldly, we know this isn’t true, but we believe it at a deep subconscious level. It’s a good thing to die to the idol of knowing and controlling the future. Christians should pray and plan, knowing that while we don’t know the future, we serve the One who is sovereign over the present and the future.
As in Acts 6–7, when truly bad things happened to the church, the Lord used their suffering to get the church to move outside of Jerusalem to spread the gospel. This long COVID season has made us develop online skills that we now realize can be used to develop, support, coach, and sponsor church planting efforts in several cities far from us, and even to prayerfully consider helping to plant a church in another country.
He has brought this about, not us, and the glory is all his.