Church Growth and Decline in the COVID Crisis

[Music] [Music] evidently this is happening this transformation this work of grace if your experience your grace and mine which is similar i've seen incredible blessing uh over the period of kovid very tangibly and i've heard from numerous priest brothers similar similar words i know that there are many churches that have suffered and may not even survive this crisis but there are also many churches that have really thrived what are the reasons in your mind that there have been so many blessings so many new people at churches such growth during the copic crisis why faithfulness people are drawn to the fruits of faithfulness and there is a very obvious correlation to anyone who wants to look at it between parishes that have declined during this period and those that have grown and almost universally i won't say absolutely because there's exceptions to every rule but almost universally the parishes that have declined are those that have succumbed to fear and have succumbed to worldliness rather than those that have been faithful to the church and her traditions even when that puts the intellect and the mind at odds with the fears of the world so the churches that have said we're going to stop venerating icons because we're afraid of touching things we're going to stop having confession because we're afraid of being close to people even in places where the governments have not required such things they have found and it shouldn't surprise anyone their population's shrinking because people sense i'm being deprived of something i should not be deprived of and the places where sometimes that great labor and intense work required to do it have found ways to keep the church's practices alive in the face of restrictions that might make it complicated have found people flocking to them this is one of the reasons why in my own diocese almost every parish has grown so much during this period is we have never shut the door on confession and people come and they say i have not been able to say confession in six months well why on earth not there is no reason that this should be impossible there's no government that i know of that's actually mandated rules that make it impossible but people out of fear take the things going on in society and say well we must stop this and this and this people want fidelity to what the church teaches and i'm not talking about mindless fanaticism of saying no disease can ever touch me no sickness can ever harm me this is nonsense it's a lack of faith a faithful christian says i might well get sick but so be it it's in god's hands i'm not going to let that possibility stop me from doing what the lord commands of me and i'm not going to let myself be deprived of the grace that god wishes to bestow because of the fears society is bringing in your your response makes me think of a beautiful text in first corinthians when saint paul describes that it's necessary that schisms and divisions take place so that those who are are approved may become evident and saint john chrysostom in his commentary on that affirms that the church is put through constant trials as an a part of god's will so that the faithful can become obvious and especially faithful clergymen so that the faithful can know who to affix them to themselves to and who to avoid it's a fascinating interpretation on christism's part and also shows maybe some of the the miracle of god's providential working through trials and tribulations he wasn't talking about diseases but spiritual diseases of systems and divisions i also wonder if perhaps also because our the west has been so secularized and has been hiding from death and trying to put death out of mind and out of sight if the the sheer forcefulness by which death appeared might might be used to stir up in the minds of of people the glories of the good news you know the good news is good news if you believe in bad news if you don't believe in bad news i mean i thought if everything's great i'm never going to die what do you need jesus for at all i wonder if perhaps the that has been an aspect of what's drawn people if that they've had their life shaken they're asking larger questions about what would happen to me if i do die there comes a point in every person's life if they take the faith seriously where they have to confront the question do i actually believe the things that i say i believe it's all well and good to say as we're doing now for a few more days christ is risen it truly has risen but do you actually believe what you're saying because if you believe those words then death can no longer captivate you as some unconquerable enemy if you actually believe that christ has risen from the dead and conquered death that has to radically change the way you look at everything including your own death and sickness and in times of peace and tranquility we say all sorts of things and we think we believe them but they're never challenged which is why the church has always flourished most in times of persecution or famine or pestilence we always pray to god relieve us from persecution famine pestilence plague and so on but in point of reality god gives us these things precisely because through them faith is strengthened by that testing like iron is forged in the fire and the fact that a disease comes along where people think this could make me ill this could end my life that should be something that you're aware of anyway there are many things that could end your life none of us know if we'll have another day another five minutes and yet it takes a global pandemic for people to start saying i wonder what will happen when i die and to start questioning in a positive sense perhaps i should take more seriously the faith that i claim to believe in so this is precisely why the church is strengthened when these moments are embraced properly i said to one of my parishes that i was visiting i said look a year and a half ago i had to beg you to come on time to the liturgy i had to plead with you to be here before the gospel was read russian orthodox christians are notorious for thinking the liturgy begins about halfway into the liturgy not just russia like this and i said but look now because of what's happened and the difficulties the fact that we've had to limit numbers in certain places therefore that means if you want to be inside you have to be here at the beginning now when i arrive at the beginning of the liturgy the church is full to capacity look how much more seriously you're taking your faith because of the struggles you've been through our wonderful metropolitan uh hilarion the first hierarch of our church abroad he issued an epistle last year during one of these lockdowns and said very beautifully i thought perhaps we had taken for granted what we had been given before the fact that the church was always open always here if we wanted to come and pray the doors would be open perhaps god knew exactly what he was doing when he said i will make it hard for you for a while i will close the door so that you learn to love what you ought to love [Music] oh [Music] you

Channel: PatristicNectarFilms

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Keywords: COVID Crisis, COVID and Christians, Fear and Faith, Bishop Irenei, Bishop Irenei Steenburg, Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe, pandemic, fear, christians, Patristic Nectar Publications, Patristic Nectar, Fr Josiah Trenham, Josiah Trenham, Orthodox, Orthodox Christian, Orthodox church

Id: 7e2nVEWBWeM

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021