Warmth In Church : Are We Losing The Personal Touch? (Jeremy)

 Warmth In Church: Are We Losing The Personal Touch?

 

Introduction

According to the Oxford dictionary, warmth can be best defined as “ enthusiasm, affection, or kindness.” How then is the term “warmth”applied to church? In Revelation 3 : 15-16, Jesus calls the church of Laodicea out for it’s lukewarmness , being neither hot nor cold and for that, they will be metaphorically “spit” out of Jesus’s mouth. Even though, this letter to the Laodicea Church was written in AD 90, the lack of warmth within the church is still prevalent today with many churchgoers feedbacking that they do not feel a sense of belonging when they attend church services. This issue, if left unanswered and unaddressed could lead to members weakening or even leaving this faith altogether. Therefore, this essay wishes to present the author’s observations based on various non structured conversations with youths within the church, explore and address this issue of a “lack of warmth” in our modern church through suggestions.

 

Problem : Lack Of Spiritual/Emotional & Financial support from leaders of the church

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SYNOD for The Presbyterian Church Of Singapore launched a survey for both church members and pastors, to find out more about the challenges and issues that have surfaced during this difficult period of pandemic - for the churches, so as to understand and better administer to the concerns of church members and for the pastors, to discuss and reflect on the current efforts and how to steward the church in this “New Normal” way of life. One key finding of the survey is that 95% of the participants of the survey have been observed to have attended online worship, 78.5 % attending online cell group & 30% attending theology related seminar which highlights the possible trend that the congregation of churches are still very much willing to engage with the church despite activities being moved offline. However, when asked if they have received spiritual/emotional/financial support from their church, 58% of those surveyed reflected a response of neutral, disagree or strongly disagree with their key complains being that the church did not check in on them with calls to ensure that they are not adversely impacted by the aftereffect of the pandemic ( eg : loneliness, retrenchment). This is a problem that have plague the church since Paul’s time as often a church view sound doctrines as the most important aspect of church life and that other aspect such as fellowships and building genuine connection is futile and irrelevant in how the church can and should move ahead in advancing God’s kingdom. While we can all agree on the teaching  and application from the Bible to be the basis of all that we do in church, fellowship and building up of genuine connections through home visitations cannot be casted aside by the leaders as irrelevant towards the roles and responsibilities that the Church plays in rooting and nurturing the congregation. Instead, the church should see these as alternative avenues where the biblical truth and knowledge can be applied towards. For example, a church can preach about the love from God and how it is important to love the people around us and yet if there are no alternative avenues for the congregation to apply, all of these will remain in the head and remain solely as head knowledge to be used to appear “smart” and yet have no impact whatsoever to one’s life. Looking within the Bible, we see the case of the Pharisees, people who are the teachers of the law and knows the law at the back of their head and yet despite how knowledgeable they are, we know that ultimately, their obsession with the law and works also became their downfall as to never seeing the kingdom of God.

Recommendation : How to be able to find the warmth within the church?

Based on the issue highlighted above, it is suggested that the Church leadership look into ensuring that office bearers and ministry leaders understand the importance and purpose of service. Very often, the first impression somebody gets when he or she first enters the church and how the ushers on duty welcomes and settle them in would determine if that said person would return to the church or not and so ushers need to ensure that they are genuine in serving and attending to the needs of the congregation instead of just being there because they are rostered to do so. Regular followup & visitation of the congregation is also much necessary in order for the congregation to feel loved and cared for by the pastoral team and the EDC. As mentioned earlier, churches should also welcome fellowship as a means for brother and sister in Christ to share the load with each other and experience Christ’s presence within the community.