{"id":6706,"date":"2020-03-28T13:01:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T13:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/?p=6706"},"modified":"2020-03-28T13:01:45","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T13:01:45","slug":"to-cancel-or-not-to-cancel-that-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/?p=6706","title":{"rendered":"To Cancel or Not to Cancel: That Is the Question"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A statement from the leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today. Walter Kim and Timothy Dalrymple \/ March 23, 2020<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2020\/march-web-only\/walter-kim-nae-timothy-dalrymple-cancel-church-or-not.html\">Link to full article here: To Cancel or Not to Cancel: That Is the Question <\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Please note: <\/strong>I am not trying to overwhelm us with information, but I have found several very good articles from different traditions and perspectives that I believe are very useful to us and will continue to be useful to us in our decision-making process. If you cannot access these articles because of subscription permissions, let me know and I will send the text.<br>Pastor Dave<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Critical Question<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To\n cancel or not to cancel? That is the Shakespearean question confronting\n churches today. It is not a question of mere expediency. The gathered \nworship service is central to the church\u2019s identity, and therefore, \ncancellation seems to trample on more than tradition. It can feel like a\n threat to the church\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Government officials, medical experts, and civic leaders\n have all asked citizens to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus by \npracticing physical distancing. According to leading experts, churches \nare one of the top places of community spread. Why? Christians shake \nhands, embrace one another, and kiss cheeks. Some are liturgically \ndirected to drink from a common cup; others pass the peace with a warm \ntouch. Our bodies do naturally what our souls do supernaturally. We \nconnect. And we do so intergenerationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What are churches to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our mandate as Christians to obey governing authorities \n(Rom. 13:1\u20137; 1 Pet. 2:13\u201317) is a good reason for churches to cancel \nworship services. But there are other Biblical principles that help us \nembrace this difficult decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Canceling in-person worship services is not the same as \ncanceling worship. Christians should never stop worshiping, because God \nis worthy of all our praise. Those in the persecuted church have long \nworshiped God without buildings, because they know that church is not \nprimarily a place but a people. And technology now gives us \nunprecedented options. This does not mean, of course, that place is \nunimportant. God himself authorized the building of a temple that would \nserve as a place where his name would dwell. Even with that decree, \nhowever, at the dedication of the temple, Solomon humbly acknowledged \nthat God cannot be consigned to a place (1 Kings 8:27).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A statement from the leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today. Walter Kim and Timothy Dalrymple \/ March 23, 2020 Link to full article here: To Cancel or Not to Cancel: That Is the Question Please note: I am not trying to overwhelm us with information, but I have found several very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6707,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions\/6707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}