Since COVID19 took over the world back in March, church services have looked very different. With physical church buildings closed, Sunday services have migrated to online platforms which means most people are doing church alone at home or with the family. Often that means just watching the online worship and listening to the sermon—not really participating.

I’ve been reading the book, Permission Granted to do Church Differently in the 21st Century by Graham Cooke. I actually started reading the book before the pandemic because my husband and I sensed God wanted His Church to be something more than a typical Sunday service, committees and programs. And I think God is definitely saying that now in the midst of the pandemic.

It’s individual Christians together who make up the Body of Christ—not a building or a program. In his book, Cooke says: “The local church does not DO small groups; the local church IS a small group where everyone participates.” The early church met in homes where they ” devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42 NIV.)

My husband and I recently started meeting with one other couple each week to worship, pray and seek God. The four of us are asking God together how to do church—what to do when we meet, how to add others to our group, etc. We have been friends a long time so we also enjoy meals together, sharing our lives, watching a movie and just being together—doing life together. I believe that is the new (really the original) paradigm for the Church.

Ask God to give you some other people to meet with on a regular basis to seek Him, to worship Him, pray and read Scripture. I know God will do it—he brought our friends all the way from Louisiana and plopped them down right around the corner from us! If He can do that, He can lead you to like-minded Christians to do life with!