Like everyone else in the world, we are grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. It has been particularly stressful for pastors having to change the way we do church. In a way, many church pastors jump into the virtual world to connect with our people. We learn in short order how to zoom, twitter, conduct live Instagram, YouTube premiere and video editing with filmora9 software. I have personally come to speed with the virtual space more in the last 4 months than I did in the last 10 years. The good part is God has forced many pastors, me included, to connect with the modern world where our young virtually spend most of their time. Suddenly, a whole new world beckon. I was able to invite pastors to speak for us from all over, something which would have been too costly to do so in the old way. One poor pastor whom I invited was so clueless, he could not produce a video of himself whilst another required my guidance till late Saturday evening before the video was birthed. It is an exciting medium as our reach now has extended to 100 to 200 views. Our church team has resolved to continue the live broadcast even when we can gather for the physical church. We now possess the knowhow to do it in a basic way.
But there is a huge growing concern during this pandemic. We seem to be losing touch with our people with some drifting away. Even the virtual service is fraught with problems as the view time is frighteningly low – 8 to 10 minutes. I suspect some turn on their i-phones only to show up for a while. A whole new set of problems start to emerge. Depression, loss of jobs, loneliness, and surprisingly marital problems. We desperately try to mitigate this via zoom connect groups which interestingly is the best form of communication for cell groups.
On 5 July we started the physical church first for leaders followed by full membership on 12 July.
To further compound the situation, we had to let one of our pastoral couples go because of personal problems. Fortunately, two more came to take their place. It has been a traumatic period to say the least.
But we press on. We are planning, the Lord willing, to do a mission trip next year once the pandemic lifted, and a vaccine is found. I hope to lead a team of pastors (mostly 60 and above – God’s Dad’s army) to explore and do missions work. It will be an interesting beachhead into the region given that it is the most liberal country of the group. We will see how the Lord leads. We are currently supporting in a small way a church there.
CNL Sydney which now has Farsi and English services is also exploring to start a Chinese service in a predominantly Chinese suburb. We are praying for God’s leading on this matter.
Prayer Needs:
- Pray for continued protection from Covid-19 for our members particularly as we have reopened our church services at Carlingford, Sydney
- Pray for the strengthening of our leadership during this critical time
- Pray for opening for the Chinese work, God willing.
- Pray for the upcoming mission trip next year or after depending on the improving conditions.
Needs:
- We need quality leaders to come forth. Currently, we have 2 good leaders for the Farsi congregation. They need to be fully supported in many ways including training.
- More members to learn the principle of tithing so that the church will be strong financially to do real church work.
- Marital problems and occult deliverance are very needful in the Persian community. We need more believing members to deal with this.
