Why Christians Must Meet in Person

 

The Way God has Wired All Social Communities

No matter what group of people we consider, whether a small unit such as a married couple, a few friends, a family, or a larger unit such as a local neighbourhood, a local scout group, a school class - or a church, ties of community and mutual accountability are automatically fashioned every time we see one another in person.

These bonds are not necessarily created through electronic connections such as Zoom, Skype, email or phone, as good and necessary as those are in these days. They are mostly and most strongly created through the visceral flesh-to-flesh presence of people in the same room.

Call it mystical if you like, but if by mystical you mean beyond the ability of the mind to comprehend or science to understand, that's OK with me. 

When people meet in person regularly invisible bonds are formed.

Examples?

There are many examples of this.

We may, for example, possess the biological bonds of family with a brother/mother/sister/father and yet easily drift away from them in mind and even heart if we never meet up in person. 

'Out of sight out of mind' is more than a coloquial saying.

Boyfriend and girlfriend easily drift apart when they are separated by miles. 

School headmasters are worried today that many children are not joining online classes because there is far less social pressure to do so without the physical presence of school friends, class environment or teachers.

Church leaders are discovering that Christians can easily back out of meeting together on Sundays because online there is no social or pastoral pressure upon them. 

We drift apart when we do not meet one another in person - even if that 'meeting' is obscured by wretched masks, social distancing and minimal speaking.

And our mutual accountability to one another also diminishes with reduced physical presence. It is easier to "do what we want" when no-one is around.

And the ties that connect pastors to their flock can also be weakened and it becomes harder to admonish someone whom you have lost physical contact with. (It's always easy to encourage, but it's harder to lovingly admonish).

Every time we meet in person, rich and mystical ties are reinforced or formed. 

The Reasons

Why then are invisible bonds created each time we meet? And why do they dissolve when we cease from meeting?

First, because we are made in the image of a social God. We need one another's fellowship, because we are made like God, who is Three Glorious Persons in eternal and continually perpetual love and communion with One Another. How do we know that? Because the fourth Gospel reveals God the Son in constant communication with God the Father. 

So-called 'holy men' - hermits who live completely on their own - are an idea and category of existence completely unknown by Scripture. (In my limited experience, these tragic creatures are anything but holy and everything wierd - Google Simeon Stylites).

Second, love, the greatest command, requires, as part of its remit physical contact - which can't be done online. Five times in the New Testament - no less - we are exhorted to greet one another with a holy kiss. Whatever watered-down spins we may put on that command, a 'holy kiss'  requires being in the physical presence of the other.

Third, the Perfect Man needed the company of others. Jesus was no one-man band intinerrant preacher but was attended by followers whom he called friends.  Not only during the whole of his ministry, but especially in his darkest hour. The Twelve may have failed with sleepiness, but the case stands: Jesus needed others. And if he did, so do we.

Fourth, Paul's letters reveal the depth of longing-to-see-you-in-person love that beats in the heart of every Spirit-born saint. "But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you." (1 Thessalonians 2:17). If you or I were ever to rise anywhere near the standard of the apostle Paul's love, we would be desperate to be in one another's presence. As desperate, to use Paul's words, as a child separated from its parent.

Fifth, God does not overule, in the church, the natural social bonding mechanisms he has created. Christians should not think that the wonderful social wiring God has created for all mankind is somehow suspended in the church. In fact these 'natural bonds are reinforced in a Christian community, for where just a few gather togther, Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit is present, strengthening the bonds of love and peace. One reason we meet is to know in some fuller sense the presence of Jesus.

Conclusion

Every week that passes when we do not meet up in person is a week when the God-designed bonds of love and community and mutual acocuntability are weakened. 

Leonhard Schiemer, a 1500s Anabaptist leader, wrote to a little church in the Austrian city of Rattenberg these words: "Come together often. If you cannot all meet at once, let half come, or even a quarter."

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing" (Hebrews 10:25) 

Every church must take this truth to heart. If they want their community to survive lockdown, online and Zoom will never suffice. 

Believers must meet up in person, somehow, some way. 

They must encourage and engage in one-to-one fellowship, where allowed by the law. 

They must persevere with Sunday gatherings when they can. 

Pastors must visit on the doorstep where they can.

Let us all do what we can to keep the bonds of fellowship strong.