Gathered and Scattered

Submitted by James Lee, Christ Community Church, East Islip, NY

Category:  Adult Discipleship

As COVID-19 hit, many churches struggled with adjusting to virtual ministry. By the grace of God, our church transition was seamless.

Within a week, we held daily Zoom prayer meetings from 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm for two weeks. After that, we connected with a local RCA congregation that is 25 minutes away from our church, to do a joint book study and bible study together via Zoom. We used resources from Public Reading of Scripture (www.prsi.org). We continued to hold weekly prayer meetings via Zoom, and were joined by our missionaries for select special prayer meetings.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-cIhcA9alWStgxBXjDaLzMx9FPRznhx1, “Two Minute Devotional” series from over 15 different pastors across North America. In addition, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-cIhcA9alWTdBtqjZJsotQOuIJwwXC5i, and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-cIhcA9alWQJfE_1pY-FMAO8_iX1bd9k as we continue our devotional videos in our virtual ministry.

Praise God! We didn’t have to pay any airfare and were able to develop a deeper relationship with our missionaries through those face-to-face prayer meetings via Zoom. All in all, this helped our congregation learn to think “outside the box,” and learn how church can happen “outside the four walls of the church building.” Being strategic with these unique partnerships and experiments with virtual ministry helped our people learn that we are the church GATHERED AND SCATTERED.