To be or not to be? A missional and practical theological perspective on being Church without walls amidst coronavirus disease 2019: A challenge or an opportunity?

Jacques W Beukes

doi:10.4102/hts.v76i1.6115

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread globally. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak to be a global pandemic. Millions of people have been diagnosed globally; and at the time of publishing this article, more than a million people died because of the virus. South Africa reported its first official COVID-19 case on 05 March 2020, and since then the figures dramatically increased. On 15 March 2020 and the week thereafter on 23 March 2020, South Africans were waiting in anticipation as they learned from various (social) media platforms that the President would make a crucial announcement regarding the impact of COVID-19 and the drastic effect it will have on their country. Immediately drastic and tremendous measures were announced to safeguard South Africans and to contain the spread of the virus that was impacting communities of all faiths. Does this situation of crisis and global pandemic pose a challenge or a new opportunity for the church to be church with integrity? This article explores this question by engaging with the missional and practical theological perspectives such as the church being missional, relevant and contextual. This situation both challenges and provides opportunities to revisit and redefine being church outside the traditional walls of the church as missional describes being a missionary everywhere you are. This article engages with the missional perspective that the church is called to be church everywhere as well as being church in a time of the fourth industrial revolution. Contribution: This research challenges the traditional discourse and believers’ current understanding and praxis of being church. This research invites the church to embrace new (old forgotten) ways of being church because of a medical global pandemic (health sciences). It brings together insights from missional ecclesiology and practical theology and engages with social and human sciences.

Highlights

According to Khan and McIntosh (2005:223), human coronavirus can be traced back to 1965
Because God was and is still actively involved in every aspect of creation, the missional church should be a participant in the Missio Dei
Whilst tradition still has value and a real place in the future, precisely because we live with such diversity around us, new situations allow the church to embrace the new, for instance, family devotions, the spiritual disciplines and disciple making that was neglected

Summary

Introduction

According to Khan and McIntosh (2005:223), human coronavirus can be traced back to 1965. It means to internalise or to be the good news not just to share it, to express grace in the daily as followers of Jesus into the darkness of the world This is exactly what the church is called for today in this Kairos moment, to be a missional church (in Smit’s[i] fourth, fifth and sixth manifestation of church) in our current context of crisis and COVID-19. A lack of innovative and practical ministerial skills for ministry in this new situation may lead to fear for anything new rather than the traditional, which hinders change, relevancy or flexibility If this is the case, Cahalan (2005) proposes the following: Minister(s) [and church leaders] must be trained to be an interpreter of many texts, which include the sacred scriptures, the tradition of teaching and witness, and the contemporary context. The church or believers are not just called to make disciples and to be agents of change in the world and salt and light in the world (Mt 5:13,14) through whom the kingdom principles such as human dignity, equity, justice, flourishing and human dignity, etc., are to be established in society

Conclusion

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