I had something else planned for the blog this week, but it’ll have to wait until sometime later. When a little bug can cripple the world’s economy, cancel professional sports and even March Madness, it demands a response. Here’s mine.

The COVID-19 coronavirus is real and so is the pandemic that is growing as a result. People who were already at risk due to other health conditions are being pushed into eternity as a result of it, and we should take seriously the warnings and the wisdom given to us by experts.

But as followers of Jesus, we can’t allow a pandemic to lead us into pandemonium, and yet it seems that this is exactly what is happening! I don’t say this because churches are canceling normal worship services – there may very well be wisdom in doing that and our church may end up doing the same (although we’re ON for this Sunday, March 15).

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The question is what will we do instead? Hide away in our homes? Practice social distancing from the very people who need us to draw near? Bubble wrap our kids? Our faith?

Please. This is the time for the church to rise up and serve the hurting. To offer comfort and hope to people who only know fear and panic.

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I think of the church’s response to other plagues throughout history. During the Antonine Plague, 2,000 people were dying daily and the mortality rate was 25%. Yet it was the Christians who cared for the sick and dying, often dying themselves as a result. A century later, during the Plague of Cyprian in which up to 5,000 people were dying EVERY DAY, it was once again the followers of Jesus who cared for the infected and then died infected.

It isn’t how we worship during a comfortable “worship experience” that causes the culture to take notice. It’s how we serve in the uncomfortable “suffering experience” that does. This is why the early church prospered and grew. This is why numbers were added to the church daily. And now, in 2020, the church has another opportunity to “take up our cross and follow Him” in laying down our comforts, rights, and possibly even our lives in our service of the Father and others.

[Tweet “It isn’t how we worship during a comfortable “worship experience” that causes the culture to take notice. It’s how we serve in the uncomfortable “suffering experience” that does.”]

By all means, wash your hands. Blow your nose into a tissue and cough into your arm. But for the sake of the gospel, don’t retreat in fear to the comfort of your home. Step into the light and BE the light. As you do, you’ll kill off the one virus that is more contagious that the coronavirus, because fear is only viral if it has a carrier.

Refuse to carry it. Pick up peace instead, and carry it to everyone, everywhere.