One Monday morning in class, during my theological studies in UTC, the professor asked how many of us went to church? All of us raised our hands in affirmation. Just then the professor asked to which church you went, pointing to a friend of mine. He stammered the name of a church and the professor, jokingly said “he went to BBC”, which means “Bed-side Baptist Church” and all of us had a hearty laughter. The joke literally meant, the friend did not go to church instead slept missing the worship service, that Sunday morning.
This pandemic is a come-back for several things in life, like the eagerness to meet people, people are seen keeping water and food trays for birds, many staying home to safeguard others, medics, paramedics, police, security personals and other safety ‘warriors’ doing their jobs beyond their strength (not denying that some of them have always done their best), and so much more. And the best part where people are compassionately helping each other, only to show that humanity has a learnt the hard way. Even the church has ventured into a stream it once ridiculed, just so that people may hear the gospel. Making the gospel be heard in places never imagined.
Most of us are brought-up in Christian traditions were taught that church is essential and that going to church is the utmost important qualification any Christian needs. The hard-hitting Christian norms of wearing the best clothes to church, dressing modest to prayer meetings, being regular to worship services at church etc essentially because, “Church is where God is” follows subsequently.
From my childhood, I too was always regular to church. I was groomed with the thought that that going to church one-minute late was wrong (every pastor’s child’s lesson). But today going five minutes early to church, for me, is a sin. I have to be in church atleast 25-30 mins early so I can pray, reflect and relax to participate fully in worship. I used to question if God can accept us the way we are, then why should I dress so well for people-sake? If God were to be everywhere, why then should we be so regular to church that we force our children into. I used to reason that, it maybe is necessary for us because parents taught for discipline sake or even to escape from beating if absent.
However, today, the pandemic has brought the church to my bedstead. I do not need to dress-up well for people sake, I needn’t even brush my teeth, I can just carry my phone to the bathroom or the toilet and still hear the sermon and participate in worship. Not confining God or worship to the phone alone, but the experience of participating in worship from spaces inhospitable to God, somehow gives the feeling that God has ventured into spaces that are dirty. Thus, reinstating God's presence in the shitty and dirty places once considered inhospitable to God, but is now open for God to enter. I still can participate in the church worship wherever I am, with the same spiritual connection, read the bible on my phone and be renewed in my spirit be as dirty as I am, yet still feel accepted by God. Therefore, giving me this amazing sense of being able to allow God be part of my personal spaces that are considered dirty.
