Thread by @JennMGreenberg

When Paul wrote letters from prison, God used his faith in a mightier way than any of us may ever experience. He couldn't see his church. He could only pen the words praying they were read weeks later. Pastor, God can work through tech too. Even in isolation, you are never alone.

You have only ever had one audience. He is God. And he is present. Your congregation is a witness to your act of worship as you preach. Whether that preaching is scrawled on parchment in a prison cell, or emailed as an MP3, our God is mighty to save, and he is endlessly faithful.

If you fear that God's word will not go forth, or your congregation will not hear preaching, simply because you are isolated behind a mic or a keyboard, then perhaps - and I say this in love - you are forgetting how powerful, faithful, sovereign and good our God truly is.

If death could not keep him in a tomb, can an MP3 format stifle his Spirit?

God does not encounter obstacles. He only sees methods of glory. He will work in this time, just as he worked in the days of Paul, and in times of persecution, and in places where the Gospel and corporate worship are illegal. God is victorious. God is sovereign. God has got this.

When I was a young teen, I was a big fan of a scientist named Louis Pasteur. During the 1800s, anthrax was a horrific disease that caused the blood of sheep to thicken and turn black. Whole pastures where those sheep grazed or were buried could not be used or the disease spread.

A good shepherd knows that when a sheep is sick, he must isolate it from the others, or the whole flock may grow sick or even die. If he cannot yet tell which or how many sheep are infected, he will keep them all in isolation, but still take care of each one.

Just so, with your flock, you must be a wise shepherd.

I also recall. during those years, living in a sort of isolation myself. We went to church, but no one really knew me or what was happening in my home. Yet God used unseeing shepherds to ignite the Gospel in my heart. Their words applied accidental wisdom to my circumstance.

I have a friend, Sandy, who recently broke her ankle. Pray for her, if you would. Sandy has only been able to attend church a few times in over a year. She's suffered a brain tumor, surgery complications, and numerous other painful health challenges. Yet she's a mighty Christian.

Is her faith because she heard so many sermons in person? Did seeing her pastor standing 50 feet away afford her some extra measure of grace mere words couldn't convey?

Of course not.

Because the Spirit of God is not limited by this world.

God will work through isolation. God will work through this pandemic.

Perhaps he will grow us in compassion for homebound brothers and sisters, like Sandy. Perhaps we will remember our sick and elderly better after we have felt their loneliness and deprivation for a time.

Perhaps he will build us up in mercy and prayer for Christians living in places where corporate worship is illegal, and preaching the Gospel is punishable by death.

Perhaps we will better understand the suffering of those living in places where there are no churches to go to.

And perhaps he will gather scattered families together in love, fellowship, and prayer. Maybe those overcommitted parents in your congregation, who last week were racing between work, sports, music lessons, and scouts, are now reading the Bible more frequently as a family.

Isolation, I think you'll find, has a way of bringing people together.

And so God will use you. And God will use them. Whether you meet in person or Skype; preach via pulpit or podcast.

If he can make the very rocks rise up and worship him (Luke 19:40), then he can enable your congregation to worship wherever they are, however you can reach them.