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Together in a time of lockdown

They spent much time together. Acts 2.42-47 (https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)
This passage describes what life was like in the Early Church. In the light of Paul’s letters, which were written much earlier than Acts, some people have wondered whether it isn’t rather an idealised picture.
Be that as it may, and Luke certainly doesn’t hesitate to tell us that things soon started to go wrong, the striking thing about this passage is all the togetherness it describes.
‘They devoted themselves to fellowship… All who believed were together and had all things in common… They spent much time together.’
Lockdown is the inverse of this picture. We devote ourselves to self-isolating. All who believe keep apart, living in our own little bubble. We spend no time together.
Some church leaders have worried that believers will lose the habit of meeting together, because churchgoing is a habit and it can easily be lost. Others have worried that we’re becoming self-regarding and inward-looking. 
Be that as it may, while some people desperately miss the company and encouragement of fellow believers, others quite enjoy the solitary practice of religion and feel set free from some of the burdens which institutional life imposes - regular meetings, administrative tasks, and so on.
I have become an advocate of meeting on Zoom and other similar platforms (Skype, WhatsApp Video etc.) because, although it may be out of our comfort zone to begin with, it is - as the chair of the district observed when we held the presbyteral synod on Zoom, ‘So nice to see one another’s faces again.’ We are social animals, following a social God who is three persons conjoined, and so there is a virtue in togetherness for its own sake.

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