Let's Talk About Covid Lockdown & Churches with Pastor Jon Korkidakis

Were you frustrated and confused by the response of many of the churches during the Covid lockdown? 

On today’s bonus episode of the StephUp Podcast, I welcome my pastor, Jon Korkidakis, who is the lead pastor at Village Green Community Church in London, Ontario in Canada. Even before the pandemic, Village Green was starting to venture out into online services as another way to reach people as they asked themselves: can the church also be a virtual community? Many churches that were the loudest in the media indicated that they were being targeted. But where they? Jon and I discuss that there is a difference between being singled out and targeted because you are Christian versus having to close due to a worldwide pandemic. "To live the most courageous life is to live loving the way Jesus loved people. That's going to mess with a lot of people because that takes the whole judgmental thing out of the vocabulary. That's what we tried to emulate through the entire pandemic: that we were a church that cared for people, loved people, wanted to lead people to a life of faith in Christ."  The extremes on both sides are usually the loudest. But the people in the middle who are just obeying guidelines and doing their thing will not be shown in the media. Jon thought this would be a wonderful time for the church to stand up and show the world what we are really all about. And many churches did. But then many didn’t.  Since Village Green was abiding by the government rules and not fighting against them, the church and Jon were targeted by other pastors who had been friends and colleagues. This was an incredibly challenging time but the support of the church community who are also in agreement has been amazing.

"I've been in ministry for over 20 years and I've never been attacked theologically, morally, socially the way I’ve been attacked over this pandemic. I’ve been told I’m leading people astray and that I’ll be answerable to that at some point and it will be a price to pay, that I’m a sheeple because I’m going to be more accountable to God for what I’ve done.”  The time we live in now is an amazing time to be alive! During a worldwide pandemic, shouldn’t we be grateful for things like the internet, online services and chats?

Watch the video of Village Green's Stance on the Pandemic here Follow StephUp Podcast on Instagram,  Twitter, and her website at  www.stephanieannwebb.com. Buy Steph's book, “What Should Dragon Do?” Support the podcast: Buy Me A Coffee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.