In the spring of 2020, many churches in the United States closed down. They were told to. I am willing to forgive that behavior. In fact, I think I’m commanded to forgive that behavior.
I get it. People were scared. Maybe a week you stay closed until you come to your senses. Maybe two weeks, because they assured us it took only two weeks to slow the spread.
It took a special kind of wrong to close down the church and to keep it closed. When Easter 2020 came, I was sure every church would open again.
I was wrong.
Though I forgive those who closed, I have a very special place in my heart for those who never closed down. Pastor Tony Spell of Baton Rouge, Louisiana is one such person. Not long ago, I sent the following to Pastor Spell. Please allow me to share it with you.
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Dear Pastor Spell,
In the spring of 2020, I was hungry for God. I knew that something was wrong when they closed down all the churches in San Francisco where I lived and where I still live today.
I was coming out of a past of atheism and knew that I needed to be in church. I was going to the wrong churches, but I knew that I was better in church on Sunday mornings than sitting at home. Many of the churches even virtue signaled with big signs outside their churches and virtue signaled in the media about how upright they were for closing down. There was a shocking level of pride in what they were doing.
Some of the San Francisco churches that closed down during the Ides of March 2020 remain closed to this day. I have yet to find a pastor in San Francisco who did not close down.
What I did in response to that — I have no question that it was at the leading of the Holy Spirit — is that I bought a hymnal online and started having my own private services on the steps of the church closest to my home. It was just me and God. It was quietly done. Someone standing ten feet from me would not have known I was having a worship service.
I knew no church that stayed open. I knew no Christian who wanted the churches to stay open. And on Resurrection Sunday, I was most sad. As far as I was concerned, if there was any day the churches needed to be open it was that one.
The churches proudly remained closed.
I called the several local pastors I knew asking them if I could just be in a corner of the sanctuary as they held their Resurrection Sunday services that would be broadcast on Zoom that day. None of them agreed. I don’t know why I was so ardent about being in the sanctuary and not at home, but I was. Something felt so wrong about it.
There were brave pastors in California who didn’t close down, but I didn’t know about them. The media gave you, Pastor Spell, such a difficult time in the lead up to Resurrection Sunday 2020.
I have no question that the stories were meant to intimidate you and to try to move the authorities into intimidating you. The stories were meant to tattle on you. But little did they know that through those attacks on you, God was encouraging me in the things of Him. He was showing me what it looked like when a Christian stood up. Every story I read about your church staying open encouraged me. I read dozens of them. There were likely hundreds of attack stories against you in the days leading up to Easter 2020.
And then Monday morning came. And I could not find a single follow-up story about you and your congregation. There was total silence, as if all those journalists had never written about you. In unison, they seemed to feel no obligation to write a follow-up about you, not even a negatively slanted followed up. Only silence. That was all I could find.
This proved to me how disingenuous the media was in covering the topic of your church preparing to stay open Resurrection Sunday 2020. Their coverage was not about notifying the public about what was taking place in the world. It really was about intimidating you, tattling on you, and trying to get local authorities to bully you into submission.
But you did not submit to that. Thank you for that.
Monday morning the media was silent. I woke up early that morning in San Francisco, eager to know if you had stayed open or been intimidated. The media was silent.
Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer and I called your church to inquire, perhaps that Monday or possibly the day after. I called your church, expecting to leave a voicemail that might get returned, but a gentleman with such a polite and kind way about him answered the phone.
I briefly introduced myself as a supportive person watching the story in the media. I asked if your church had gathered for services the day before.
The man, as polite as can be, said something simple and clear like, “We are Christians. We gather every Sunday.”
I understood. The answer was, yes. I thanked the man and went on with my day, greatly inspired.
You refused to close on Resurrection Sunday. You were the glaring example in the media. Thank you Pastor Spell. Thank you. Thank you to you and to your church.
You were a ray of hope for me in dark, dark San Francisco. In the darkest days of 2020, you were a ray of hope for me all the way across the country in San Francisco and you could not have known that.
All you likely knew is that you were being obedient to the Lord. I want to thank you for your obedience.
Eight months later in November 2020, I found my way into the first California church I knew of that did not close down. There were others that did not close down; I just didn’t know about them. I just didn’t know. It was a gift of grace from God in my life that this former atheist, this former renegade against the Lord was brought into a church that never closed down, in November of 2020, was being brought into a church where the Bible was being preached.
Walking into that church that Sunday and on the Sundays that followed changed my life.
That place three-and-a-half hours away from my home became my church and has remained my church these past four years. I gave my life to the Lord there. I was baptized there. I have grown so much in my walk with Christ. I’ve even found myself called out into the mission field from that church, called to a rather unorthodox mission field but a mission field nonetheless. How good the Lord has been to me.
Each Sunday if I am in California I drive the three-and-a-half hours to my church. It means a great deal that this church I attend never closed down. It means a great deal to me that you never closed down, Pastor Spell, that Life Tabernacle never closed down.
You were such a bright light for me in dark San Francisco, and I am so grateful for you and for the choices you made that spring. Thank you.
This Sunday, I believe I will finally be able to make my way to your church. I know I will not be likely to meet you in such a big congregation and I would not even want to take your attention from your parishioners if I could meet you. I am just so very grateful to be able to step foot in your church these five years later. I send this as a note just to say thank you to you Pastor Spell, to your wife, to your staff, to your deacons, and to your congregation for staying open. There has likely been much pain, and much hardship that has come from your decision. I just really want to say thank you.
I did not know how to read the Bible as I do now. I did not know how to pray as I do now. I did not know how to wait on the Lord or to seek His will l as I do now. There are many other ways I know now to encourage myself in the Lord, but in the spring of 2020, I did not know all of those things. I felt very alone. And your actions were the ray of hope I needed. The Lord used you — praise the Lord — to encourage me in Him. And I just want to say thank you to you and your congregation for your obedience.
Allan Stevo
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What I Found
When I stepped foot in that church, I found a place that was thriving. I found a place that sought to build community and to end reliance on the poison of government handouts. I saw 50 school buses that go far and wide, dedicated to not leave a person behind. I just got a glimpse, and I knew I was seeing what the Church was meant to be.
The stories of his irresponsibility in staying open were delivered to me by reporters from New York and Los Angeles. Nasty remarks about him were inserted into the reporting of American newspapers big and small. His own words were delivered to me by tabloids like The Daily Mail and The Sun in England, known sensationalist tabloids that were somehow doing better and fairer reporting than the newspapers of record.
I saw a congregation focussed on God, the Bible, and the gift of Jesus on the Cross. Once I saw it, I understood why the example shined so brightly all the way to San Francisco, so brightly that the hateful reporting, the threats, the intimidation from government and media could not darken that light. They were just there living the life they believed they were called to live and were doing so no matter what the outside world had to say about it.
What Can Each One Of Us Learn From Their Example?
I had never met the man, or watched a sermon. I never knew a thing about him other than the hateful coverage I read in the newspapers. But from Baton Rouge, Tony Spell was a shining light in the darkest days of the lockdowns. He could not have known the impact he was having on me. And I suspect I am not the only one who was encouraged in the Lord by Spell’s example. While all the men of God I knew went to run and hide, there was Tony Spell.
And in his example there is a principle to teach, whether you be Christian or not. The principle is this: Do your best in every moment and don’t worry about what anyone else is saying about you.
We can do no other. Life is unpredictable. You never know who you are touching and to what degree. You do not need to. Just do the best and hold yourself to a high standard.
How do you know that standard? If you ask me, it is in lots of prayer, lots of time in the Bible, a heart focused on hearing from God, and doing the work He calls you to do. I believe that is what Spell did as the weight of society came down upon him and demanded he bow the knee.
He did not bow.
So you do your best, you operate uprightly, you speak the truth diligently, you don’t give quarter to lies.
Will you be imperfect at that? Yes. We are only human. But doing that still remains the goal.
You do your best no matter what anyone else says.
Thank you to Tony Spell. Thank you to all the lions who stood firm in 2020.
