With no known cases of COVID-19 in Powhatan County for now, we at OPBC are planning to have both 8:30AM and 11AM services this Sunday, March 15 with our special guest, Thomas Long, as well as our 9:45AM Special Prayer Meeting. We will not be taking up an offering by passing the offering baskets, but you can give in person on Sunday, or online anytime. All other events are postponed for the time being.

Here are a few of the best things around the web that I have found to help us think clearly, Biblically, and calmly about COVID-19.

How to Talk to Children about the Coronavirus (Cameron Cole)

The coronavirus has created a tremendous amount of fear and affliction for thousands around the world. Given the pervasive messaging about it affecting every area of life, children certainly can and are internalizing fear.

The FAQs: Coronavirus Explained by an Infectious Disease Expert and Pastor (Miguel Nunez)

Without a doubt, we must be prudent and responsible, both in observing the recommended measures and also maintaining our health.  The world population seems to be in panic. But for Christians, it’s important to emphasize that there’s no reason to experience such anxiety. Especially when we consider that the God of the heavens and the earth is the same God who controls every microbe, atom, or molecule.

How Do We Make Sense of the Coronavirus (John Piper)

Here are four biblical realities that we can use as building blocks in our effort to understand and make sense of it.

Church, You’re Up (The Sent Life)

While the world around hunkers down in uncertainty, the church must rise up to bless. Here are a few ways we and our churches might showcase the character of our Father in times like these. After all, he is “a very present help in times of trouble…therefore we will not fear” (Psalm 46).

Dealing with fear, tragedy and disease is nothing new for God’s people. Here are some historical responses.

Spurgeon and the Cholera Outbreak of 1864 (Geoff Chang)

As a young village preacher, Charles Spurgeon admired the Puritan ministers who stayed behind to care for the sick and dying during the Great Plague of London in 1665. Now in the fall of 1854, the newly called pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London found himself pastoring his congregation amid a major cholera outbreak in the Broad Street neighborhood just across the river. How did Spurgeon respond?

When the Deadly Outbreak Comes: Counsel from Martin Luther (Andy Davis)

Many Germans from other cities and towns mocked the Wittenbergers for fleeing. One German pastor named Johann Hess wrote Luther asking how a pastor should behave when facing such a plague. The pamphlet was Luther’s response, and its wisdom may prove helpful to many Christians even in our 21st-century crisis.

The Missions Response

GIVING OPTION TO CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE – IMB

GIVING OPTION TO PROVIDE FOOD FOR LOCAL CHILDREN – Backpacks of Love