Three Congregations That Grew During The Covid Lockdown

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog:

Published October 16, 2023 

Three congregations that reportedly grew during the Covid lockdowns in 2020: Christ Church in Moscow, ID; Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, CA; and Trinity Church in Scottsdale, AZ. These three congregations have a few things in common. Each is led by a powerful personality: Doug Wilson, John MacArthur, and Mark Driscoll respectively. Each of these pastors has been controversial in one way or another, some of which have been chronicled in this space. All of them, to one degree or another, generated controversy over their reaction to the Covid mandates. All of them too took a very public stand in defiance of public health regulations. Comments in a recent article on Driscoll’s congregation in Scottsdale capture well what happened:

Driscoll’s ministry in Phoenix grew rapidly during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. After just a brief closure in the pandemic’s earliest days, Driscoll made the decision to open the church, making it one of very few that held in-person services during that spring and summer. In response, people poured in by the thousands.

Meanwhile, Driscoll took part in weekly private Zoom calls with a group of other pastors overseeing large churches in the area to share strategies for safely holding worship in those unprecedented times. According to pastors who attended the meetings—which went on for months—Driscoll was a source of encouragement and inspiration.

The congregation ballooned from 800 or so people at first to more than 2,000 in just two years. The masking policy was lax at the church, according to former attendees, making it one of the few public spaces for people to congregate during a time of mass isolation.

Ben and Tiffany Eneas, a couple who had moved to Phoenix in May 2020, were two people who found the church during the pandemic. As newcomers who moved to a new city during the height of the pandemic lockdowns, they were hungry for community, and Trinity was one of the only places they could find it. They started attending regularly.

Ben Eneas was drawn to Driscoll’s willingness to speak boldly about current events—even controversial issues. He enjoyed Driscoll’s public defense of the Second Amendment, as well as his skepticism of mask mandates and the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. He felt at home, both spiritually and politically.

'It felt really good to hear a pastor boldly say what you already feel,' Ben Eneas said. 'All of that resonated with me.'

This narrative and the quotations are illuminating—though, Ben Eneas would come to change his mind rather dramatically about Mark Driscoll. My interest here is not to rehash the Covid lockdowns. Rather, this article should stimulate us to think more carefully about one of the greatest questions facing Christians in the 2020s: Christ and culture. The last line in the quotation from Ben Eneas stating that Driscoll was saying what he was feeling might seem familiar. Rush Limbaugh (1951–2021) often attributed the success of his radio show to the fact that he articulated what millions of Americans thought, and millions of Americans rewarded him by listening loyally to his show for thirty years.

Continue here.