The Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es is in­sist­ing that church­es should be con­sid­ered es­sen­tial.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the Coun­cil said that the Eng­lish word “church” is de­rived from the Greek “Kuri­ake” mean­ing “that which be­longs to the Lord.”

It said, there­fore, the pri­ma­ry al­le­giance of the church is to the Lord Je­sus Christ and that the word es­sen­tial means ‘ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary’ or ex­treme­ly im­por­tant.

“Es­sen­tial busi­ness­es are ones that the pub­lic re­ly on in their day-to-day life. By this de­f­i­n­i­tion, the church is ‘ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary’ es­pe­cial­ly in this sea­son of pan­dem­ic,” the state­ment added.

The Coun­cil said that dur­ing the last few lock­downs, the church had been brand­ed as non-es­sen­tial and most re­cent­ly was la­belled un­der the um­brel­la of en­ter­tain­ment.

“A clear pic­ture must be paint­ed of who the church is and what we rep­re­sent in the con­text of be­ing an es­sen­tial ser­vice. The church is the on­ly en­ti­ty that does not ex­ist sole­ly for its mem­bers. Com­pared to oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions, it is the en­ti­ty that has the most vol­un­teers ac­tive­ly in­volved in serv­ing com­mu­ni­ties around the na­tion,” the state­ment said.

It not­ed that the church has been in­struct­ed by Je­sus to preach the gospel of the King­dom of Heav­en, adding that this in­cludes, among many oth­er acts of ser­vice, meet­ing the needs of the poor, vis­it­ing or­phans and wid­ows, pray­ing for the gov­ern­ment, pray­ing and coun­selling hurt­ing fam­i­lies, and dis­ci­pling na­tions.

“The in­tegri­ty and trust God has placed in the hands of church­es should be com­ple­ment­ed by those in au­thor­i­ty. The church has at all times dis­played ma­tu­ri­ty and has in every in­stance been com­plic­it with gov­ern­men­tal reg­u­la­tions. There­fore, as the coun­cil we are mak­ing it clear that this is not an ef­fort at dis­cred­it­ing gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts but an at­tempt at seek­ing more col­lab­o­ra­tion and help­ing those in au­thor­i­ty to un­der­stand the rea­son for our ex­is­tence and there­by find ways so we can add val­ue to what they are do­ing,” the state­ment said.

It went on to say that an ex­am­ple of this col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort was the gov­ern­ment’s re­quest of the church­es to as­sist in the man­age­ment of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of ham­pers across the na­tion.

“Due to our in­volve­ment in meet­ing the needs of peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ties on a dai­ly ba­sis, we were seen by the state as the most fit­ting en­ti­ty in en­sur­ing that the most vul­ner­a­ble will ben­e­fit from this dis­tri­b­u­tion. This dis­tri­b­u­tion was ‘es­sen­tial,’ as such the gov­ern­ment would not have cho­sen a ‘non-es­sen­tial ser­vice’ to fill an es­sen­tial need.

With­out this type of syn­er­gy, the de­pressed, the sui­ci­dal, the abused, and the ad­dict­ed just to men­tion a few in this sor­did cat­a­logue, will con­tin­ue to show up at the closed doors of our church­es on­ly to leave with more pain. Who will ac­count for this co­nun­drum?”

The state­ment added, “Many of our front­line work­ers are church mem­bers. Their mo­ti­va­tion to serve is not based up­on their re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age but their faith in God. Sev­er­al of our pub­lic ser­vants in the high­est fields of en­deav­our in this na­tion serve with dis­tinc­tion on­ly be­cause of their re­la­tion­ship with God.”

It not­ed that there is a fi­nan­cial de­cline as well in some church­es.

“Many church­es are find­ing it dif­fi­cult to meet their fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions and there are in­stances of pas­tors not be­ing paid. These are some of the de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects of the church be­ing de­scribed as non-es­sen­tial. The church is not cre­at­ed for en­ter­tain­ment but for the em­pow­er­ment of its mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ties through ser­vice. The church serves on earth, but its al­le­giance is to the Lord. We may ap­pear to be non-es­sen­tial but to the Lord the church is es­sen­tial be­cause it is through the church oth­er en­ti­ties are em­pow­ered.”