What Happens Next - A Discussion about Post-COVID Church w/ Pheaney

(Note: I was discussing these ideas with a good friend and local missionary Peter Lindell - AKA Pheaney (who blogs at www.pheaney.com) and we decided to turn this into a bit of a back and forth. His first post is in black with my response in red)

What happens next?

I think immediately after the quarantine lifts we will see a rush back to church. There will be excitement in meeting again and most gatherings in church buildings will return to their pre-COVID numbers (or maybe even higher!).

My concern is what will happen 6 months after we start gathering.  I'm worried that that the move to online streaming, videos and content during COVID will actually work against the church in the future.

When life "gets back to normal" and we all get really busy again... sports, long work weeks, other commitments... will we still prioritize gathering as believers?  I suppose in large part this depends on how you engaged what your church offered while you were quarantined to your home. Did you simply consume the teaching, worship or prayer time as a blessing to you OR did you seek to interact with the teaching by asking your family questions about its application? Was your heart moved to prayer for the neighbor you haven’t been able to see over the backyard fence for months now? Did your family make it a habit of choosing joy in worship despite the present circumstances? Depending on how you answered these questions, in my view, determines your desire to get back together with other believers again. It is the Blood of the Lamb AND our testimony that overcomes (See Rev. 12:11). In fact, it overcomes because “…they loved not their lives even unto death…” 
A person who loves their own life used this quarantine in self-interest. The church, however, is strengthened on the back side of this and will prove my concerns wrong if they used this time as fuel. Fuel to burn a passion for the Word of God illumined in their hearts by the Spirit of God as it is SHARED with others. 

Or will the average church-goer realize they can get the same experience from their own home, on their own time, and save the hassle of getting to an in-person gathering?

Church was never meant to be a product to be consumed, but a gathering of believers. Did our efforts to feed and care for the church during COVID reinforce a consumer mentality? Or did those efforts help all believers exercise their calling to be a disciple who makes disciples? That would be my concern. My prayer and earnest hope is that we have learned in this quarantine how discipleship is not overly complicated. "I simply LOVE GOD and LOVE OTHERS on repeat." Now that we have had great practice in close quarters with our family (Deut. 6:1-9), gathering with others regularly is a great help to you in the journey of making disciples. Church of God, will we RISE?

I hope I'm wrong with this prediction, but I'm worried I might not be. Revival is personal before it is corporate. The hard, but necessary work of examination (self) over ease is the first step in the process toward corporate, national and worldwide revival of God's Church! May we not go back to "normal." Our God does NEW more than He does "normal." See Isaiah 43.