With fear of the coronavirus outbreak on a global scale, many are turning to faith leaders to see how they respond.
Several megachurch pastors around the world tackled the new virus in their sermons and through services, encouraging washing of hands and disinfecting common areas while cutting back on communal contact during greetings, communion, and offering times.
Joseph Prince, pastor of New Creation Church (NCC) in Singapore, told Fox News believers should respond to the new virus with “both faith and wisdom.”
The leader of a congregation with 33,000 members in a country that saw some of the first cases outside of China has kept his church open with state-of-the-art sanitation and detectors, while others went to only being online as Singapore has 160 confirmed cases with no reported deaths.
“Be wise to take the necessary precautions,” Prince said, “but at the same time, pray the prayer of protection found in Psalms 91 daily. I encourage all believers to speak the promises of God’s protection over yourself and your entire household and church.”
In a mid-February sermon, the Christian author shared a testimony of healing from one of the church members and shared how in 2018 he said a flu-like virus would come but God has already released a new “strain” of healing among his people, focusing on the passage from Psalm 91:3, “Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence.”
Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, which has congregations in multiple locations in California and in Hawaii, said, “In some ways the viral fear may be worse than the virus itself.”
He said Christians should be practical, prayerful, and proclaim Christ’s peace in an atmosphere of fear.
“Don’t worry about it, pray about it,” Laurie told his church in a clip posted on Instagram. “God is bigger than the coronavirus. Don’t be afraid.”
Reporting by Fox News
