Since time immemorial, pastoral ministry has been physically present in church buildings, homes and public places, providing face-to-face care and reassurance of God’s love and accompaniment. The tragic outbreak and speedy spread of COVID-19 from China triggered unprecedented challenges, dramatically led to restrictive national lockdowns, closure of physical meetings, fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry and demanded total digitalisation of the gospel, which eventually rendered the ministry of physical presence absent. While doing ministry online seemed to have been working well in other countries, it has been a uniquely different trajectory in Zimbabwe predominantly because of financial, material, human incapacitation as well as cultural and other contextual factors. Scholarly research on online pastoral praxis in Zimbabwe is scanty. Applying Osmer’s methodology, this study reviewed lived experiences and challenges of pastors in ministering virtually since the beginning of lockdowns early 2020 hitherto late 2021. It interrogated the ministry of presence and understanding of digitalisation. Amidst a plethora of social, political and economic drawbacks, this article unearthed erratic capability, affordability, availability, connectivity and feasibility of digitalised shepherding. Taking physical presence as incarnation of the triune God, demonstration of love, care and accompaniment as indispensable in pastoral ministry, this article stressed the significance of physical presence. However, considering the prevailing COVID-19 and contextual constrictions, it recommended that pastors should appreciate and submit their congregants to the ubiquitous and indispensable spiritual presence of God while redoubling efforts in ministering through contextually feasible ways until lockdowns end.
This article provides a critical biblical and scholarly review and analysis of the ministry of presence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. This will provoke pastors, churches and church bodies to rethink and reconsider progressive strategies towards contextually effective pastoral theology, ministry and ecclesiology in times of pandemics in the context of economic volatility.
Pastoral ministry has been physically present in ecclesial buildings, homes and public places, giving face-to-face care and reassurance of God’s love and accompaniment. The catastrophic outbreak and swift spread of COVID-19 late 2019 from Wuhan, China (Zhu et al.
After the breaking of troubling news about the rapid spread of coronavirus around neighbouring countries, the Zimbabwean government introduced lockdowns, closed borders and restricted gatherings in line with World Health Organization (WHO) precautionary measures from March 2020 (Mavhunga
Since then, Zimbabwe has been seized with a series of lockdowns and varying restrictions in correspondence with fluctuating rates of infections and deaths from time to time. In response to lockdown measures, some sectors shut down operations completely and adopted a wait-and-see approach, others locked their physical offices and embraced digitalisation to continue working remotely, while few special service providers remained physically operational from their usual workplaces (Chaora
Traditionally, the digital and theological worlds appeared distant from each other and were kept like separate compartments of life for decades (Bogle
Zimbabwe’s main daily newspaper, The Herald, reported (
A number of other churches attempted to use WhatsApp messenger and Facebook to post sermons, facilitate discussions, meetings and related programs with audio, visual and written content in harmonising attempts to augment their communication and services delivery.
Recently, the government of Zimbabwe allowed churches to reopen (up to a maximum of 100 people) for only those who have been vaccinated. The church found that impractical, arguing that she is biblically accommodating and not discriminative. Besides that, millions of Zimbabweans have not yet been vaccinated because of various factors such as health conditions, age, inadequacy and slow uptake, coupled with fears of ineffectiveness and unguaranteed safety of the vaccines.
According to WHO’s statistics about Zimbabwean vaccination, only 5 044 188 Zimbabweans got vaccinated as of 21 September 2021. Meanwhile, the World Population Review (
Churches thus, somewhat, got dismembered.
As Jesus Christ came to the world, incarnated God, the Holy Spirit continues that embodiment through the church and Apostle Paul speaks of the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit (Floberg
Corrigan and Flanagan (
Presence is, therefore, a visible sign of invisible grace through which spiritual presence inspires and necessitates physical presence with others before God. While churches in Zimbabwe got physically disrupted, it was an opportunity for them to submit themselves to spiritual companionship to pave way for the Spirit of God to work freely in a person or situation without them possibly getting in the way. Thus, their physical absence became an opportunity for congregants to experience spiritual presence while they turned online. In attempts to operate digitally, churches, however, faced disturbing challenges mostly with regard to traditional embodiment and liturgical disruptions.
As the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited congregants from meeting together publicly, many of them felt the inexplicable pain of social isolation. Having been used to meet, pray, sing, dance, share testimonies, prayer requests and the word of God together, being forbidden from physical meetings implied some dismembering. While pastors eventually ministered online and congregants could connect with them through WhatsApp, SMS and Facebook, the majority of congregants felt hurt as they got physically cut off from each other while others took it as a passing phase in which they needed to appreciate that they were all still membered as the body of Jesus Christ spiritually and could, sometimes, access ecclesial services online.
Conversely, as Tim Hutchings argues, the physically embodied spiritual community is irreplaceable, the Internet can seldom replace face-to-face human relationships and cannot be a substitute for physical fellowship and Christian community. He discredits digitalising, arguing that it makes Christianity superficial and centred on human preference, in which individuals choose when and how to connect and disconnect (Hutchings
It is established that online alternatives left churches based on access to a computer, smart phone or television instead of access to baptismal sacraments. Resultantly, most congregants felt their identities and beings challenged.
Resonating with the Zimbabwean experience of losing bodily togetherness, fellowship and worship, Challies (
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Nevertheless, it is observed that disembodiment is both disadvantageous and advantageous to churches, because the historic Christian tradition holds that God became flesh and blood in Jesus Christ who ministered on earth in order to reveal God more fully; hence humanity is intentionally created as embodied and offered new life through a physical resurrection, while being disembodied by online media equally extends human abilities to network and communicate with others in new and powerful ways, depending on contextual variables (Garner
The outbreak of COVID-19 led to the suspension of liturgical services of churches in Zimbabwe.
Some long-standing traditions of worship, singing, dancing and laying of hands on the sick and those with different requests could not be done online and were later modified as restrictions got changed in accordance with government directives. The most widely used WhatsApp and SMS media only accommodated limited messages. Consequently, congregants missed several parts of their liturgical services that they traditionally used to have. In the same way that Chukwuma (
More so, rituals of baptism, Holy Communion, weddings and baby dedication were disrupted in Zimbabwean churches. In concurrence with Parish (
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Helen Parish (
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In view of such conceptions, liturgical disruptions in Zimbabwe were distressing to congregations. To my agreement, Mathee (
When pastors engaged in ministering online in attempts to avoid total absence in times that physical meetings were forbidden, many could not sustain their presence because of a number of challenges that were militating against them. This section, therefore, presents the economic crisis, lack of preparedness, material resources, lack of human resources, communication disruptions, cultural disturbances; technical constraints, high costs of data, electricity blackouts and congestion on online platforms as their main difficulties.
The majority of congregations and pastors could not afford online ministry because of economic problems. Zimbabwe has been in a deepening economic crisis since the reign of the late Robert Gabriel Mugabe up to the military assisted rule (Cook
The Zimbabwean economy has been disturbingly floundering as confirmed by increased dependence on primary commodities such as platinum, diamonds and gold; massive deindustrialisation and informalisation of the economy (Kanyenze, Chitambara & Tyson
Regardless of aforementioned economic drawbacks, the COVID-19 pandemic demanded a quick move of operations to virtual modes. Globally, the process of moving the church online demanded research, budget, plans and expertise (Elbert
The ‘new normal’, socially-distanced context demanded a drastic approach to pastoral ministry, which costs digital resources such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, recording cameras; technical expertise, data, electricity and network. Because of limited capacities, few pastors from economically sound denominations engaged in live streaming and the bulk of them failed. This means that pastors could not massively execute their pastoral work online while physical meetings were suspended. It is, however, recommendable that pastors should utilise their limited resources and embrace any viable medium like SMS, which is conveniently accessible to the least resourced for short messages while surrendering their congregations to the interminable spiritual presence until physical presence is fully restored.
While digitalisation required takers-in to adapt to a new speed, new efficiency and fresh ways of doing things in the workplace (Shibata
Nonetheless, I propose that pastors who are unable to use new technologies could seek assistance from their congregations (and, if need arises, outside their churches) and make efforts to learn essential skills in order to keep themselves relevant and effective in their changing contexts.
Universally, the church is used to face-to-face communication of the gospel (Reimann
Unlike in other countries where online communication has wide fluidity, pragmatist usability and effectiveness than conventional communication as Yang (
It is undebatable that without audible and visible signals, it is difficult to communicate clearly. Communication is enhanced by gestures, which aids speakers in formulating speech by retrieving elusive words from lexical memory, conveying information to listeners and enhancing listeners’ comprehension (Byrne & Nuzum
Digital communication appears static, disembodied and cannot fully convey gestures, tone and facial expressions, which enhances encoding and decoding of messages. Keeping in mind that human beings communicate well with gesticulations, migrating from physical to online presence disrupted such non-communicative functions of speakers and listeners’ gestures for fruitful communication. Physical expressions are essential in accomplishing any communication, alongside silent reflection and deep listening as people share their personal issues and concerns during times of need, especially when bidding to communicate our emotions.
As Khroul (
For few somewhat resourced Zimbabwean pastors who quickly encompassed digitalisation, keeping present online turned puzzling in face of digital gadgets’ inadvertent loss of electrical power, network and incapacities of their congregants. It is, therefore, argued that pastors can adopt presence in absence – being absent physically, while submitting their congregations to the spiritual presence of God while they complementarily make use of any contextually viable medium like SMS until other media, and in-person meetings get feasible.
Culturally, Zimbabweans value gathering physically in good and bad times, such as weddings, and funerals. Considering increasing coronavirus infections and resultant deaths, the Zimbabwean government regulated funerals, reduced number of mourners to 30 (The Herald
In the predominant Zimbabwean Shona and most other local cultures, a typical funeral attracts 300 mourners or more. The body of the dead is traditionally taken home to allow families, relatives and friends to pay their last respects, shake hands, mourn, celebrate the life of the departed and have church service graced with comforting songs, dances and sermons before viewing the corpse and eventually attending burial (Dzinamarira
Mathee (
In realisation of the Zimbabwean contextual predicament, how could the sick and the grieving who lost their loved ones and had their funerals restricted and hurried feel the presence of their pastors online, especially when accessibility and connectivity remained problematic? The same applies to weddings and related events. Thus, ministering online encountered grave cultural challenges in Zimbabwe.
Digitalisation in Zimbabwe has been often bedevilled by poor service delivery, technical faults, costly maintenance and upgrading of digital devices by service providers (Shibata
A number of local pastors appreciated that the COVID-19 crisis created an opportunity for them to develop innovativeness and reach out to their congregants digitally. Unfortunately, digitalisation grew expensive as network providers kept raising their tariffs in attempts to keep their businesses viable in the unstable Zimbabwean economy. Lucky Mabhiza wrote that very few Zimbabweans embraced online worship services because of the high cost of data, lack of smartphones and lack of interest (Mabhiza
Practically, growing number of congregants have been left out of the church. Those who cannot afford smartphones, computers, electricity and data as well as others who are in remote areas completely without gadgets, power and connectivity gave up. However, those who have any kind of phones could be,
As reported by the Zimbabwe Independent Newspaper (28 February 2020), the supply of electricity in Zimbabwe has been erratic, costly and frequently hiked for the past decades (Mananavire
As noted by Alhelou et al. (
Amidst swift digitalisation of various services in Zimbabwe as lockdowns grounded almost everything, multiplied number of people and organisations turned online to continue operating. The increase of people working digitally congested demand for electricity and network, which was already unreliable in Zimbabwe. While the collaboration of digitisation and digitalisation could renew ecclesiology and pastoral ministry, as mentioned before, the Zimbabwean national economic predicament distressed network and electricity providers to magnitudes that they struggled to efficiently deliver their services, so they interminably reviewed their charges in attempts to keep in business.
As both physical and online meetings got obstructed and, thus, erratic, the only most dependable presence is spiritual, hence the need to appreciate and submit to it.
The term presence is widely conceptualised in various ways. There are distinct but overlapping dimensions of spiritual and physical presence (Lombard & Jones
The ministry of presence affirms that gospel ministers’ physical presence among congregants encourages the hope for the future and comfort for the present, as well as fostering a realisation of the genuine spiritual presence and providence of God. It also provides opportunities for biblical servanthood as one ministers to the needs of one’s people. Accordingly, the ministry of presence is both physical and spiritual (Tinsley
Corrigan and Flanagan (
According to Keeran (
Engaging Psalms 139, which says:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (vv. 7–10)
Keeran (
Concurringly, Davida Foy Crabtree (
In the same perspective, Woodworth (
To my correspondence, Markus Bockmuehl clarifies spiritual presence from the continuing presence of Jesus Christ as God’s invisible presence which believers encounter through dreams, visions and intangible manifestations in their daily lives. Drawing from the foregoing submissions, presence is realised both in physical and absence dimensions when human beings interact and leave each other while the triune God remains present spiritually (Bockmuehl
It is conclusively comprehensible that physical and spiritual absence and presence complement each other and can be virtually mediated. However, as Gergen (
Presence is also understood as being there physically. Sarah Butler (
‘Patti, I am so sorry. What can I do for you?’ With a beseeching moan, Patti replied, ‘Love me, and just love me!’ Gratefully, Sarah sighed and answered, ‘That I can do’. (p. 13)
Patti’s desperate need for some demonstration of love through being there physically rightly portrays the ministry of physical presence. In the ensuing days, Sarah Butler (
Sonny Guild relates a similar story that further illuminates presence as physical. He says that a woman named Mary called him early morning at 4 AM, telling him that her husband of 30 years had died. Sonny quickly dressed up and went to be with Mary. He does not recall what he said, but vividly remembers that he prayed, and just mourned with her (Guild
Submissions of Guild (
Holm (
Observing lessons from the ministry of chaplaincy by Holm (
Graham Redding’s book,
In his PhD thesis titled ‘Presence and Shame in Pastoral Care and Counselling’, Neil Pembroke presents physical presence as a fundamental concept of engagement and commitment. He takes engagement with reference to participation. For him, participation has an inter-subjective focus of being in life when one discovers depth with others. Neil Pembroke states that if one is going to establish a dimension of depth in oneself, s/he must engage in contemplation, a high form of participation (Pembroke
Considering above-mentioned perspectives, this article locates physical presence in direct correspondence with the love of God through Jesus Christ who commands his followers to exhibit their love by demonstrating love for each other, because love is of God, hence everyone who loves is of God, and knows God, because God is love (1 Jn 4:7–8).
More so, other scholars discover physical presence from trinity. Through his book titled ‘Renewing Pastoral Practice: Trinitarian Perspectives on Pastoral Care and Counselling’, Neil Pembroke adds that physical participation in each other’s life is a Trinitarian virtue. He describes God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as indwelling and interpenetrating one another so completely that we can never intelligibly speak of one without involving, at least implicitly, the other two as well (Pembroke
John Coleman opines that pastoral ministry is a concrete, functional and active service that advances the kingdom of God through physical pastoral presence (Coleman
Pastors in Zimbabwe traditionally exercise the ministry of presence through visiting congregants at home, hospitals, workplaces, businesses as well as attending funerals, weddings, parties and related events. It is appreciated that such visits create conducive grounds and environment for life-bearing fellowship, sharing of the gospel and just being physically together, reflecting the incarnation and reassurance of God’s love and accompaniment with brethren in good and bad times. Because the visitations, attention and participation with believers’ lives got circumscribed by lockdowns, this article argues that the ministry of physical presence was rendered absent by swift shifts to digitalisation. Because ministering online has been highly problematic in Zimbabwe, it is pertinent for pastors to take lockdown times as indicative reminders of the permanently pivotal, invisible yet life-bearing spiritual presence of God, and lead their congregations to bow to it.
The ministry of presence is modelled by God as reflected throughout the Bible. The Bible indicates that God had concern for His fellowship, making His presence known and participating in human lives (Guild
God was both transcendent and personally present that redemptive possibilities were brought about for Israel.
The presence of God was also showcased through Jesus Christ. As the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as Immanuel – ‘which means God with us’ (Is 7:14, Mt 1:22–23). God drew and remained near His people as he participated in their lives in flesh. God made His presence known as He consistently responded to their needs. God delved in a redemptive mission. Isaiah wrote about it (Is 61:1–2), and Jesus applied it to himself (Lk 4):
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (vv. 18–19)
This was the best way to address the needs of humanity beyond spiritual presence.
Furthermore, the presence of God is also demonstrated through the Holy Spirit. When Jesus Christ was leaving the earth, he promised that he would not leave disciples alone, but would ask God to send the Holy Spirit to live with and in human beings – and that demonstrated the Trinitarian presence (Jn 14:16–18). The Holy Spirit, thus, shows the presence of God in the lives of believers, which also echoed through the following scriptures:
1 Corinthians 3:16, ‘Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?’
1 Corinthians 6:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (v. 19)
2 Corinthians 6:
Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people’. (v. 16)
Ezekiel 36:27, ‘I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances’;
Isaiah 63:
Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses. Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them. (v. 11)
2 Timothy 1:14, ‘Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you’.
Bockmuehl (
It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Gal 4:6)
Do you not realise that Jesus Christ is in you? (2 Corinthians 13:5; cf. Romans 8:10)
The Lord is near (Phil 4:5)
How great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27)
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3)
I pray that … Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Eph 3:16–17).
For Bockmuehl (
The spiritual presence is, therefore, depersonalised, invisible and intangible, hence the need for physical presence for accompaniment.
Just as Jesus Christ also ministered to humanity physically when he came on earth, contemporary ministers of the gospel should do the same. Pastors are called to be with and walk alongside those dealing with pain, suffering and grief. In other words, the indwelling presence of God and ministerial presence of pastors work synergistically to effectuate divine presence. When pastors avail themselves physically, God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and Holy Spirit serves lives through them.
It is further enlightening to note narrative examples of the Samaritan woman’s meeting with Jesus Christ at the well (Jn 4), Nicodemus (Jn 3) and the case of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Ac 8). They depict physical presence as enlightening and transforming. When Jesus Christ faced His greatest test and got overwhelmed (Mk 14:32–42), He asked Peter, James and John to go to a mountain with Him. He requested them to stay and keep watching. Jesus Christ needed their physical presence. According to Guild (
The Bible gives an enlightening conversation of Jesus Christ and Simon Peter about the ministry of presence through shepherding (Jn 21:15–17). Jesus Christ asked Simon Peter after a breakfast:
‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ Peter said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you’. Jesus Christ responded, ‘Feed my lambs’. A second time Jesus Christ said to Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter said, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you’. Jesus Christ said to him, ‘Tend my sheep’. He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’. Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep’. (vv. 15–17)
Understanding that the act of tendering sheep demands physical presence, the emphasis of Jesus Christ that if Simon Peter loved him, he should take care of His sheep gives supreme value and endorsement to physical shepherding. Throughout the Old and the New Testament, it is discernible that God always gave His presence to His people. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit demonstrated the same, hence the need for clerics to exhibit presence in their current contexts.
Digitalisation is presently massively omnipresent and seems to be one of the influential forces behind countless scientific, social or business developments, especially after the outbreak of coronavirus that restricted physical interactions.
While it has garnered burgeoning attention and become a global buzzword (Mentsiev et al.
It must be clarified that although generally highly assimilated, digitalisation and digitisation are two poles apart and not interchangeable.
Daniel Schallmo and Christopher Williams note that scholars across disciplines employ the term digitisation with reference to the technical process of converting streams of analogue information into digital bits of 1s and 0s with discrete and discontinuous values (Schallmo & Williams
Youngjin Yoo clarifies that when digitisation leads to a reconfiguration of underlying socio-technical relationship between producers and users, we call it digitalisation (Yoo
It is argued that the first modern use of the term ‘digitalization’ in combination with ‘computerization’ appeared later in a 1971 essay published in the North American Review by Robert Wachal (
Ulbrich et al. (
Digitalisation also leverages digital technologies and digitised data. It boosts productivity and efficiency while reducing labour costs (Gupta
Despite various challenges faced in Zimbabwe, digitalisation enhances online engagements. Pastors should, therefore, keep pursuing it, while fully submitting congregations to the ubiquitous presence of God in the context of COVID–19.
This article examined the ministry of presence in the context of COVID-19 and digitalisation in Zimbabwe. The study depicted the criticality of presence in pastoring as a Trinitarian virtue that is well demonstrated by God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and interpenetrating of one another and subsequent deployment of the church for the continuity of divine fellowship. Applying Osmer’s (
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
K.T. is the sole author of this article.
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author.