JOURNALS

ABSTRACT

History reveals that there have been pandemics that had taken place on earth in the past years. A pandemic is a disease outbreak or an epidemic that spreads across countries or continents. It affects more people and takes more lives than an epidemic. An epidemic is declared a global pandemic when it became clear that illness is severe and that it is spreading quickly over a wide area. Some pandemics are gone for good while others continue traumatizing humanity. These pandemics, whenever they occur, have a tendency of wiping out thousands of human lives. The author is aware of the pandemics with deadly viral infections including 1918-Spanish flu, 1957-Asian flu, 1968-Hong Kong flu, 1981- Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), 2009-Swine flu, and now Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19). All nations, big or small, developed or undeveloped, poor or rich, have suffered the presence of COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has no respect and do not select: young or adult, women or men, Christians or non-Christians, African or non-African, white or black person, rich or poor people. COVID-19 pandemic is a great threat to humanity, to the countries and to the whole world in so many ways. People are only sure of yesterday, but does not know how today will end, not to talk of what will happen tomorrow. The pandemic has brought considerable challenges to the Church’s mission in Nigeria. The Church is challenged to come up with new appropriate pastoral praxis that accept and care for all COVID-19 infected and affected faithful. The love and respect for the weak, the poor, the needy, and the sick should motivate the Church to take the situation of the modern pandemic more seriously. This pandemic calls for a pastoral approach that grows out of the reality between what is believed and what is done, theology and ministry, faith and life. This article, ‚COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Lessons for Pastoral Praxis in Nigeria?, presents to us the challenges and lessons posed by COVID-19 on the Pastoral Praxis of the Church in Nigeria and how the Church is responding through pastoral ministry. This article reveals the successful and unsuccessful lessons learnt to give the reader a wealth of knowledge, reliable information and useful resource material as a guide in exploring ones’ thoughts and feelings for better understanding of COVID-19 pandemic. Using a narrative approach the author finds out that new pastoral strategies are inevitable to improve pastoral ministry for it to be more effective to Covid-19 demands and to reduce the negative effects of the disease in our communities.