Loosening a good habit

Recently, a minister friend shared how he feared that Covid 19 had loosened some people's desire to be together in church.  'I worry that some people may not want to come back', he said.

Also recently I dipped into one of the many old books of sermons (often flowery and wordy) I possess in which John Hutton wrote of the Christian Community:

There is one thing about which the New Testament is decisive and incontrovertible - that Jesus founded a Church.  It was formed and stands by the operation of two great movements, brought together by the force, first, of a great love, and, second, of a great terror. The warm love to Christ and the terror of deep darkness, the awful sense of what a thing life is if Christ be not true.

It seems to me....that the whole art of life, the whole art of living, believingly and joyfully, the whole art of recovering our confidence in the Church of Christ in this world, is by knowing where to put the accent between these two great moments. There are times when it encourages us...for what a place of love, of kindness, of tenderness, the Church with all her shortcomings is! Where else in this hard world are the poignant sorrows of the human heart honoured with such understanding? What a forlorn thing this life of ours would be if the Church, and all that it stands for would be eliminated or withdrawn!

This is worth a pause.  How forlorn is it to loosen the good habits of church?