The window of opportunity to make changes based on pandemic learnings is closing
A couple of months ago, I believed my turn at vaccination against Covid-19 was way in the distance. But I suddenly found myself with an appointment in late February, and now here I am, fully inoculated. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to have had my turn. (Please take yours when it comes up!)
I’m not the only one with this sense of whiplash. The vaccine rollout was so slow, so discombobulated, at first that normal-ish still seemed out of reach for many of us. But then production ramped up and more vaccination sites opened. All people ages 16 and up in my state are now eligible to receive their doses, and President Biden stated that all adults could have had shots in arms by July 4.
This is fantastic news. It means that the timeline for fully returning in in-person church activities has shortened greatly. And that means that the conversations pastors were planning to have about what post-pandemic church looks like need to start happening now.
Most clergy knew pre-Covid that the church was headed toward major changes - or at least needed to be. Congregations are shrinking. In many cases it’s because members have dug in their heels, building fortresses around ministries that feel familiar instead of responding to the gifts and needs of younger demographics and surrounding communities. When the pandemic struck, so much had to change for safety reasons. And while we all have an understandable desire to reclaim our lives and our routines, we must not pass up this opportunity to think about what could be faithfully different. We might not ever get another moment like this - to reflect on God’s dream instead of simply springing back to what was - while our churches still have critical mass and decent budgets and a chance to flourish.
I believe that the world needs the church. At their best, congregations connect us to each other and to God, affirm the goodness of each person made in God’s image, promote thriving by accompanying people through life’s peaks and valleys and giving them tools to make meaning out of those experiences, offer tangible help to those inside and outside its walls, and push for equity based on the teachings and example of Jesus. Let’s imagine together what this can look like at this time, in our evolving contexts. Here are some questions to reflect on the learnings of the past year and prompt forward-thinking discussion:
What has this church done well for a long time?
What did we learn was possible this year that we didn't know before?
How have these learnings excited us? Revealed God at work among us and through us? Built on whom we know ourselves to be (or whom we aspire to be) as a congregation?
What have we learned this year about what we want to stop doing?
What have we missed doing this year that we want to pick back up?
What do we want our role in this community to be?
What gaps do we need to fill in to make this happen?
What do we want to try and then reflect further on based on all of the above?
How might these choices help us live more fully into our values as a congregation?
As we move into the season of Easter (in which Jesus invites us to consider what resurrection means for us) and Pentecost (in which we celebrate the openness of Jesus’ followers to new people and ways), there is no better time liturgically and public health-wise to consider what God is nudging us toward. If we wait too long to have these conversations, our church members might settle so deeply back into the worn places in their seats that we’ll have to wait for another crisis to drive us to change - or to close our doors permanently.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.