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As of week #15 in the COVID-19 journey there is only 50% of churches that have re-opened with protective cautions. Just let that data point settle into your thinking for just a minute. Honestly, things are not going as well as initially thought. After allowing this fact to settle in consider also – 4 weeks ago 3% of pastors stated they would consider waiting until 2021 to reopen. In week #15 that number of pastors has grown to 15% – basically 1-in-9 pastors are now saying they will not open until 2021. 

As you drill down into the data that is being tracked you will notice additional struggles. For example….

•88% of Pastors believe there will be a disruption of “Fall Outreach/Back-To-School” strategies.

•44% of Pastors are still struggling with the whole idea of the Hybrid Church – Live & Digital. February 2020  the Digital Church was at the bottom of the list of Pastoral concerns. Two weeks later the nation was shut-down and Digital Church was literally born over-night as a top concern.

•11% of Pastors feel they are equipped to lead during this national disruption. 

There is an interesting dialogue that is emerging. First of all, Pastors are lamenting the fact that buildings are not being fully utilized. A real sense of loss has crept into the minds of Faith Leaders. If God is not limited to Dates, Times, and Space should we feel that we have lost something? When your mind opens to this truth, you begin to examine the role of buildings, classrooms, ushers, technology enhanced illustrations, etc. Said another way, How would the Gospel of Christ advance if we did not have buildings, technology, programs, and topical series?

Has Technology and programmatic strategies over-taken genuine human interaction? Are we measuring input instead of output? In other words is our message COME instead of GO? We have convinced ourselves that “Our Stuff” is necessary to change lives. Honestly, it is nice but not necessary!

Going back the Hybrid Church concerns, there is a 900lb elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Social Media is not about announcements of sermon series, activities, upcoming events – “Look at what we are doing!” Social Media Ministry is about maturing people in their faith journey using digital spaces to accomplish this goal. Do not feel the pressure to repeat “facility-based” services on social platforms. Facility style services done on social platforms are not necessarily the optimal method to truly connect with people.

Your greatest resource to help are the Millennials and Gen-Zers. They live in the social platform world, everyone else is the late comers to the discussion. To repeat what I stated earlier, in February of this year digital church was at the very bottom of the list of concerns – 2 weeks later the nation is shut-down and the digital church world was born over-night.

So that I can go on record, I believe it is highly probable for churches to see a massive growth surge post-covid. This was true, post-911. The reason this growth surge of faith did not last post-911 was a failure to make a real human connection. Programs was the solution versus human touches. If post-911 is an indicator, we need to prepare NOW for growth that can be sustained. What do we need to change in our messaging and methods to communicate a genuine care and concern for a person’s story? 

Some suggestions to energize the Human Element style of faith connections might be Zoom Bible Studies that are real and raw minus the production bells and whistles. Perhaps it is time to go “analog” by writing cards, letters, personalized notes of encouragement and demonstrate genuine care. Most of all “experiment” with new ideas that add the human value into your presentation.

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Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!