Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

by | May 18, 2020

Crises generate both chaos and miracles. While the COVID-19 pandemic has caused breakdowns of every sort, it has also created breakthroughs. The pandemic has revealed to us what’s most important, most essential, to us, especially in the areas of worship, spirituality, and faith community.

As churches begin to re-open their buildings, and the church’s life takes on a more familiar feel, you or your people might be tempted to crank up all the old activities of the church. Let me sound a word of caution here. Before you do so, it’s essential to ask yourself how you will keep the main thing, the main thing.

In this article, I want to help you clarify which activities and offerings are central to the church and peripheral. Which activities should you hang on to, and which ones will you want to keep on pause? Just as importantly, I want to share a new short course with you that will help you make the most of the crisis we are in.

While COVID has caused breakdowns, it also created breakthroughs. It has revealed what's important, especially in spirituality and community. Click To Tweet

What Matters Most in Church Life

What constituted success in the church’s life before the coronavirus hit may be very different from how you think of success now. I invite you to reflect on the church’s life before the pandemic to compare it with the church’s life now, during the pandemic, to answer the following questions.

Ministry and Mission 

Begin with the ministries of the church. Before the coronavirus hit, what ministries did the congregation consider essential? What ministries does the community feel crucial now?

The answer to the second set of questions likely points to the spiritual heartbeat of your church. It probably has something to do with worship that matters. Prayers that touch the heart and encompass the common good. Peaching that connects with people’s lives. Opportunities for the community.

This set of answers also points to the real Mission of the church, while the first set of solutions may include the shadow mission of the church.

Who Is Involved 

Next, reflect on who was involved in the church’s life before the coronavirus hit? Who is involved now? Provided that your congregation did not suffer many losses from COVID-19, you may find that you have more people involved than you did before the pandemic. Including new assistance from community members. If so, celebrate. A partnership between congregation and community points to the church’s life and deep Mission: demonstrating the love of God and neighbor as dearly as the love of oneself.

How to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing 

Put together these newly identified essential ministries of the church with the people engaged in the delivery ministry. You have the makings of the main thing of ministry. Now, how do you keep this all alive?

How to Stave Off the Post-Pandemic Blues

How to Stave Off the Post-Pandemic Blues

by | May 11, 2020

“I’m depressed about everything that is going on,” my long-time friend Lin confided to me. I understood. After all, her state had been in a serious lockdown. Her fiancé was sheltering in place five states away. Now, she was stuck at home where once she was used to being busy. I thought I knew what she meant. Her next words, though, caught me by surprise. “But things have changed. With this sheltering in place, I feel like I’ve become a human being again. I’m not always hurrying and rushing around. I’m not at work 24/7.” She told me how she’s been sitting down to eat meals with her mother, sister, and daughter. And how much she’s enjoyed it. “Now that they’re talking about opening up the state again, I’m depressed. I’m afraid I’m going to lose everything I’ve gained. I think I’ve got the post-pandemic blues.”

Even though the pandemic and its aftereffects will be with us for several years, Lin is not alone in her concerns. As I’ve noted elsewhere, in addition to the experience of suffering, people have been blessed in unexpected ways.

In this article, I will share three steps to stave off the so-called post-pandemic blues and one bonus option to boost your leadership immune system as you venture forth. Even if you’ve been eagerly waiting for restrictions to lift, now that governors are relaxing guidelines, you may miss aspects of sheltering in place.

Three steps to stave off the so-called post-pandemic blues and one bonus option to boost your leadership immune system as you venture forth. Click To Tweet

Three Steps to Stave Off the Post-Pandemic Blues

1. Consider Your Unexpected Blessings 

Sheltering in place may have created unexpected blessings in your life. Start by considering how you may have:

  • Simplified your life
  • Spent less time working
  • Let unnecessary demands drop from your schedule
  • Paid more attention to family members or pets
  • Reconnected with your soul
  • Cleaned, organized or de-cluttered
  • Read
  • Slept in
  • Cooked and ate meals
  • Paused
  • Connected to friends
  • Relaxed
  • Helped the people around you
  • Enjoyed your yard, balcony, or time in nature
  • Started or finished projects
  • Learned new things
  • Gained a fresh appreciation for life

2.  Choose Practices You Want to Continue

Second, note the activities and practices you would like to continue. I have been walking to and from the office each day. It’s been a great way to introduce variety into my life, breathe fresh air, and watch winter move into spring. My brother and sister-in-law have been hosting Zoom dinners with friends around the country. My friend, an accomplished harpist, has been live-streaming afternoon concerts from her living room every Sunday.

3. Create Intentional Changes 

Third, plan now to continue practicing life-giving habits. Pull out your calendar and map in family dinners, garden time, or prayer, and meditation. Otherwise, the tide of busyness will pull you back out to sea before you even know it. To withstand the tide takes making conscious choices.

Even so, don’t be surprised by grief, caution, and disorientation as you emerge from a more sheltered life. You have been through some big changes. So has the world around you. The landscape around you may not look or feel like you remember it. Give yourself time to get used to the new normal.

Build Your Resilience

As you begin to spend more time in the public arena, life will change again. If there were things you enjoyed about sheltering in place, it’s entirely possible to bring some of those gifts with you as you emerge. As you take these three steps, consider your unexpected blessings. Choose practices you want to continue, and create intentional changes—you’ll find that you won’t need to get a bad case of the post-pandemic blues.

As I said before, transitioning from mid-to post-pandemic won’t be a quick or easy process. Especially if you have been on the front lines of care, be gentle with yourself and the people around you. None of us have been here before. Remember that even in these difficult times, you are not alone. Draw upon the comfort of community, the strength of faith, and the guidance of God as you navigate these times.

Forty Days of Apostleship: Can We Rise Again?

Forty Days of Apostleship: Can We Rise Again?

by | Apr 6, 2020

This is an Easter like no other. With COVID-19 impacting everything, from the way we shop to the way we worship-life has been upended. Initially, I had hoped that by Easter, we could be out and about again. Hoped that life could return to some semblance of normal, that the curve could be flattened. It seemed like a good plan, a hopeful goal until it was clear that it wasn’t to be. We can learn a lot from 40 days of Apostleship.

This disappointment has given me pause. I’m no different than the disciples—they, too, hoped for a quick Kingdom victory. Instead, they lost Jesus to crucifixion. After, the disciples hid in fear—we are sheltering in place. The disciples feared they had no future—we are consumed by constant bad news. The disciples did not know about Jesus’ resurrection; we are agnostic about when and how this nightmare ends.

We say we are an Easter people, but the persistent question is, can we rise again?

It's not easy to maintain a strong belief in possibility in the face of frightening news. Even the disciples had a hard time with it. Click To Tweet

Forty Days of Apostleship 

As we complete these 40 Days of Apostleship, we have focused on expanding our faith from believing in Jesus to believing like Jesus. As we explore Jesus’ beliefs, we have identified six key ones. 

Today we come to the sixth of his most important beliefs: Jesus believed that he would rise again. In other words, Jesus believed in possibility.

Jesus Believed in Possibility 

Several times in the Gospels, he confided in his disciples that things would get very dark, very bleak. However, the light would dawn again. Jesus told them, “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days He will rise.” Mark 9:31

Not only did Jesus believe in the possibility for himself, he thought it for his disciples. He told them that even though they would all scatter once he was threatened, he would still be there for them. “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Mark 14:28 Indeed, he met them on the path as they headed back to Galilee.

Soulful Step 

Right now, right here—amid disappointment and social disconnection—it’s time to up your faith in a positive, albeit unseen, future. The bleaker the circumstances, the more critical it is to believe in possibility. Besides practicing social distancing, washing your hands, and taking other precautionary measures, thinking in opportunity is the most critical thing you can do right now.

Embrace the Belief  

As your soul makes room for this new level of belief in possibility, use the DARE model to embrace and embody the idea. Adapted from Dream Like Jesus: Deepen Your Faith and Bring the Impossible to Life, this model invites you to use your imagination to call forth something new into being.

DARE to Dream

DREAM:

  1. Begin to dream now of what a positive future could look like.
  2. Focus on your future habits, gratitudes, family life, or congregational structure.
  3. Consider how the pandemic will bear good fruit for the state of medicine, community services, and the health of the earth.
  4. Allow the Holy Spirit, rather than the newscasters, to shape your vision and guide your thoughts.

ALIGN: Align yourself with God by receiving divine courage, comfort, and confidence to dare to dream. Then invite others into your dream of a new future by sharing it out loud. One caution: don’t share your sacred vision with naysayers whose only interest is in doom and gloom.

REALIZE: We have realized just how precious our human connection is. Precisely because they are sheltering in place, one friend is hosting weekly neighborhood potlucks by Zoom. My own four siblings and I are gathering weekly with my parents via House Party. This week, we’ll have an online Passover Seder. It’s been years since we’ve all been together on holiday. I dream that after the pandemic has passed, we’ll continue our precious new habit.

EXPAND: Watch how one good idea expands into others. Watch how spirits rise, buoyed on the life-giving stream of possibility. To broaden your dream, even more, collage, paint, or draw it. Engaging in this level of imagination isn’t wasted. Nor is it pie in the sky. This expression of possibility is co-creation with God.

Apostolic Action

Build your resilience to fear, resignation, and hopelessness by carrying good news on your lips. Resist the temptation to repeat the latest talking heads’ talking points. Instead, make it a point to note that He is Risen. And that we too will rise again. We will.

I know it’s not easy to maintain a strong belief in possibility in the face of frightening news. Even the disciples had a hard time with it.