In 2008 I was serving as a regional minister for our denomination. As the recession deepened and many people found themselves unemployed and losing their homes and retirement savings many churches experienced greatly reduced offerings. As a result, denominations saw giving to their various mission agencies reduced as well. Our region was no different. Some of us, including myself, believed giving would return to previous levels when the economy improved. Our Minister of Finance felt otherwise and said very clearly that he did not believe our giving level would return to what it was prior to 2008. He was proven correct. In fact, it continued to decline well after the economy recovered.
Many in our churches still believe that if we ever get Covid under control our churches will return to normal attendance and ministries. While Covid is still with us and impacting many areas of our society, it is not having the impact it did in the midst of the original pandemic, but few, if any, churches would claim they have returned to pre-Covid normal. Most church consultants and other leaders do not believe things will ever return to normal.
What we are finding is that many people have reinvested their lives in other activities on Sundays other than going to church. When churches were shut down some people found that they really didn't miss it that much. They found their lives had not changed much, if at all, by their not attending church services. Others found that watching online satisfied their spiritual needs. While some churches were closed, others were open, and some people who craved attending live services began attending those open churches and won't return to their former ones.
Most churches today need to define a "new normal." How will they minister in a post-pandemic world? We first need to recognize that digital ministry is here to stay. It was refreshing to find so many churches make the move to offering their worship services on social media. Many of those churches would have never made that change if they had not been forced to do so by the pandemic. But, this now presents these churches with four different congregations. As Thom Rainer points out in his book, The Post-Quarantine Church: Six Urgent Challenges and Opportunities That Will Determine the Future of Your Congregation, three of these congregations are the digital-only, who are unable to return to the worship service or remain afraid to do so due to Covid, the digital-transitioning, who are mostly connected to the digital worship service but will attend in person occasionally, and the dual citizens who relate to the church both in person and digitally. Add these three those who only attend in-person gatherings and you are now challenged with ministering to four different congregations. Rainer gives some tips on how a church might do that, but most of us are going to find it difficult to do it well.
The good news is that none of this caught God by surprise. This is not a time for church leaders to despair but to pray and seek God's guidance for moving forward. We are being presented with an opportunity to do ministry in new ways that may prove to be just what we needed as our world becomes even more digitally connected. No doubt we will make some mistakes along the way, but the biggest mistake we will make is if we wait for things to return to normal again.
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