While being interviewed by key leaders for a teaching pastor position, an elder asked me whether I was a complementarian or egalitarian. I confidently stated that I was a complementarian, and than began down the long list of women pastors on my spiritual journey. The group looked more and more uncomfortable the further I went until the lead pastor finally interrupted, “Are you sure you are complementarian?” I immediately realized my mistake, “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant egalitarian.”

You could fill the air lead the room, it would have been better if I’d said I was a satanist. Elders suddenly remembered they had urgent appointments elsewhere, and staff had an urgent need to get back to their offices. Soon the group dwindled to me, the lead pastor and one clueless staff member who was still hoping for a free lunch. The pastor, who’d invited me to the interview, looked like I’d kicked him a few inches below his gut. He gave me a quick tour of the building and then invited me back to his office. Once inside I tried to ease the tension with a joke, “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” He apologized profusely and admitted he should have vetted my theology of women (Is that a thing? Feminology?) before dragging me through the inquisition. We agreed to remain friends, knowing we’d never work together at a church. 

And that’s how I learned the difference between complementarian and egalitarian.

My views have continued to morph, however, in the years since. After a lifetime of study, experience, thinking and prayer I have finally decided I am both complementarian and egalitarian, I’m a  complegalitarian

Complegalitairan: In some contexts and cultures women are gifted, qualified, and called to lead, preach, and exercise authority in the church. In other contexts and cultures those roles are better served by men. 

I have landed in this camp (so far I may be the only one here) because it is the only way I can make sense of scripture, history, and my experience in the real world. I understand the implications of 1 Timothy 2, but I have to balance that with other passages where women were not only not silent, but preached, led and held positions of authority over men. From Miriam to Deborah to Huldah to Priscilla to Phoebe to the daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9), some women in some contexts prophesy (preach), teach, hold office and lead. I can’t accept an argument that says women are forbidden to hold certain offices, have authority over men, or preach when there are clear examples in the Bible of women doing all of the above, seemingly with God’s full blessing.

I also recognize that in some cultures and some contexts the fact that a woman is leading could overshadow the presentation of the Gospel. We have to remember that at the end of the day the Gospel trumps all other concerns. That is why Jesus did not stand up to they horrible abuses of the Roman government and Paul did not advocate for the end of slavery. They were both focused on the main thing, the hope of the Gospel.

Paul said he became all things to all people so that by all means he might save some.  His primary concern was “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.  I suspect in ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish culture the most effective messenger for the Gospel was often a man because of the patriarchal bent of society. I do not think that is always the case in every context and culture. Neither, it seems, did Paul.

I have been watching from the sidelines as Southern Baptists tear each other apart over this issue. There was a huge uproar when Beth Moore preached at a church on a Sunday morning, and subsequently left the Southern Baptist denomination over the fallout. The roar got even louder when Pastor Rick Warren announced Saddleback Church ordained three women as pastors.  Seminary president and Southern Baptist Convention President candidate Albert Mohler has led the charge against women preaching or leading in SBC churches (except in narrowly defined roles), recently saying,

“If you look at the denominations where women do the preaching, they are also the denominations where people do the leaving.”

The irony of this statement is overwhelming when you realize that over the past 15 years SBC has lost 2.3 million members, 14% of its total membership, while adhering to a strict complementarian standard. At the same time what is being called “Spirit-empowered Christianity” (aka Pentecostal and Charismatic), which is almost entirely egalitarian in practice, has exploded in growth all over the world.

The current SBC President, J.D. Greear, along with all of the other candidates to succeed him, agree with Albert Mohler that women preaching and leading above certain levels in the church is a line in the sand they will not cross. While the SBC has to determine the future of the SBC, it seems from the outside that this issue is overshadowing the mission to bring the hope of Jesus to a lost and dying world. The message I fear is being unintentionally amplified is that men simply want to maintain authority over women.

That is why I am now a complegalitarian. I believe God created men and women with different gifts and abilities. I think some women are gifted by their creator to lead in some circumstances, and some men are gifted by their creator to lead in other circumstances. I think in some contexts the practice of women leading men can so overshadow the message of the Gospel that it can be destructive to mission of the church, and I believe in other contexts the practice of barring women from certain levels of leadership and preaching can also be destructive the mission of the church. I think this is why Paul gives Timothy instructions that limit women’s roles in the church and in Romans commends women for filling those very roles. I think Paul may have been the first complegalitarian.

‘So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.’ 1 Corinthians 10:31-33 (NIV)

About a year ago many of us were saying, “Church has changed forever, it will never be the same.” We adopted the word phyigital (which sounds like a restless physician’s ponytail to me) and we declared that we were now online churches with physical locations. About two weeks later everyone quit watching our online streams. (Not everyone, but it felt like it.) Researchers started telling us that not only had our people quit paying attention, they were never coming back to our churches. We were doomed, I say, doomed.

And then Texas and Florida decided Covid wasn’t a thing and churches resumed in-person meetings. We were tentative at first; requiring masks and banning singing (which wasn’t much of a change for most attenders), offering few if any kids’ programs, and carefully measuring 6’ between seats, rows and urinals. And then one crazy church in every community declared the government couldn’t tell them what to do, burned their masks and staged an all-church group hug. We were back!

Little by little the “back to the past” movement took hold. As Covid began to recede and vaccinations rolled out like ‘Bama at the Sugar Bowl (I have no idea) churches felt loosed to go out and revert to exactly what they did before. And revert they did. Great music! Relevant sermons! Fun kids’ ministry! once again ruled the land.

The pressure to revert is enormous. The people know what they want and they want what they had before. They like the music, the sermons, and whatever kids’ ministry leaders do to keep their children entertained for an hour. They tried the new, the creative and the unprecedented for a year, and now they are ready for the comfortable, the predictable and the recognizable. 

And the good news is we are the best in the world at what we used to do. We have honed our model to a fine art, we have taught it at conferences and we’ve written about it ad nauseam. Our staff, our buildings and our budgets are all built on the pre-pandemic model of church. Phygital was like that girl you met at summer camp; she was fun for a week, but now that you’re home its time to pick back up with your childhood sweetheart. (Sometimes these analogies don’t even make sense to me.) No one is more nostalgic for yesterday than those of us who spent a lifetime creating the past.

There are a whole lot of people who are perfectly satisfied with church the way it used to be. Many of them will come back, or they’ll at least check in occasionally to see if you’re still doing it the way they like. They’ll keep volunteering occasionally, giving a little once in awhile, and warming our stack chairs when they are in town and there’s nothing better to do. This isn’t everyone, but its a much bigger percentage than most of us would like to admit. The quickest path to the numbers and accolades we are used to is back the way we came.

There are two challenges on the path back. The first is, if we continue to do the things we did before, we will continue to see the same results. Our numbers may grow, but the level of engagement and true discipleship will not. If shut down taught as anything its that our congregations are not nearly as mature as disciples as we had thought our hoped. Attenders will be happier, satisfied and comfortable, but they are unlikely to grow.

The other challenge is most of the people in our communities who did not attend before Covid are even more unlikely to attend after. They have read stories of church gatherings as super-spreader events, pastors demanding their rights and refusing to follow guidelines, and Christians storming the Capitol. They don’t care about the nuances of the truth, or the bias of the reporters. What they have seen over the last year has only confirmed their belief that our churches are inconsequential at best and destructive at worst. What we did before was somewhat ineffective among the truly unchurched, now I fear that it may be seen as completely irrelevant.

The problem with finding a new path forward is you have to find a new path forward. (Insightful) There isn’t a template to follow or a model to emulate. The biggest question I get is, “Who is doing this well, and how can I learn from them?” It is a great question, but the answer is no one. We are all figuring this out together. A great book to read on the season we find ourselves in is Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger. His premise is we find ourselves in a similar situation to Lewis and Clark when their expedition encountered the Rocky Mountains. They were experienced at navigating rivers, but now they had to learn to climb mountains. I think we’re at a similar crossroads; we can go back down the river, or we can learn how to climb a mountain.

I met this week in Atlanta with a handful of leaders who are intent on becoming mountain climbers, focused on blazing a new path forward. They are asking hard questions about what a church really is, where it meets, and how it connects to a larger church body. They are learning from the progress and mistakes of pioneers who’ve been asking these questions for many years. These weren’t just wild-eyed entrepreneurs, they were leaders from some of the best known churches in the country. Although they are in the minority, I believe these leaders, and others like them, are willing to take the withering criticism, make the costly mistakes, and carve out the uncertain trail that is required for the church to prevail in this completely new season.

Carving a path through the mountains is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I love the church as it has been, but I can’t spend any more time helping it be a better version of what it was. My goal is to find the way forward through meaningful conversations among like minded leaders, focused on discovering church for the new reality. Here are the conversations I want to focus on:

1. Innovation rather than imitation
2. Diversity in race, gender, age and background
3. Leaving a legacy through the the next generation
4. Church in the context of the broader community

I’ll share details soon on how can join these conversations, but for now I have one question, do you want to paddle back up the river, or do you want to climb the mountains?

What a crazy time to be a pastor. The only thing you can be absolutely sure of is no matter what you do, or don’t do, church people will tell you did the wrong thing. If you ask the church to abide by your state’s health orders you are bowing down to Caesar, if you ignore the guidelines you don’t care if people die. If you express support for President Trump you don’t care about character, if you disagree with Republicans you don’t care about unborn babies. If you speak about racial reconciliation you are pushing a far left agenda, if you don’t you’re a racist.

To make it even more challenging, people have more channels than ever before to express their disdain for your decision making. 

• Verbal attacks on Sunday morning between services
• Passive aggressive emails, voicemails or posts on Facebook
• Tried but true gossip with like-minded church goers

And it goes well beyond the personal attacks; it is heart breaking to see people you have cared for for years not only leave your church, but act and speak in ways that are clearly not what you’d expect to see in a maturing disciple. We are seeing people mold their faith into whatever best fits their personal beliefs and political persuasion, while high profile leaders egg them on. 

It is not surprising we are seeing pastors leave their churches and, in some cases, leave vocational ministry entirely. There comes a point where the hurt is too much and the disappointment is too painful. Surely you can follow Jesus without ending every day feeling like you’ve been run over by an 18-wheeler. It is easy to relate to Elijah when he ran from Jezebel.

‘Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”’

1 Kings 19:10 (NLT)

That last line feels personal, “I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” It was in that moment that God showed up for Elijah in a gentle whisper. Elijah wasn’t the only one left, and God was not done with him. God told Elijah to go back the way he came and he gave him important work to do on the way. 

God is not done with you either. Sure, people are displeased, but that has always been the hazard of ministry. None of the Old Testament prophets won popularity contests, and Paul likely won “Most Likely to be Beheaded” at the first annual Apostle’s Conference.

The reality is God is using this pandemic to sift the church, to separate wheat from the chaff. I have no doubt when we emerge from this mess many of our churches will be smaller in attendance, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As painful as it is, I feel like we are getting a “do-over”, a second chance at leading people toward true discipleship.

So where do we start? I wonder if we begin where the Reformers began when they looked at a church that had wondered far off the path of discipleship, the five solas of the Reformation. As a refresher, here is my crude synopsis:

1. Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): Our faith is not based on what we think is right or what we feel is fair and just, our faith is based on careful examination of God’s will as revealed in scripture. I recently saw a comment to a pastor’s post that we pray for President-elect Biden that said, “I know the Bible says we should pray for our leaders but…” We’ve lost sight of the fact there is no “but” in that sentence. We need to return to an understanding that scripture cannot be bent to our worldview.
2. Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ. Our people need to understand there is no litmus test between the sinner and the cross; there is no political test to pass. Paul said if we confess with out mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead we will be saved. Full stop. The sentence “you can’t be a Christian if you [fill in the blank]” has no place in the church. Paul’s harshest words (see Galatians 5:12) were reserved for those who created hurdles to salvation.
3. Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone. We have to reorient our people to the concept of true grace rather than a merit-based ladder. A grace where black and white, rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder “without God and without hope”. Ephesians 2:13 (NLT)
4. Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King. Our hope is not in charismatic pastors, powerful Presidents or political parties. Our hope is not in Carl Lentz, Jerry Falwell or Donald Trump. Our hope is in Christ alone. We need to help people understand that people will fail, but God will not. 
5. Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone. We do not live to please people, to grow churches or to obtain fame. We do not live to promote an agenda or protect a legacy. If we are truly Christ-followers everything we do is only for the glory of God. If our words and actions do not reflect glory back to God we are way off track.

As difficult as it is to be a pastor right now, I wouldn’t want to live at any other time. God is trusting us to take up the mantle of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. To defeat anger and meanness with love and compassion. To gently lead the sheep back to the sheepfold and to once again focus on becoming the perfect bride of Christ.

After a long day of ministry Jesus is exhausted. He desperately needs to get away from the crowds and rest, so he gets into a boat and tells his disciples to head to the other side of the lake. After a few minutes, the boat gently rocking as they cross the sea at sunset, Jesus lays down on a cushion in the back and falls sound asleep. While he’s sleeping a violent storm builds over the eastern mountains and suddenly drops onto the sea. Soon the boat is rocking violently, the sail is snapping in the wind threatening to tear in two, and the mast is bending to the point of breaking. Even the experienced fishermen begin to panic. They wake Jesus up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are going to drown!” We’ll let someone who was in the boat finish the story;

‘Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked. “Even the winds and waves obey him!”’ 

Matthew 8:26-27 (NLT)

I love the irony. The men who’ve been with Jesus the longest…they’ve seen him heal disease, cast out demons, even turn water into wine… they are afraid that this whole thing might end with the Son of God drowning in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. The creator of the universe’s grand story of salvation will end because of a thunderstorm he didn’t see coming. This is a very revealing moment in Jesus’ ministry; months into being with Jesus 24/7 his followers have no understanding of who Jesus is nor his bigger mission on earth. It is now clear they are not maturing as disciples.

We are in one of those Sea of Galilee moments right now. A storm unlike any we’ve seen before is rocking our world. In the middle of this storm the maturity level of the disciples we lead is being revealed, and its pretty discouraging. Attendance at online services is declining, fewer people are engaging in small groups, and the initial surge of volunteerism has all but disappeared. The one place we see many in our congregations actively engaged is arguments on social media over Covid conspiracies. Some days it feels like our boat may indeed sink before this pandemic is over.

There’s another way to look at it, however. In one way this is an incredible gift, to clearly see where we are making mature disciples and where we are not. Without this pandemic we might have continued blindly on, assuming our services, classes and small groups were leading people to take next steps toward maturity. Clearly they are not.

The Navy Seals reportedly have a saying that under pressure no one rises to the occasion, they sink to the level of their training. I believe that is what we are seeing now in churches. Most attenders aren’t stepping up in greater faith, love and sacrifice, they are falling back to their true level of maturity and discipleship. This is a great opportunity as leaders to rethink how we approach making disciples in the American church. Here are three questions to consider as you reassess your church’s approach to disciple making:

1. What do you believe, within your context, are the characteristics of a mature disciple?

   The worst thing we could do right now is to start new programs, write new training classes, or implement new systems without stepping back and re-engaging the question, “What are we trying to accomplish?” As you rebuild your definition of a mature disciple avoid the mistake of measuring discipleship by activity; church attendance, serving in a ministry, participation in a small group, Bible reading, quiet time. These are all valid activities that can lead to mature discipleship, but it is also possible to do all of these things and remain immature. Focus on outcomes rather than activities. Good places to start are the Beatitudes and the Fruit of the Spirit in describing a mature disciple.

2. What has your church done to intentionally help people develop these characteristics of a mature disciple?

   Make a list of everything you do as a church to help people become mature disciples. Spend time evaluating each activity for effectiveness; How are we seeing people grow in specific mature discipleship characteristics as a result of this program? What is leading people to grow, or to remain stagnant?

3. What should we stop, start or change to improve our ability to develop mature disciples?

   If there are things you do as a church that do not seem to help people become mature disciples it might be time to stop doing them. This gets really difficult as sacred cows are potentially sacrificed on the altar of effectiveness, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

   There are other activities that need to be massively altered if you are going to raise the bar for discipleship. For example, for most churches the weekend service is the single biggest activity they engage in to make disciples, but it seems massively ineffective. Are we going to keep doing what we’ve always done and hope it works, or are we willing to make significant changes in order to truly engage our people to become mature disciples?

We are in a Sea of Galilee moment as church leaders. The wind and waves have rocked our people, and their true maturity as disciples is being revealed. We can try to get back to what we were doing before and hope it works out better this time. We can beat ourselves up for our lack of better leadership. We can be angry with the immature mob of misfits God has stuck us with. Or we can see this as an incredible gift from God and rediscover what it means to be a church that makes disciples who make disciples.

If you are a church leader the number one question right now is, “When and how do we resume in-person meetings?” While some churches never stopped meeting and several high-profile churches have already resumed, for most churches the pressure to get back to large gatherings is building. As we enter this new phase of the coronavirus I see three distinct categories among church leaders. 

Survivors

The first is the leader just struggling to keep their head above water. Giving is plummeting, what reserves they had are drying up, and they don’t know if they’ll survive if they don’t reopen soon. These are often smaller churches who weren’t well positioned going into the crisis, and sadly the crisis may take them under. My heart goes out to these pastors, and my hope is they will reach out and find help from healthier churches in their communities.

Revivers

The second category is the leader moving as fast as possible to get back to where they were before the crisis. These are the churches that are opening as soon as possible. Their model of church was effective before the crisis, and they can’t wait to pick up where they left off. I saw this on Twitter from the pastor of one such megachurch church: 

“Gentle reminder for all the “church will never be the same” and “online is going to be the new normal!” hot takes: We literally have 2,000 years of data (through many pandemics) that church will overwhelmingly happen via in-person gatherings. People are HUNGRY to gather again.”

The church this pastor leads has a lot invested in getting back to large, in-person gatherings; multiple large auditoriums, hundreds of specialize staff, and thousands of members anxious to return to what they’ve always known. The pressure to return is tremendous

Improvisor

The third category is the leader who sees this as an incredible opportunity to rethink and retool what church could look like for the next 50 years. They see the move to online in this season as an eye-opening in terms of evangelism and discipleship. They are asking, “How can we leverage what we are learning now to create a new, more effective model of church for the coming years?” I met this morning with leaders from one of the largest churches in America as they are trying to figure out, not just for themselves but in partnership with other churches in their region how they can do more than just reopen.

After any crisis the tendency is always to get back to normal, back to what we know, back to what was working. There is nothing wrong with that desire, but it seems like it would be unfortunate to waste an opportunity like we have before us to simply return to the status quo. The challenge is most of us have let the ability to truly innovate grow dormant. Over the last 10 years the questions I hear most often from church leaders are, “Who is already doing this well and how can we copy them?” Even during this crisis I have been asked this questions multiple times. The reality is no one is doing it well because no one knows what they are doing. If we want to innovate we can’t simply copy. We can learn and adapt, but to truly discover what is next we have to invent and test. We won’t know who is doing it well for several years, in the meantime we have to improvise.

Here are a few ideas to fuel your improvisation:

1. Experiment with multiple models of church. 
2. Investigate the pros and cons of house churches seeking to understand why they have significant traction in other cultures but not in the U.S. 
3. As restrictions allow, launch different forms of microsites in a variety of venues. (i.e. coffee shops, day cares, club houses, empty restaurants)
4. Constantly ask questions of people in and out of your church to discover what is effective and what might be effective in the future. 
5. Offer a variety of options of children’s ministry in a various venues; family services, small groups only, socially distanced large groups, etc.
6. Study churches in other contexts and cultures to learn how they respond to limitations on in person meetings.
7. Offer services multiple times during the week to discover new pools of potential disciples. 
8. Wait to return to in-person gathering as long as possible to learn as much as you can before cranking up the machine it takes to run large gatherings. 

There isn’t a right or wrong to any of these categories. When your house is on fire you don’t have time to create a new form of fire extinguisher. When you are leading an organization that is effective and on mission you aren’t looking to start over. But for a few leaders who find themselves with the capacity to rethink the future this is truly the opportunity of a lifetime.

I saw this post from a pastor this past weekend:

“I’m wrestling through my significance as a pastor. I didn’t realize how much I relied on attendance numbers to tell me if I was winning in my job, or to give me a sense of significance. Now that I can’t accurately count numbers, I’m finding myself fighting an ongoing feeling of failure. That says a lot about where my heart was found and the magnitude of work that Christ still has to do in me.”

I think a lot of pastors can relate. We can’t see the people were ministering to, we don’t get feedback other than a few comments in the chat, and attendance numbers are wild guesses at best. We feel insignificant and we feel guilty for feeling insignificant at the same time. Oddly enough I think we can get some perspective from a guy who died over 100 years ago. He preached a few sermons, but he was really bad at it. When he finally changed careers people said he was even worse at his new vocation. This was a guy who knew what it was to feel insignificant.

After Vincent Van Gogh’s became an artist in his 30s one of his biggest struggles in life was that he could not sell his paintings. Even though his brother was one of the most successful art dealers in Paris no one was interested in Vincent’s art. He studied with the masters of the time, he changed his style and his setting, and he sent his brother canvas after canvas. All to no avail. He died penniless, convinced he was a failure because he never found significance as a painter. 

A few years after Vincent’s death his brother’s widow, left with little more than stacks of Vincent’s worthless canvases, began to market his paintings to the local galleries. The art sensibilities in Paris were changing, and soon Vincent’s paintings were in demand. Within a few years he became one of the most desired artists of the early 20th century. In 2017 one of his paintings, pictured with this post, sold for over $81 million dollars. Vincent Van Gogh is now revered as one of the greatest artists of the past 200 years.

What changed? Obviously Vincent did not change; he was dead before a single painting sold. The paintings, the settings and the models did not change; every painting was exactly as it was when Vincent put away his brush. All that changed were the metrics of his success. When he could not sell a painting he was deemed a failure, when his paintings became collectors items he was heralded as a genius. Vincent saw the world from a perspective no one had seen before. He painted sunflowers and wheat fields in ways that captivate art lovers 100 years after his death. It took the world decades to realize that what Vincent painted were masterpieces.

Pastors, when all church gatherings were cancelled you lost all of the metrics that helped you measure your significance. You aren’t shallow or evil because you miss those metrics, those are the standards that helped you understand if you were making progress. Sure, some of the metrics were more valid then others, but everyone needs some form of measure to mark progress.

Don’t assume you are insignificant or sinful because you miss the signposts of success.
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Here is the reality, your life is a masterpiece, God said so himself.

‘For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.’ Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

You are invaluable, and you are called to do work that really matters. You may have lost some of the metrics that reinforced what God says is true about you, but your value hasn’t diminished at all. The “Portrait of Dr Gachet” was a masterpiece when Van Gogh painted it in 1890, long before it was purchased for millions of dollars. You were a masterpiece before Covid-19 and you are still a masterpiece today. The sermons you preach matter. The leadership lessons you teach matter. The life you model with your family and your congregation matters. You are significant, God is proud of you, and all of us who are following are thankful you are leading us through this season.

Phase 1 of your church’s response to the coronavirus restrictions was insane!. In Phase 1 you had to figure out in the span of a few days how to do everything you do as a church without gathering outside of homes. It felt like you were inventing the airplane while you flew it. But you did it! Congratulations!

Now that you have a handle on how to do church in this new reality, Phase 1 is quickly coming to a close. Restrictions are changing, small gatherings are coming online and a lot of what you just figured out will be obsolete in a matter of weeks. That is why we have to jump on Phase 2 right away. Today. Now.

In this short video I outline the four steps you and the leaders at your church need to be working on immediately. These steps are based on both my experience working on the ground helping my church get prepared and conversations with pastors all over the country who are working on the same thing at the same time. My goal is to save you some of the pressure we all experienced when we were caught flat-footed last month when everything changed. 

So watch the video and use the Planning Guide with your staff. Let me know if I can help.

In order to help you implement these steps we’ve created a free Planning Guide you can download here. Also, here is a recap of the steps you need to need to take as a church. If you’d like some help working through this send me an email and let’s figure out how I can help.

Phase 1

• No more gatherings 
• Figure out everything online
• Care for your congregation, staff, and community

Phase 2 

• People are going back to work
• Businesses are being reopened
• Gatherings up to 10 are allowed

Step 1: Change your language

• This is who we are as a church and we embrace it
• We’re excited about what’s next

Step 2: Create groups of 10

• “Who’s your 10?”
• Create a Host in a Box kit
• What’s the best service format for groups of 10?
• Give options
• Make children’s ministry a win

Step 3: Prepare now for groups of 50

• Combine groups of 10 to make groups of 50
• Where will they meet?
• Begin looking for business that might be available
• What will they need?
• Children’s ministry
• Hospitality
• Tech
• Leadership development

Step 4: Prepare a plan to scale up from groups of 50

• How can we leverage what we’re learning online and in groups of 10 to impact the next level groups?

Sundays feel weird. Normally Sundays are energizing, challenging and exhausting. On Sundays we get to do the things we are wired to do; preach, lead worship, teach kids, and connect with people we love. Now a typical Sunday consists of watching a pre-recorded service and making small talk in an online chat room. When we get done we don’t even have sports to sleep to. Weird.

Mondays feel weird too. The past couple of weeks we’ve scrambled to get our services online, create virtual small groups and find ways to love our community while keeping our distance. Now we have a lot of that figured out. Sure we’ll tweak and fine tune, but most of the things that we’ve worked so hard to adapt are coming into shape. Now its Monday again and what do we work on now?

We still have to write sermons and find way to record content without infecting each other. We have to check on attenders and reach out to community leaders. We have to make sure online groups are happening and figure out the things that aren’t working. But what is our mission? What are we really focused on now that we cannot gather as a church for many weeks to come?

Here’s my recommendation for a things to work on this week. I think if we focus on these three things we’ll make incredible progress in our new normal.

Celebrate

Let’s take time to celebrate. We are doing things as a church we wouldn’t have thought possible three weeks ago. We are preaching to a camera and getting pretty good at it. We are connecting with people we’ve known for years, and people we’ve never met, in ways we didn’t know was possible. We are figuring out communion and baptism and giving and prayer without being in the same room, and its working. We are seeing creativity and passion from people who previously sat on the sidelines. We are bringing hope and light to our community at a time when they desperately need it. We are being the church in ways we couldn’t have imagined way back in February. That calls for a socially-distanced virtual party. 

Mourn

We’ve lost some things that are really hard to let go of. We will not gather on Easter. We will not have Good Friday communion together. We will not go to that conference we’ve been looking forward to for months. Each of us have lost or will lose many things, and we need to take the time to mourn. There are many aspects of our current situation that suck, and pretending that they don’t doesn’t help. Take some time to grieve what you’ve lost.

Innovate

I love seeing stories of companies pivoting right now to manufacture things they’ve never built before. Car makers are making ventilators, and shoe companies are making masks. This morning I read about a scientific group in Ohio who’ve figured out a way to turn shipping containers into sanitation units for health care workers’ personal protection equipment (PPE). It gives me hope because I see incredible innovation happening around the world.

The same innovation has to happen in the church world. We can no longer to do what we’ve always done. I see little glimpses of innovation in the way churches are doing services, but that is barely the tip of the iceberg of the innovation that has to come. Obviously we have to create opportunities for people to connect, worship and learn together, but that barely scratches the surface of what we have to figure out.

The challenge is innovation is uncomfortable. For many of us in ministry we’ve spent decades learning to do what we do. Years in college and seminary, and more years working for churches figuring out how to create the best environments possible for ministry to happen, and now those environments don’t exist. We’ve been to conferences, connected in cohorts and leaned into coaches (I have to use my alliteration skills somewhere) to learn the very best way to do church. And now most of what we learned is secondary at best. Let’s be honest, it feels really strange sitting on our couches watching a pre-recorded Sunday service. We try to make conversation in the chat, but its hollow at best.

We have to invent new ways to do what we are called to do. Our calling hasn’t changed, but our methods of ministry have to. We can’t continue to focus on how to do what we’ve always done, but do it online. We can’t just focus on making our 45 minutes on Sunday the best they can be. We have to understand the needs of today and how we can help. We have to innovate.

Here are some innovations I think we need:

Teaching Pastors

How can we teach people to dig into the Bible for themselves? Rather than giving them an already baked bread like we normally offer on Sunday, how can we point them to the flour, eggs, yeast and milk and challenge them to bake their own loaf? How can we create enough hunger in people that when they finish watching us teach they feel compelled to pull out their Bible (or App) and figure it out for themselves? I think the opportunity for innovation is not just how we preach, but what outcome we hope for.

Worship Leaders

No band, no haze, no moving lights and no graphics. Just you staring at a camera trying to lead people in worship. What do you hope people are doing as they watch online? Singing, praying, sitting silently? Is it unrealistic to think the average guy watching is going to suddenly burst into off key singing while sitting in his PJs with his family? If its not participation, what is the goal of Sunday worship? How can you innovate in how you lead? I think this is more crucial than recording the next viral worship song created by your team singing into cell phones. I don’t know where we need more innovation right now than in the area of worship.

NextGen Pastors

Kids are currently spending more time with their parents than their peers, teachers or church leaders. Now is the time to get serious about helping parents know how to have honest conversations with their kids about faith. No matter how good your online experiences are right now, they pale in comparison to the daily conversations kids and students are having in their homes. Are you connecting with parents to understand how you can help? Are you coming up with creative resources that parents are actually using?

The biggest mistake we can make as church leaders right now is to think the adaptations we’ve made to make what we’ve always done available online are an adequate response to our new reality. There is a good chance church will never be the same, how are we innovating to lead our congregation into this new season? What if we sat down together and rewrote our job descriptions for this season? Let’s cross out the things that don’t really apply right now and add in the things that are essential. Let’s create time in our schedule to celebrate, mourn and innovate. Let’s become the church God wants us to become through this crisis.

How can we be effective when we can’t meet in a building?

We are all in completely uncharted territory, the problems we faced as church leaders two weeks ago seem relatively simple now. One of the biggest challenges we are all facing is how to be the church when we can’t physically gather? In this video I share my experience based on 15 years of doing church online. Here are the topics we will cover:

Tips for effective online services

• What if we don’t have the equipment for high end video production?
• How long should the sermon be?
• Should we film the pastor standing in an empty auditorium?
• How many worship songs should we do? Should we change our normal format?
• What should we provide for families?

Platforms

• Church Online
• Facebook Live
• Watch Parties

Connecting during the week

• Facebook Groups
• Zoom
• Google Hangouts