It’s hard to avoid the lemons these days. One has only to watch the news, talk to friends, or acknowledge they are confined to their home for reality to sink in. Lemons surround us right now. Our churches are closed. Hospitals fill with patients we can’t visit. Members of our churches find themselves unemployed with little warning, and no reserves. Individual and organizational budgets near the crisis point.
With lemons everywhere, it’s a great time for God’s people to start setting up lemonade stands. During a recent webinar, Fuller Seminary professor and author Tod Bolsinger reflected that being stuck at home provides us with a unique chance to recalibrate our lives and our ministries. Where are we spending our time? What have we been doing that now seems less important? What new opportunities have presented themselves, enabling us to do ministry differently, maybe even more effectively?
While those questions may seem just a great way to muse away a lazy day off, they actually provide the perfect recipe for lemonade. Futurists like Len Sweet, Alan Hirsh, and Craig VanGelder have been telling us literally for decades the days of cultural Christians were numbered. Our programs might engage the already Christian, but for most churches, they have not been producing many new converts for a long time.
In the midst of the tragedy this virus has unleashed rests what may be the chance of a lifetime, if we are open to seizing it. In the often-repeated quote from Leadership on the Line, Linsky and Heifetz claim “leadership is about disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” Rarely will we be given such an important gift as the one currently in our hands. Right now, you can try some things, and expect minimal disappointment among your own people! (This IS the church, we all know it’s impossible to please everyone, but your odds are better than they are likely to be again.) EVERYTHING is different right now. Most tried, true and traditional practices of the church fly in the face of current stay-at-home mandates. In what may be a first for many of us, our congregations actually expect us to make changes and do something new.
Why is this important? In a recent conversation with a denominational leader, I learned of a church in New England that averages 35 in worship on a typical Sunday morning. While live streaming their service early in the coronavirus epidemic, the pastor was amazed to see well over 125 connecting online. Another pastor shared they have started to call every person in the congregation – something that would never occur in the usual busyness of their schedule. They noted with surprise the depth of the conversations held with numbers of people who for years they had exchanged little more than a hello with.
That’s the value offered by the freedom to try new things. Stories like these are the recipe for lemonade. In a time of crisis like this, there is a freedom to do what you normally could not get away with. Your people would not be able to absorb the rate of their disappointment. Throw your ideas at the wall and see what sticks! Test some things, try some experiments, involve some people normally found only in the margins, invite not-yet-Christians you know into fun online book clubs or zoom trivia nights. Make lemonade.
Consider this. In a survey conducted among Millennials by the Barna organization:
- 30% say attending church is not at all important
- 35% say church is not relevant to them personally
- 31% say church is boring
- 20% say it feels like God is missing from church, and
- 30% say they find God somewhere else besides the church
All too quickly the time will return where you are held back by the rate at which you can disappoint your people once again. In the meantime, learn some things. Track what worked, and what did not. Note where you connected with people you generally miss and watch for where God is already at work ahead of you. If people don’t come to the church building, what can you learn about how to take the church into the community?
The usual laws regarding change will kick in again as soon as life shifts back to normal. Squandering this opportunity to explore new ways of doing ministry within a culture that often relegates faith to the back burner – that would be tragic indeed!
It’s hard to avoid the lemons these days. One has only to watch the news, talk to friends, or acknowledge they are confined to their home for reality to sink in. Lemons surround us right now. Our churches are closed. Hospitals fill with patients we can’t visit. Members of our churches find themselves unemployed with little warning, and no reserves. Individual and organizational budgets near the crisis point.
With lemons everywhere, it’s a great time for God’s people to start setting up lemonade stands. During a recent webinar, Fuller Seminary professor and author Tod Bolsinger reflected that being stuck at home provides us with a unique chance to recalibrate our lives and our ministries. Where are we spending our time? What have we been doing that now seems less important? What new opportunities have presented themselves, enabling us to do ministry differently, maybe even more effectively?
While those questions may seem just a great way to muse away a lazy day off, they actually provide the perfect recipe for lemonade. Futurists like Len Sweet, Alan Hirsh, and Craig VanGelder have been telling us literally for decades the days of cultural Christians were numbered. Our programs might engage the already Christian, but for most churches, they have not been producing many new converts for a long time.
In the midst of the tragedy this virus has unleashed rests what may be the chance of a lifetime, if we are open to seizing it. In the often-repeated quote from Leadership on the Line, Linsky and Heifetz claim “leadership is about disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” Rarely will we be given such an important gift as the one currently in our hands. Right now, you can try some things, and expect minimal disappointment among your own people! (This IS the church, we all know it’s impossible to please everyone, but your odds are better than they are likely to be again.) EVERYTHING is different right now. Most tried, true and traditional practices of the church fly in the face of current stay-at-home mandates. In what may be a first for many of us, our congregations actually expect us to make changes and do something new.
Why is this important? In a recent conversation with a denominational leader, I learned of a church in New England that averages 35 in worship on a typical Sunday morning. While live streaming their service early in the coronavirus epidemic, the pastor was amazed to see well over 125 connecting online. Another pastor shared they have started to call every person in the congregation – something that would never occur in the usual busyness of their schedule. They noted with surprise the depth of the conversations held with numbers of people who for years they had exchanged little more than a hello with.
That’s the value offered by the freedom to try new things. Stories like these are the recipe for lemonade. In a time of crisis like this, there is a freedom to do what you normally could not get away with. Your people would not be able to absorb the rate of their disappointment. Throw your ideas at the wall and see what sticks! Test some things, try some experiments, involve some people normally found only in the margins, invite not-yet-Christians you know into fun online book clubs or zoom trivia nights. Make lemonade.
Consider this. In a survey conducted among Millennials by the Barna organization:
All too quickly the time will return where you are held back by the rate at which you can disappoint your people once again. In the meantime, learn some things. Track what worked, and what did not. Note where you connected with people you generally miss and watch for where God is already at work ahead of you. If people don’t come to the church building, what can you learn about how to take the church into the community?
The usual laws regarding change will kick in again as soon as life shifts back to normal. Squandering this opportunity to explore new ways of doing ministry within a culture that often relegates faith to the back burner – that would be tragic indeed!