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Adapting in a Rapidly Changing Time

By New Churches Team

Consider Essentials

This season is a really good time for churches to figure out what is absolutely essential – from a finance perspective, resource perspective, and people perspective. Whatever those things are that you deem essential, you now have to figure out how to resource them as best as possible and focus on making sure the church can do those things. You can’t look for a bandage. You need to find a way to use this time to make it better than it was before. 

Adapting to Change

We all process change differently. As a leader, you need to realize that everyone on your team will process it differently and adapt differently. Some will adapt quickly, others will not. Andy Crouch shared in a recent article that we are in a blizzard, winter, or little ice age. In a blizzard, you can’t see in front of you clearly. There is snow everywhere and when it is over everything looks different. During a blizzard everyone is simply trying to survive. When winter sets in, it is fun at first, but then it gets tiring after weeks and months. In a little ice age, you have to figure out economically how to survive as things change in severe ways.

A Useful Framework

Kevin Peck at The Austin Stone has shared a framework that may be helpful. It includes care, community, content, and communication. What does it mean for you to be the church in each of those areas in regard to team allocation resource allocation and how you move together in strategy?

Overcoming Restrictions

We often tell ourselves that we creativity, boldness, and innovation come from having an abundance of resources, time, and opportunity. The reality is that is often not the case. We need to embrace the time we are in and determine how to adjust our mindset to making the most of this opportunity. The Beautiful Constraint by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden shares more on how to overcome this issue. 

This pandemic did not take God by surprise. He knew this was coming. It will be interesting to look back in ten years at the stories that will come out of this time and how the gospel spread. It is God’s church and He will not allow it to be taken out by a virus. Church may look completely different when this is over, but ultimately, He is in control and we must remember that and adapt to change.

Adapted from New Churches Q&A Podcast Episode 482: Leading Through Change. Click here to listen to more to church planting, multisite, and multiplication tips.