The Great Church Snap Back Of 2020

Mark Tidsworth, Pinnacle Team Leader

OK, it’s been long enough already. This social distancing routine is now way beyond novel or exciting; moving into chronic territory. We are ready to be done. When can we get back to normal?

Can you feel it? Can you sense this sentiment rising in our churches? In our coaching and learning experiences, as well as in our team’s own experience, we are noticing this growing desire within God’s people to return to normal church. We are also hearing church leaders express the fear that all the innovation, experimentation, and adaptation will go the way of all things. They recognize this desire for normalcy could overwhelm the tremendous paradigmatic growth we are experiencing as churches. We are living in the tension between to poles; the clear opportunity to maximize the exceptional innovation of these days versus the very real desire for normalcy in our church experience.

Here are three clear strategies leading to healthy living in this tension.   

First, proactively strategize with your leaders how you will address the snap back tendency

Rarely do we guarantee anything about the future, but I would almost willing to guarantee that those churches who do nothing to address the snap back tendency WILL snap back to church-as-usual. I’m remembering good ole Benjamin Franklin’s wisdom right about now, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Churches and their leaders who assume they will conserve their Coronavirus-inspired growth will get what we get when we assume…disapointed. The powerful desire for the familiar rising in churches will wipe away the innovation right quick without a strategy for preserving and advancing the new and fragile growth.

Second, proactively address the human needs driving the snap back tendency

I don’t know about you, but I may turn into a charismatic Christian that first opportunity for in-person worship! I AM SO eager to be with our church, worshipping in that sacred and familiar space, moving through the familiar worship service we know and love. There are real human needs driving our desire for the familiar. During times of great change and transition, that which is familiar is exceptionally comforting. So, our desire for normalcy in our church lives is to be expected. We need the comfort of the familiar, of our sacred spaces, worship routines, and fellowship connections.

So leaders, recognize the human need for familiarity during times of great change, helping your people to reconnect to those practices which center their lives. Don’t lecture them about conserving change or shame them for wanting normalcy. Instead recognize these as normal desires, meeting these needs with the familiarity of our way of being church. Then we will be ready to engage the questions about growth and change. If we don’t proactively address the human needs driving this snap back tendency, we will create great resistance to change in our churches.

Proactively choose and implement your Post-Coronavirus growth process

There does come a time to proactively conserve and even expand the great progress we’ve made during our Coronavirus exile. Once we have addressed the needs for normalcy, then our people are ready to consider what’s next. This is when we are open to receiving and integrating the gifts of growth this crisis brought to our doorsteps. This is when we can observe how God is working all things together for good for those intent on seeing and receiving God’s good gifts. 

So choose your growth process. Of course we are biased, recommending ours. Currently we are designing ReShape: Emerging Church Practice In A Volatile World. This will be a book, a process, and a learning experience, coming in July 2020. We are hopeful this gives your church time to reconnect with the familiar, centering itself again in the comfort of “normalcy,” positioning for integrating the growth. A specific and actionable process makes it far more likely you can harvest the fruit of your labors, integrating and then expanding the growth rising in your church growth environment.

So, may we snap back enough…enough to find the comfort of the familiar. And may we then keep moving, embracing the exceptional growth rising up from God’s efforts to bring good out of every life experience.