The Grace to Survive

Eric Spivey, Pinnacle Associate

July began with a staff member’s resignation.  Meeting again in person posed too much of a health risk and created too much anxiety.

The week after we began our soft opening, another staff member called me to say he had been sick over the weekend and had gotten tested for Covid-19.  He ended up testing positive, but the results took 10 days to return – over 2 weeks after he had been in the church. 

Our church began 2020 with great energy and vision.  We spent the fall of 2019 envisioning our future and aligning our staff and budget to that vision.  We spent the first of the year searching for new staff members to live out this vision.  Then, on the Sunday we were set to call the first of these new staff members, we moved to online worship. 

At first, the quarantine felt exciting and new.  We were doing new things in church every week.  It was a time of fast, adaptive change.  I could feel the energy.  Something new was taking place.  I longed to embrace these new adaptations and merge them with our pre-Covid vision.

Then, July happened.  All the energy was gone.  Realization of the long-term ramifications of the pandemic struck home.  Looking at our 2020 vision plan felt like picking up a prehistoric fossil – a fragment of a long-forgotten age. 

I called one of the many wise lay people of our church.  When I arrived at his home, he had two socially distant camp chairs set up in his driveway, a diet coke beside my chair.  He came ready to listen.  I lamented the energy and vision which began the year.  I struggled with pastoral leadership in the pandemic.  I wanted to push for all the adaptive changes to continue.  I still held out hope for our pre-Covid vision.

Finally, after listening to my lament, my friend graciously offered this analogy.  “Eric, sailors don’t paint their ship in the middle of a storm.  The main task is to weather the storm.  Perhaps, your main pastoral task now is to help us weather the storm.  Give yourself grace to simply survive.” 

Grace to survive. 

I wanted all this change happening in our church to continue.  I wanted to do new things in our church and community.  I wanted our pre-Covid vision back.  Instead, my friend gave me permission to lead our church to survive the greatest disruption of ministry in our lifetime.  This grace made all the difference.

With grace, my staff member became our online pastor during our in-person gatherings.  We found a way to continue her ministry during Covid. 

With gratitude, my staff member with Covid had a mild case, no one else in the church was infected, and returned to ministry with the appropriate precautions. 

Covid ministry will be with us for the next year.  Change continues to happen all around us.  Let us give ourselves, our pastors, our ministers and our leaders enough grace to lead us to survive.