I was in an online group last week talking about the vitality of congregations. The group, all well versed in helping congregations grow in mission and ministry, was sharing how they saw vitality changing as a result of the pandemic. One person said, “One of the things that is hurting vitality is the bullying that is happening.”

I recently heard a story about a congregation where the pastor’s spouse was considered fragile with regards to health, they had not had two doses of the vaccine yet, and leaders said, “Either we meet in the sanctuary on Easter or you are out of here.” The pastor resisted and eventually resigned before Holy Week – who wants to work with/ for people who care about you and your family that little?

Things are more difficult for leaders now than they were at the same time last year. Last year we were more unified and there were less options – so less conflict. But now, with all of the social and political forces that have been at work, and various ideas about how far from the end of the pandemic we are, the options are more diverse and there is more conflict. In some places it has even become bullying.

So, how do leaders navigate this?

1. Asking the right questions is the key to finding your way in this new way. Answers will remain fuzzy and may not look like what was common sense even two years ago. So ask good questions and take time to explore them. Don’t rush for answers.
2. Dialog is the path to creativity and unity. Finding the way forward will not be based on expertise, since no one knows how to get to 2022 with any real confidence. We are all exploring, learning, sharing in the unfolding future. The congregational leaders who can get people talking in open and transparent ways will be poised to discover the way to the future. Those who rush to implement without people talking, listening and musing about what can and should be done will find quick answers usually don’t make the adaptive shifts needed to deal with the new world.
3. Use what you have learned in the last year to design what you think should happen next year. Most people have learned a lot in the pandemic, some of it about things that were available before the pandemic but with no necessity, most of us hadn’t explored them. Now, we not only know they exist, some of us are pretty good with these new tools. And the tools are not just new technology, they actually change much about how we can do ministry.

Don’t allow the anxiety and perhaps even the bullying of a few to make you rush back to the past. Taking the time to ask good questions and fostering dialog to wrestle with the answers will pay off big time in most settings. Thinking about how to use the new things we have learned is essential.

Rushing to the past, which was already an aging and declining reality, doesn’t make much sense – no matter how nervous we all are. Only using this window to develop and implement creative hybrid solutions will seize the chance to be a new kind of church on the other side of the pandemic.