By: UnSeminary

One of the core takeaways from 2020 so far is that we all have lacked the imagination needed to see over the horizon. 

Who would’ve thought that this year would bring all the challenges that it has as it relates to coronavirus? 

Oftentimes people say that no one could have predicted this, that no one could have seen what was coming, but that’s not entirely true.

During my Christmas break at the end of 2019, I read Dan Carlin’s book, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses. It was an interesting romp through history looking at apocalyptic times and the turnover of cultures. Dan ends the book by turning to the future and offering a discussion on lessons from the Spanish flu pandemic as well as the potential for a supervirus to bring our world to its knees once again. 

While Dan’s analysis doesn’t completely reflect everything that’s been happening this year, he did actually provide a fairly robust roadmap to help us navigate a pandemic. He had the imagination to apply what has happened historically to what could happen again. It felt a bit farfetched way back in December but he seems like a prophet from this side of the story.

Our job is to stretch our imaginations to think about what could happen in the coming weeks, months and even years. One of our functions as leaders is to read the winds of our times and change the sails of our organizations to steer towards where we believe God is leading us next. 

As we navigate the current phase we’re in, we need to think about where we’re going in the future. This season has taught us that we need to use our imaginations to look over the horizon at what might be ahead for our churches, especially as we wrestle with the reality of COVID-19 still impacting our communities and economies. One of our advantages is that we can look back and learn from similar events such as the Spanish flu and see how the multiple waves of the pandemic impacted those communities. While life is different now, a historical perspective does provide some guideposts for us as we think about what may be coming in the next few months.

Recently, I spent some time looking at case studies of three cities during the Spanish flu pandemic to get a sense of how the churches at that time responded and if we could learn from that response. I’d encourage you to do the same. I found these three articles to be particularly helpful:

Pittsburgh, PA:  “Closed houses of worship served during 1918 flu pandemic”Minneapolis, MN: “Lessons Learned from the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic”Washington, D.C.:  ”What Did DC Churches Do When the Spanish Flu Struck Again?”

In the spirit of thinking about where we may be going next, here are five questions that our churches may need to wrestle with in the coming months. Use these as a guide for discussion as you and your leadership team consider the impending issues that we find ourselves dealing with.

Would you lend your church building as a vaccine center? 

It is clear that if a vaccine comes into safe and widespread use, there’s going to be a problem around how our health systems actually distribute these vaccines. Surely we’re not going to be able to just line up at our doctor’s office or the local hospital. Those spaces aren’t large enough and aren’t built to process a large number of people in a short period of time. 

However, most church buildings are designed to get people in and out quickly, and we have ample parking and large open spaces that can easily be converted. During the Spanish flu, churches were converted into hospitals and became a great way to serve their communities.

If a vaccine does become available, it’s going to be required by at least 70% of the population. That’s hundreds of millions of people in the United States alone! Will our churches be counted among those that are willing to offer help in a time like this? 

In a similar vein, would your church be willing to offer its building to the local school board as they attempt to figure out how to do lower capacity classes this September? This could be an opportunity for your church to help your community in a very real way right now. Most churches have meeting rooms and various subspaces for our weekend services. These could easily be retrofitted to help a school provide low-capacity classes for kids in your district. 

Are we willing to communicate well in the public square?

Are you ready to respond to the press if your church becomes a hotspot? 

One of the things that’s become obvious in responding to COVID-19 is that public perception is an important factor that all leaders need to consider. I know many church leaders have wrestled with not wanting to gather too early because they want to keep their community healthy and safe. 

At some point, if your church does decide to meet in person, it would be irresponsible to not have a press communication plan in place in the event a member of your church becomes COVID-19 positive or, worst case, if your church becomes a super spreader. We’ve already seen evidence of this in churches around the world, and the negative effect that has been felt by these churches could impact their ministries for years to come. 

Taking some time now to build a communications plan that clearly outlines what would happen if a case is identified in your church will help you avoid pain in the future.

Throughout this season, I’ve been encouraging churches to think proactively about hiring a communications director. This issue alone may be the biggest reason to push you to make those hires at this time.

Are your systems designed to move smoothly from in-person to online experiences in response to a second wave? 

It’s highly likely that we will see a continued resurgence of COVID-19 across the country in the coming weeks and months. As your church transitions to in-person services, are you retaining all of your systems to be able to transition smoothly back to online when needed?

Don’t abandon the infrastructure that you have developed in this season. This is important for the individuals in your church who are uncomfortable coming back and because there may come a point when churches need to be closed a second time. Think carefully about how you could do both in-person and online experiences since you might need to provide a mixed offering for the foreseeable future. 

The rush to in-person gatherings and the cheerleading that has gone along with that will potentially have negative consequences for those churches in the event that they need to return to online only experiences. Every church should be considering how to do both in-person and online well and should have the ability to move its community back and forth between the two.

What would happen to your giving if your city’s main employer closed? 

The economic impact of the coronavirus hasn’t shown up yet, not really. The government liquidity that has been pushed into the system is giving a false sense of financial security against what’s actually happening on Main Street. 

What would happen if that liquidity was pulled and the main employer in your town was to fail? What would the ripple effect be in your town if that employer went bankrupt and was unable to pay its people?

Recently, I was in a “company town,” one of these rural-ish communities that are largely reliant on a large multinational corporation to support their local economy. That company has been an incredible blessing to the financial picture of this community for years, but I got a little bit scared when I saw how much development has radiated out from that employer. If that company was to pull out of that town, it would take decades for the community to recover. 

Are you aware of who the main employer is in your town or city? Have you thought about any way that you could support them in this season? Are you aware of what impact it might have on your church if they were to close?

What if your volunteers don’t come back? 

One of the saddest things we’ve been seeing in this season as churches attempt to get in-person services going again is the assumption that all of the volunteers feel just as strongly about in-person services as the pastoral team. This just simply isn’t the case.

The many people who over the last few months haven’t been serving in our churches and haven’t heard from us personally will be put off if the next time they hear from you, it’s just about the church needing them to volunteer again. What if 50% of your volunteers opted out of volunteering in your rush to move back to in-person services? Could your church sustain its ministry with far less volunteers? 

This is a significant issue for us to wrestle through because our churches are driven by volunteers. The church has always been best understood as a volunteer organization, and the local church is the greatest volunteer-driven enterprise in the world. If our volunteers don’t come back, we will have a big problem on our hands when we reopen. Watching carefully as people opt out will be an important practice for us as we go through our reopening phases.

Make Some Space to Ask, “What if?”

This season feels like we just ran a marathon and then at the end of the marathon, someone handed us a bike and told us this is actually a reverse triathlon. I don’t want this discussion to be a discouragement to you; rather, I want to encourage you to think carefully about the future. 

There will be many waves of the impact of COVID-19 that we’ll need to continue to deal with as they roll through our churches. Part of our roles as leaders is to try to look up over the horizon and discover and think through and imagine where we may be headed next, to rally our team towards those issues, and to do what we can to prepare for them.

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Source: 5 Questions About COVID-19 that Your Church Might Still Need to Answer

The post 5 Questions About COVID-19 that Your Church Might Still Need to Answer appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By: Carey Nieuwhof

Let me guess. You feel like you really need to de-stress.

2020 has been unreal, and almost unbelievably trying—far different than any year you’ve led through before.

Every leader I talk to is tired. Well, more than just tired. Stressed. Deeply stressed.

And kind of exhausted.

There’s a fatigue that comes with crisis that’s a little hard to describe.

The adrenaline that got you through the first month gave way to the sustained drone of decision after decision, assault after assault, and disappointment after disappointment.

So you’ve lived for your summer break. I get it.

Everybody has.

There’s a fatigue that comes with crisis that’s a little hard to describe.Click To Tweet

Now the bad news. And as tough as it is to hear, your time off this summer probably won’t be enough to refuel you or even fully destress you.

Yeah, I know.

In fact, if you look back on your leadership, you probably already know that you rarely if ever completely destress on your time off. If you’re not sure about that, just ask your spouse or kids. They’ll tell you what it’s like to vacation with you.

And even if you get a few fleeting glimpses of peace at some point in your weeks off, they usually evaporate the moment you head back to work. It’s like two weeks of progress get erased within minutes of heading back to work.

So two questions:

First, “why?”

And second, “what should you do?”

Let’s tackle each in turn.

Why Doesn’t Time Off ‘Work’?

1. Time Off Won’t Heal You When Your Problem Is How You Spend Your Time On

The problem with most leaders is not how we spend our time off. It’s how we spend our time on.

I learned the lesson of time off that doesn’t refuel you the hard way. The worst summer of my life happened back in 2006.

Personally, after 11 years in leadership, I was burning out. I suspected burnout but I thought I could stop it with a vacation, because, you know, I’m strong like that and only weak people burn out. (Yes I know, but tell that to young me who didn’t listen well.)

I took three weeks off that July. I was convinced I would heal and everything would be back to normal by August 1st.

What scared me to death that year is that instead of getting better during my vacation, I got worse.

I moved into a deep slide and cratered out in August…a burnout deep enough that it took me months to get out of and then a few years to finally shake.

You know what I learned in that season (along with about 1 million other lessons)?

How I spent my time off wasn’t the solution, because how I spend my time off wasn’t my problem.

Your time off can’t save you if the problem is how you spend your time on.

Your time off can’t save you if the problem is how you spend your time on.Click To Tweet

The problem for most exhausted and depleted leaders isn’t how you spend your time off, it’s how you spend your time on.

Back in 2006, my crisis was personal. I was living at an unstainable pace. As the church I led grew, my formula was more people equals more hours. And that’s fundamentally unsustainable.

Today, the crisis is global and we’re all going through it. If the formula is more crisis equals more hours, we’re all doomed as leaders.  Sure, the initial stages of a crisis require long hours and hard decisions. But when you head into a prolonged crisis, well, you need a new strategy.

Which takes us back to this summer: when you’re exhausted, how you spend your time off isn’t the solution. How you spend your time on is.

The initial stages of a crisis require long hours and hard decisions. But when you head into a prolonged crisis, well, you need a new strategy.Click To Tweet

2. This is Why Sabbaticals and Leaves Generally Don’t Solve Burnout

You might be thinking, Exactly, Carey—which is why I need a sabbatical or leave of some kind. 

Well, maybe. But probably not.

For years I’ve puzzled over why so many sabbaticals and other forms of leave generally don’t solve burnout.

I can’t tell you the number of leaders I’ve known on the verge of burnout who have taken a sabbatical to deal with their stress or fatigue, get better, and then come back only to feel as bad or worse within months of their return. And then often, they leave—for good.

Although I’ve never taken a Sabbatical or extended leave, I think they can be great when they have a defined purpose and you’re not running into them or back out of them into a frantically unsustainable life.

A Sabbatical isn’t the solution for an unsustainable pace. A sustainable pace is the solution for an unsustainable pace.

When the way you’re living and leading is broken, all the time in the world off won’t fix it.

When the way you’re living and leading is broken, all the time in the world off won’t fix it. Click To Tweet

So…What Will Help?

If the problem is how you spend your time on, here are a few things that can help.

First, when you’re off, take some time to take stock of what happened.

You have been through so much and my guess is you’ve hardly stopped to process it.

I found myself unusually tired a few weeks ago. There was nothing ‘wrong’ with my schedule. I’d taken a full weekend off,  and my day wasn’t jammed full with meetings.

I actually had writing time scheduled in my calendar, which is something I love, and it was designed to help me finish writing a new course on leading a better team we’re launching in a few months.

But I was struggling to get motivated. I was far more tired than I should be.

When I wondered what was going on, I realized that although I love writing and producing online courses for leaders, I was writing my fourth course in four months, something I’d never done before.

That, on top of all the crisis leadership all of us have been through left me feeling, well, not myself.

In the end, the course production and filming went really well, but the lesson wasn’t lost.

What’s the best thing to do about that? Well, name it, surrender it and make a note to file for the future you that writing and producing four courses in four months is super taxing.

Until you understand why you’re tired, it’s hard to figure out how not to get that tired.

So what’s making you tired?

If your answer is everything, take a little more time to break it down. You’ll likely discover some things weigh more heavily than others.

Until you understand why you’re tired, it’s hard to figure out how not to get that tired.Click To Tweet

Finally, grieve your losses. A mentor once told me that ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. Oh man, is he right.

When he shared that with me I realized how many losses I’d experienced that I never grieved (as small as someone leaving your church, which isn’t that small).

Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. So is life.

Do you know how much loss you’ve experienced since March?

Take some time to pray through them, grieve through them, and maybe even sit down with a good friend or therapist to process it all.

You’ll be glad you did.

Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. So is life. Click To Tweet

With all that processed during the relative quiet of summer, how do you avoid being eaten alive heading back into leadership?

While I have a deep and robust strategy that’s helped me deal with everything life and leadership have thrown at me for years now, here are three things that can help right now.

1. Make Some Categorical Decisions

Categorical decision making is a superpower for leaders who have too much to do, which these days is most leaders.

By default, you make decisions one by one in leadership…as they come at you or need to be made.

One of the best ways to simplify decision making is to think in categories.

For example, when the COVID crisis hit, I had a lot of internal decisions to make as a leader (things my organization needed to do to survive), and soon I was faced with a bunch of requests for podcast interviews, webinar appearances, online events and even to join staff meetings virtually.

At first, my team and I looked at each request individually, but as they piled up (often a half dozen requests a day), we moved to categorical decision making. I decided to politely decline all podcast interviews, virtual events, webinars, online events of staff meetings.

Done, decision made.

We made a couple of exceptions, but not many.

The result? My team had clarity. I had clarity. And people understood.

Plus, I had time to work on some big projects I needed to get done.

Heading back into leadership, what things can you categorically eliminate?

This will take you a while to think through, but over the years I’ve done things like categorically eliminate doing weddings and funerals, pastoral visitation,  breakfast meetings (I’m most productive in the morning), lunch meetings or even meetings over an hour (and much more).

This will also force you to create systems for these important things that are not dependent on you and far more deeply empower your team.

I always get asked Do you make exceptions? And yes, I do.

I’ve done a few weddings, some visitations, a few funerals and even the odd breakfast meeting. But the exceptions are so much easier to manage than the deluge of yesses that probably should have been nos. And if I participate in your wedding, it’s probably because you’re on my staff or are family, a pretty easy exception to explain.

And ideally, your elimination of one category should free up time to focus on something more important or strategic. Another way to think about it is to reach more people, I need to eliminate X. 

If you’re skittish or worry about FOMO, try this: make it time-limited. In other words, for three months I’ll do no breakfast meetings. Or until the end of the year, I won’t do outside projects or requests.

Categorical decision-making saves mental energy and a tremendous amount of time because you already made the decision. Case closed. Move on.

Categorical decision-making saves mental energy and a tremendous amount of time because you already made the decision. Case closed. Move on.Click To Tweet

2. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

This one’s easy to understand and very difficult to do.

At the best of times, complexity is your enemy. And many leaders have a strategy that’s overly complex.

Complexity doesn’t scale, and at a certain level, it’s also exhausting.

Complexity doesn’t scale, and at a certain level, it’s also exhausting. Click To Tweet

Simple is not simplistic.

As Woody Guthrie is quoted as saying, “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

Great leaders stick with a problem or idea long enough and engage it deeply enough to clear away the fog and reduce the concept to its simplest forms so anyone can understand it and implement it.

Ask yourself, what things can you stop doing so you can start doing more important things?

A simple, leaner model will likely help you thrive in complicated times.

One easy cut from most churches or organizations is anything you have to ‘manufacture’ energy for (I explain that here).

The more complex the world becomes, the simpler your approach to it needs to be.

The more complex the world becomes, the simpler your approach to it needs to be.Click To Tweet

3. Ditch The Endless WorkDay/WorkWeek

If you haven’t worked from home as much in the past as you are presently, the boundaries between work and home and likely as blurry as they’ve ever been.

I’ve been working from home part of the time for much of the last 25 years and full-time for the last five. It took me years to figure out how to do it well, but I’m more convinced than ever that you need a strategy to make sure your work doesn’t envelop your life.

Technology has not made this simpler.

You’re watching Disney+ with your daughter after dinner and a co-worker texts you about your expense report.

You used to go to the office, but thanks to technology, now the office goes to you. And it’s fully capable of interrupting you any time, anywhere, even on vacation.

Because I love what I get to do, I’ve had to force myself to make hard stops, putting my laptop away, turning off all notifications on my device, moving my phone out of my bedroom at night, and deciding that some things can wait.

Want a good little hack to help you break your work/technology addiction? Get a hobby.

You’ll get so engrossed in it that you’ll lose the desire to even check your phone.

You used to go to the office, but thanks to technology, now the office goes to you. And it’s fully capable of interrupting you any time, anywhere, even on vacation.Click To Tweet

Something To Focus On

Since I burned out, my mantra has been to try to figure out a way to live in a way today that will help you thrive tomorrow.

I think that’s a good principle. I don’t always get it right, but when I do, things are so much better.

If you’re not thriving—and many leaders aren’t, even in the best of times—adjust today to improve tomorrow.

Living in a way today that will help you thrive tomorrow will help you win the marathon ahead.

Simplify the Changes You’re Going To Make…

How are you going to make the change you need to make without exhausting yourself or your team?

As complex as things are, having a simple framework to navigate the change will make the task ahead much easier.

If you want to position yourself for the future, my brand new online training, the 30-Day Pivot, will show you how to develop your agility as a leader and as an organization to position yourself for growth.

The 30-Day Pivot is a simple 3-step process you and your team can utilize every as often as every 30 days to respond to the change around you and capitalize on it.

In the 30-Day Pivot, you’ll learn:

A simple 3-step process your team can use to arrive at your next pivot in 90 minutes or less.
An approach that fosters team-generated innovation.
An implementation and evaluation framework that will help your team move quickly and accurately.

I’ve led teams through multiple pivots, and in the 30 Day Pivot, I show you the strategy and framework you need to make quick, accurate and responsive moves that can position your organization for growth, even in the midst of deep uncertainty and change.

Some organizations and churches will thrive in the new normal.

Others won’t.

While the future is uncertain, yours doesn’t have to be.

What Helps You?

What helps you figure out the relationship between time off and time on?

How do you refuel in every season?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

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Source: Why Your Time Off Will Never Be Enough to Truly DeStress You

The post Why Your Time Off Will Never Be Enough to Truly DeStress You appeared first on Passion for Planting.