Tuesday's Catch: COVID-19 and the Future of the Church and More

How COVID-19 Is Shaping the Future of the Church

In this article, Carey Nieuwhof shares five ways the current crisis is accelerating the arrival of the future church. Most if not all of these changes were coming years down the road. It’s just now, they’ve arrived overnight. Read More

7 Items for Your Ministry Reentry Checklist 
Here are seven things to make sure you consider as your form your church’s re-entry plan. Read More

I post links to articles like this one because it contains useful information that churches need in planning their eventual reentry. At the same time I must admit to some hesitance at posting links to them because I don't believe that we are at the back end of the pandemic and churches that are planning to reopen at this stage in the pandemic will be contributing to the spread of the novel coronavirus. I understand that church leaders may be experiencing internal and external pressures to reopen their churches. But in deciding to reopen their churches at this time, I believe that church leaders are being caught up in the denial of seriousness of the pandemic, which characterizes one segment of the population. If churches reopen prematurely and their premature reopening cost human lives, it will damage the witness of the church to the community. Whether they realize it, church leaders and church members are not going to recover what they lost during the past weeks. What they at one time perceived as "normalcy" is gone forever. The world has changed. Risking infecting themselves and others with the virus in order to gather together on a Sunday morning is not going to undo that change. It will not bring the old days back. Like what they once perceived as the "original normal" as one comment on Thom Rainer's blog described it, those days are also gone forever. They really need to come to terms with the "brave new world" that COVID-19 has ushered in.

GRACE: How to Protect Children from Abuse During the Crisis

Evidence shows that various forms of abuse have spiked as a result of the social isolation caused by the coronavirus crisis. The organization Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) recently live streamed a panel discussion on the topic “Child Safeguarding and Survivor Care During Covid-19.” In it, panelists offered specific and practical advice for church leaders on how to go about protecting children and other vulnerable people in their congregations. Read More

The De-conversion of Saruman: Five Lessons to Learn

Perhaps one of the most remarkable (and often overlooked) examples of apostasy is Saruman in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I’ve been re-reading the books lately in my coronavirus quarantine, and I was struck anew by the role he plays in the overall story. Read More

2 Strategies for Seeing Scripture More Clearly

There are two strategies I practice that help me be a better observer of the Bible text I’m reading. Think of these strategies like the 1’s and 2’s of your eye doctor’s phoropter. Read More

20 Ways to Help Your Children Process the Pandemic

You’re not the only one feeling the press. Little eyes, little ears, little bodies and tender souls are doing their best to process this COVID-19 experience alongside their parents – with far fewer tools. Try as we might to conceal it from them, a new “homeschool life,” coupled with a new “work-from-home-world,” or worse, a “no-work-at-all-world” - positions often anxious children in full view of life’s troubling complications. While we likely have ways of processing the noise, it’s entirely possible that our children might be overlooked in the missionary equation that lies before them. Read More

One Reason All of Us Need to be Journaling

“Now we are part of our own historical moment in time. Our chance to control some of that narrative is in our hands. If we don’t want to be forgotten later, we must start writing down our own experiences now.” Read More