What If COVID Becomes a Permanent Reality? 7 Implications for Churches

Do you remember the first time your church responded to COVID? For most of us, it was early in 2020. Hundreds of thousands of churches closed their doors and stopped having in-person worship services.

Many of us thought it was a short-term problem, that in three or four months, we would be back to normal. Then we realized that the problem would not go away soon, so we began planning for quarantines of nearly a year or more. We began to realize “normal” was not coming back, and we did not know what a new normal might be.

Finally, most churches reopened, and people regathered. In July, we thought we had a new independence from COVID. Then came the delta variant, in many ways worse than the previous strains of COVID. Now, we see the omicron variant on the horizon, and we are waiting nervously to see what happens next.

It’s tough to live in such times. And it’s tough to lead in such times, especially if you are leading a mostly volunteer organization like a church. Read More