The church never stopped because many of us couldn’t physically meet. We just had to adapt and change how we met and did ministry. Ministries began zooming, streaming, podcasting, and going throwback 70’s style with the “revival tents” in outdoor services.
What initially seemed like a scary time for all of us, quickly became an opportunity to do things like...
Reevaluate
Replant
Reorganize
Rebrand
Refocus
For some of us... Repent.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” -Jeremiah 17:7-8
This confidence in Jeremiah has been expressed daily by Pastors and Ministry Leaders across the world.
These “unprecedented” times have actually been a catalyst for growth in their ministries in ways they never thought possible. By being forced to adapt, they’ve adopted new ways of outreach that they have been wor. It’s amazing to see God at work! ?
As we let God do His work, here are some simple things that we can do in our churches as we continue to do ministry a little bit differently than we did before.
1. Service Times and Locations
Depending on your local guidelines or the limitations of your building space, going back to how you used to do worship may not yet be feasible. With streaming and video, this is a great opportunity to explore additional locations or alternate service times. Just an FYI, the calendar in ChurchTrac allows you to have an unlimited number of locations. ?
2. Bulletins and Connect Cards
In an effort to decrease contact, it’s a good idea to avoid the use of physical signups, bulletins, and other paper media. Instead, encourage people to go to your website or like your Facebook page to reach out. You can also create virtual connect cards in Church Connect to enable your guests and regular attendees to still do things like make spiritual decisions, get more info, or submit prayer requests.
3. Offering
We can still have a time of offering without actually passing plates or placing tithes in a donation box. Using this time for personal testimonies or showing what a ministry has accomplished can be a powerful thing. We actually had had an article about some of this in April called “
How To Ask People To Give Without Asking Them To Give”. It may just be one of the best 3 min reads ever!
4. Communion
Holding time of Communion is a big part of worship for many churches weekly. We’ve seen churches take a unique shift to encourage their people to take communion at home around the dinner table as a family. We’ve personally heard some really inspiring stories about how this has strengthened families and caused them to take communion even more reverently on their own accord. How many of your people do you think have led a communion before?
5. Hospitality
Just because we can’t have a coffee kiosk or offer things like donuts doesn’t mean we still can’t be hospitable. The hospitality team can join your welcome team to make an even bigger impact. If needed, they can even be cross-trained to serve in other areas. Bill already has a great steady hand for pouring hot coffee... he may just be your best cameraman!
6. Children’s Ministry
In many areas, Children’s ministry is still not feasible. We read in an interesting article called
Prioritize Church, Even When There’s No Childcare. It gave some really good insight while also shining a light on the importance of not forsaking the fellowship of believers. This particular excerpt really stuck out to us...
But if we only prioritize corporate worship when it’s convenient, our children will learn to do the same. We’re training our children in their own worship of God by the way we worship during this really difficult season.
Needless to say, these are some strong words that are a big encouragement (and reminder) to all of us!
7. Worship Team
For many churches, worship teams look very different right now. This is especially true if you had a choir, orchestra, or just a large band! Despite not being able to have all these people on stage at once, we’ve seen churches use this as an opportunity to create better rotations to give people time off. We’ve even seen choirs strategically dispersed amongst the congregation to help encourage others to sing. This is also a good opportunity to cross-train some of your people to help the AV team do a better live stream. As you schedule people, you can use
Side-By-Side to have a birds-eye view of the whole month.
8. (Bonus) Fellowship & Greeting
Physical contact is an important part of being human. This is especially true in the church with hugs, handshakes, and high fives. As we've paused much of this, we still need a way to connect without feeling like we're just ships passing in the night. Try this:
In your service, challenge your people to pull out their phone and text two people; one person they see in the service and one person they don't see. By doing this, they can still make a connection with others that are worshiping with them and also check in on those that weren't able to make it. It's a 360 win!
How is your church doing ministry?
We'd love to hear how you're impacting your community and navigating through everything! Believe it or not, many of the ideas we post come from ministries just like yours. Let us know
HERE.
Till next time 👋