2020 The Great Disruption

2020 will go down as the year of the great disruption.

Just when you and I thought this was going to be an epic beginning of a new decade, it became the year that regular church changed forever. This has challenged every leader to either adapt or to die out. It’s also created a level playing field, as the rules for the church have changed. No longer do the greatest buildings and the best equipment matter. Church has been stripped back to the bare bones, like a house undergoing a renovation. For those who have yearned for more and longed for an awakening, this season has come as an unforeseen rush of fresh air. For those caught off guard, it has been more than challenging.

The first question was, “How do we do weekend services?” The seemingly obvious choice was to go online and broadcast services using YouTube and Facebook Live. Instead, we made the difficult choice to use Zoom because, as a video conferencing platform, it allowed us to not only provide high-quality prerecorded presentations but also helped us to become a church of small groups. With the Zoom church, the content offered doesn’t rely on the ability or skill of the small group leader. Instead, the leader acts as a host and pastor, with preaching, worship, and offers being central. It’s the best of both worlds! The combination of community and mutual accountability has created sustainability. 

The pandemic has opened our eyes to what Jesus told us: the fields are white with harvest, but they aren’t just ready in our local community—they’re ripe in communities all over the world. There are people around the globe who need your kind of ministry and your kind of church. You have the ability to count the people and devices in each of your services and make personal contact with every church member every Sunday—something that was never possible before. We will never go back to simply doing in-person services. The pandemic has been a gift—an opportunity for God to open our eyes to a church without walls.