Last week I shared the rather obvious (though still somewhat depressing) news that the world isn’t going to snap back to “normal” as we understood normal in late 2019 and early 2020. Rather, as we slowly emerge from COVID-19 restrictions, we’ll do so with newly formed habits (some healthy, some destructive) and ongoing psychological impacts that will reshape our behavior for years to come.

Thus we’ll be more acutely aware of changes than usual and will be forced to engage with a continuously changing “new normal” (my apologies to those who are already over this phrase). Both secular enterprises and local churches must proactively adapt and engage with this changed culture or risk rapid irrelevance and eventual death. While this blog is primarily focused on church life, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to extend these points from the sacred realm into the secular business and social arenas.

While it’s natural to mourn change (and the death of the old normal we knew) and to lament the need to take radical action amidst great uncertainty, there are great opportunities available to those who understand these times and adapt successfully. There is a tremendous gospel opportunity waiting for churches that can effectively present the unchanging good news of Jesus Christ to a hurting, anxious, angry, grieving, confused, and divided world.

Last week I began unpacking six changes I see as being very likely as we engage the “new normal”:

1. In-Person gatherings will be precious, smaller, and different.

Change #2: Digital Participation Is, and Will Remain, Important

Some, perhaps many, won’t rush back to gather in person for extended periods of time inside a building possibly containing and recirculating coronavirus. That’s particularly true for those most vulnerable from a health perspective, including seniors and those with complicating health conditions. It’s also true for families. Safety requirements and volunteer-related considerations will delay the resumption of traditional children’s activities in most local churches. An informal survey of local church leaders yesterday revealed that the plurality of churches weren’t planning to resume Sunday-morning children’s programming until Fall.

It’s my belief that many people, young and old, sick and healthy will prefer to continue worshiping safely or as a family in their own home. Add to that number those families where Dad is presently worshiping every week with the family on the couch, but historically wasn’t that keen on coming to church in person. If you were Mom and the kids in that scenario, would you be in a rush to come back and leave Dad at home??? Probably not…

Many churches are gaining new congregants as a result of this crisis, including geographically distant friends and relatives now worshiping at a local church hundreds or thousands of miles from their home. Even many who were previously unchurched are beginning to feel at home in a church quite far from home. Every church should eagerly embrace the responsibility to engage these individuals more fully in the life of the church so that they too may embrace and grow in Christ.

All this is to say that not only is effective digital participation critically important now, it will remain so permanently. If a church forced to cannonball into the deep end of streaming, shift (or drag) Bible studies into Zoom, embrace online giving, and learn to communicate regularly via social media longs for some glorious future day when they can quit all that nonsense, then they fail to understand that they’ll leave behind much of their existing congregation and lose a huge opportunity to impact this world for God’s Kingdom.

Every church (that hasn’t already) needs to invest significant thought and prayer into how to welcome in newcomers without ever meeting them in person. They must learn how to translate anonymous viewers into increasingly connected and engaged members of the community of faith. They must learn how to most effectively connect “guests” with digital discipleship opportunities regardless of where they may live. I sincerely doubt any church has this all figured out yet and what works for some may not work for others. This should be a season of digital exploration and experimentation. Leaders must understand that some, perhaps most of these experiments will fail before each church discover its particular best way forward. All this must happen as quickly as possible.

Beyond that, if effective digital participation will remain critically important permanently, then no church that’s new to online worship and discipleship can afford to be content with whatever they’re doing right now. Churches must be continuously investing time, mental and physical energy, and significant, real, unbudgeted, unplanned money into upgrading cameras, sound systems, computers, software, internet connections, and streaming platforms. This isn’t optional!!! New personnel, volunteer or paid, must be rapidly recruited and trained to sustain the digital needs of the congregation long after the first people start returning in person.

Right now if a church isn’t doing something new each week to increase its capability, improve the quality of its digital experience, or increase the reliability of its online content delivery, it’s wasting critical time. Formerly “harmless” technical glitches, mistakes, and problems that were tolerable or merely embarrassing in-person now mean that the congregation at the other end of the stream can’t see or hear the gospel being proclaimed in word, prayer, or song. That’s not OK! Problems must be aggressively (dare I say ruthlessly?) addressed at almost any cost. Excellence (or at least consistent competence) is far more important than some leaders may have previously realized, because there’s always another church available online and people will only endure so much before they drop out.

But enough about large-group worship experiences! The criticality of ongoing digital church life must affect everything we do. Almost every small group and Bible study a church offers should operate in a hybrid in-person + online mode once people resume meeting in person. Online or hybrid should be the permanent expectation for everything you offer as a church. This will permit business and leisure travelers, shut-ins, and the sick to remain connected with their groups and studies and it provides the means to engage remote congregants in genuine discipleship. Churches shouldn’t permit groups to not include an online option without very strong justification.

Churches should move all routine committee and team meetings, business meetings, and just about every other meeting imaginable either entirely online or into a hybrid format. Churches historically had a bad habit of asking their most engaged Jesus-loving members to leave their homes many times throughout a typical month to do business (some important, some not so much). We should give everyone the opportunity to participate in these from the comfort and convenience of home. We’ll likely discover a greater level of participation from those most challenged by evening meetings held at church (such as parents of younger children) as well as improved morale for the team members.

The bottom-line is that every church needs to fully embrace digital opportunities and thoughtfully integrate digital participation into almost everything it does. This allows people to engage more fully in the life of the church regardless of where they are or what’s going on with the pandemic. While many churches have been reluctant to engage with digital technology, that runs counter to the historical practice of Christianity. For the past 2000 years, Christianity has harnessed new technology to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, including the bound codex, the printing press, radio, television, and the internet. It’s well past time for every local church to get over it’s discomfort with the complexities and (shrinking but significant) costs of digital participation. We must embrace the gospel possibilities of a world in which every small local church is also a beacon for the Gospel to the farthest ends of the earth!