Covid gave us the perfect excuse

The church has a problem. According to Barna research the percentage of people who come to church on a weekly basis dropped from 45 percent in 1993 to 29 percent in 2020. In that same time frame the same research showed the group of none’s or the people who don’t affiliate with any type of religion grew from 11 percent to 21 percent in a short 15 years. Students who are graduating from high school or college are coming back less and less to the faith they grew up with. And if we continue to do the same things, we are going to continue to get the same results and I don’t want that for God. He deserves better than that.

I was recently asked what is the greatest opportunity for my church or The Church at the moment. And after thinking for a few moments, it was clear to me. The greatest opportunity my church and I think The Church in general has is that Covid gave us the perfect excuse. The perfect excuse to experiment. The perfect excuse not to have to go back and continue doing the same things that we have always done. Now is the time to evaluate our programs, what we do in an in-person church service, how we disciple people and stop doing the things that are giving us a bad return on our investment. Let’s take that time, energy and money and invest them into new areas that might perform better. Who says we have to go back to doing everything like we did before. Experimentation leads to innovation. Let’s not restart church, let’s relaunch church with new and fresh ideas.