The Post-Quarantine Church

Six Urgent Challenges and Opportunities That Will Determine the Future of Your Congregation

Thom S. Rainer

• Publisher: Tyndale Momentum
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781496452771
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

A trustworthy and respected guide for pastors and church leadership in the post-quarantine world, providing hope and vision for the future of your congregation.
From thousands of surveys of church leaders and in-person consultations, Thom Rainer and his Church Answers team have gathered the essential wisdom you will need to face the challenges and opportunities that the quarantine crisis creates for the local church, including:

• New and better ways to lead the gathered church
• A wide-open door for growing the digital church
• A moment to rethink the facilities
• New strategies for church growth... and much more!

This book is, in effect, your personal church consultant, helping you plan and prepare for the future. In the midst of heartbreak, tragedy, and struggle due to Covid-19, here's hope, wisdom, encouragement and vision. This book is valuable for those looking for local church and pastor resources to enhance church leadership, grow your church, and serve digital and online church communities in the post-quarantine world. As a former pastor and founder of Church Answers, Thom S. Rainer is intimately familiar with the ever-present demands that pastors face. He has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of the local church.

CHALLENGE 1: GATHER DIFFERENTLY
AND BETTER

Do you remember that simple game we played with our hands as children in Sunday school?

“Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.”

As you opened your hands, if you had intertwined your fingers facing inward, they represented all the people inside the church. It’s a fun exercise to show your children or grandchildren.

But the little example became less popular over the years. With theological and biblical precision, people pointed out that the church building is not the church. In fact, some people insisted we stop using the phrase “go to church.” They were adamant that people are the church; they don’t go to the church. Like glass-half-empty folks, they seemed to prefer the other version of the “here is the church, here is the steeple” game —the one where you intertwine your fingers on the outside of your hands and when you open them up, “Where are all the people?”

Sigh.

Okay, I get it. The church is not a building, and the building is not a church. But the church facility is the place where the church gathers. The church facility may be a traditional church building. It may be a house. It may be a grove of trees. Still, it is a place where the church gathers.

The writer of Hebrews wants church members to encourage and motivate one another. In his letter, he is explicit in this desire and hope: “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.”[1] So how do we do that? Look at the next verse: “Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”[2]

Did you get that? As fellow believers, we encourage one another when we meet together. The gathered church is important. Indeed, during the pandemic, we missed the in-person, gathered church greatly.

The quarantine, however, also gave us an opportunity to reflect. As church leaders planned for reentry to the gathered church, they began asking important questions: Are we using our church facilities with optimum stewardship? What can we do differently? What can we do better?

Many church leaders are seeing the post-quarantine era as a great time to ask these questions. And many are deciding to do things differently.

Simple Church Revisited

When Eric Geiger and I wrote Simple Church many years ago, we developed the thesis that churches need a clear plan of discipleship. Based on Eric’s research, we discovered that many churches had already developed such a plan, and they communicated their discipleship process through a vision statement.

But we were not fully prepared for the responses we received to Simple Church, particularly in one area. One key to being a simple church, we said, was to focus on those areas that were primary to the church’s mission and, if possible, eliminate everything else.

Those two words, focus and eliminate, became rallying cries for many church leaders. Some moved forward with wisdom, eliminating nonessential busywork without creating too much controversy. Some leaders were not so wise. Like the proverbial bull in the china shop, they created more division than efficiency.

Still, the essence of the issue was basic. Our churches had busied themselves trying to do too many things that were not essential to the core mission of the congregation.

Church facilities became the focus of the busy church. We often gauged the health of a congregation by the number of times people came to the facility for worship services, groups, ministries, programs, and events. A busy building, we surmised, was a sign of vibrancy and health.

The unintended consequences of a full church calendar were many. For example, some church members were so busy “going to church” that they failed to be on mission in their community. The most active members were often the least evangelistic members because they spent so much time inside the building instead of out in the community.

Families often suffered as well. Parents had fewer hours for family time because of the steady stream of activities at church. Though the local church was certainly not the only culprit contributing to the overcommitted family, it was a factor for many.

Churches also had challenges with recruiting volunteers. Too many people were too busy. They had no spare time to offer.

Now we have a new opportunity before us. We have seen that the church can survive, even thrive, without the everyday use of buildings. And though we certainly advocate the importance of gathering in person, we also see the opportunity in the post-quarantine era to use our facilities for greater and more efficient purposes.

This brief chapter is by no means an exhaustive compendium of ways to gather better and more efficiently in our facilities. I hope, however, this discussion will stir your creative juices.

When the Community Gathers at Our Facilities

My team and I were doing a consultation for a church that had been experiencing a subtle but noticeable decline for nearly a decade. They wanted outside eyes to look at their congregation. They were in a community with decent demographic growth. They had very nice facilities. They were financially sound. And there had been no major conflicts or controversies in the church.

What could possibly be wrong?

As we do in many of our consultations, we asked for all the documents on the church, both digital and paper. One from this church was particularly fascinating. It was titled “Policies and Procedures for the Use of Church Facilities.” It was sixty-four pages long. Seriously.

As our team read this sizable rule book, one thing was very clear: It was a treatise on how to keep the surrounding community away from the church.

I understand that churches must have some facility guidelines for coordination and liability purposes. But this manual was ridiculous. It was symptomatic of the inward focus of the congregation. There were too many rules and regulations governing nonmembers. Any guest who was given the document would have received a clear message: You are not welcome here.

What if we turned this thinking on its head? What if we viewed our church facilities as a tool to reach our community? What if we thought of ways to bring the community in instead of keeping them out?

That’s a novel concept for many post-quarantine churches.

It’s time to reset our perspective in this new era. It’s time to reset how we use our facilities. For too many years, church facilities have been primarily for the benefit of members. Occasionally, a church would tout the building of a new facility as a way to reach the community. Most of the time, it was an empty promise. As soon as the facility was built, it became simply a new place for church members.

What if we were to look at our church facilities from the perspective of the community? John Mark Clifton tells of his experiences when he began serving as pastor of Wornall Road Baptist Church in Kansas City. The church was on the brink of closing. It had become irrelevant to the community.

The few members left in the congregation saw little hope for their church. Their large facility’s deferred maintenance alone seemed an insurmountable barrier to the faithful few. So when the new pastor suggested they get the church ready for the community, it seemed like a major dose of a naiveté or a cruel joke. They were thousands of dollars away from getting their church facilities usable. They could hardly pay their utility bills. How could they possibly revamp their church building for the community?

But the pastor led the endeavor with a few cans of paint and the help of volunteer labor. One room was painted in bright and varied colors. They dubbed it “the birthday room.” Then the members put flyers on their neighbors’ doors. The message was simple but compelling. The church would provide a place for neighborhood children to celebrate birthdays. The cost would be zero. Church members would assist at the parties. The only thing the neighbor had to do was make a reservation and show up with the kids.

It was transformative —not only for the families in the neighborhood; it was transformative for the church.

Typically, churches will welcome the community for well-planned, seasonal events. The Christmas musical. The Easter presentation. The children’s concert. And there’s nothing wrong with these events. But what if we tried something different? What if we asked the community how our church facilities could best serve them? What if we turned the purpose of our church buildings upside down? What if the facilities became a place for the community as well as a place in the community?

During the quarantine, many church leaders and church members discovered that the church was still the church, even without its facilities. Yes, we desired to return to in-person gatherings so we could be with our friends again. But we found we could do a lot of things as a church without relying on our buildings. Indeed, the digital world opened up possibilities that many congregations had never considered, much less tried.

We realized, it seemed, that our facilities were more tools than necessities. What if we now use those tools to reach and minister to our community?

I recently took a tour of a church facility in Georgia that had been remodeled to better minister to the community. Nearly half of the large buildings were now dedicated specifically to community needs. One section was a large break area for law enforcement. Another area was used as a medical clinic. By the time they were done, the building included numerous washers and dryers that community residents could use at no cost. During certain hours, childcare was provided at the church laundromat.

Another church in a different economic demographic began making plans to establish partnerships with local businesses. They already had a place for community members to work with free Wi-Fi. But they wanted to do more. When they heard about other churches that have sandwich shops and restaurants on-site owned by for-profit businesses, and one that opened its facilities to a private preschool instead of recreating the wheel by starting their own preschool ministry, they were inspired to take a blank slate approach and think creatively about their options. I’m certain this church will soon become a magnet in and for their community.

The leaders of a rural church, located in a sparsely populated area with nothing resembling a community center for thirty miles, are now dreaming about using their worship center and fellowship hall for community needs. They realize that the small school in the area doesn’t have an adequate space to hold events. But the church’s worship center can hold nearly two hundred people. It is ideal for community and school events.

Do you get the picture? Having become accustomed to doing without our buildings for many weeks, we’re now able to look at our church facilities with different eyes. We can see them more as a tool for outreach rather than a cocoon for members.

Churches across America and around the world own billions of dollars’ worth of real estate and facilities. God has provided these assets for us to be good stewards. Most church facilities go unused for large blocks of time every week. It’s time to rethink our facilities. It’s time to open them up to our communities.

A New Mindset: Looking for Signs

I have led or participated in hundreds of church consultations. One of the first things our consulting team does on-site is take a tour of the church facilities. We look at the parking area. We do a quick assessment of the worship-center capacity. We focus on the children’s area for safety and hygiene. We ask about the flow of both automobile traffic and foot traffic.

Among our many checkpoints is an inventory of the signs in and around the church buildings. Is there good directional signage entering the parking lot? Can visitors easily locate...