By Melissa Lauber

To be a church that survives and thrives in the wake of COVID-19 will require grace and guts, say those working in the field of New Faith Expressions.

 “This is an apocalyptic moment, not of doom and gloom, but boom and bloom,” the Rev. Leonard Sweet told churches at the national Fresh Expressions Future Church Summit, Feb. 26.

 In this time of COVID, it is a time of unveiling, a time to rethink the church, rethink the world, take off one’s shoes as Moses did before the burning bush, roll up our sleeves, and let our imaginations loose, Sweet told churches trying to move forward and grow in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

 The past year has provided countless landmines to blow up ministry and traditional ideas about church.

 “Let me just be honest and say that pandemic pandemonium is the new normal,” Sweet said. “People who retreated into their homes last year will not be same people who began social distancing. When we come out of our shells, we’re going to be shell-shocked.”

 Sweet noted that the pandemic has brought to light continued inequities in our culture and awakened individual and cultural fears that have not yet been addressed.

 “There will be a comet’s tail of long-term consequences awaiting the church when we come out of our shells.” However, Sweet said, there will also be “goldmines of opportunity.”

 During the webinar, he listed four goldmines that church leaders should pay attention to:

1. The pandemic kicked the church out of its heretical notion that the church is the building. “The ecclesia is not the edifice,” he said. Knowing that can change everything.
2. There is a new front door to every church – and it is electronic. “The pandemic has proved that Zoom has not doomed the church and that old Gutenberg dogs can learn new Google tricks.” However, moving into the Google world means not practicing colonialism by imposing your church’s culture on the digital world you encounter, Sweet said. The pastor must move from a study to a studio as the missional church moves from one “nod-to-God hour” on Sundays, to a 24/7 presence that requires new and creative stances and overtures.
3. The center of the church has moved from the altar in the temple to the family table in people’s homes. This entails relearning home-based worship and not “outsourcing” Christian education and discipleship formation. “Never underestimate the power of the dinner table,” said Sweet, quoting columnist David Brooks. “It is the stage on which we turn to one another for love.” He encouraged the practice of what the Latino community calls “sobra mesa,” telling stories and sharing lives while gathering for meals as a family.
4. The church is rediscovering its role in health, healing, and wholeness. The Greek word for Salvation – σῴζω, or “sozo” – has a component of healing in it. Jesus healed. The first hospitals were created by Christians, and yet no pastors go to seminary saying they want to learn to be healers. But, Sweet said, “in the post-pandemic world, if I had to rank priorities for pastors, healing would be number one, teaching would be number two, and preaching would be number three. If the church is in the salvation business, it must also be in the health and healing business.”

 Another goldmine churches might want to explore is being a “third place” beyond homes and work sites where people can gather. Especially important would be developing outdoor sites, like gardens, where relationships and healing can flourish.

 Sweet also advised church leaders to get to deeply know their ZIP Codes – both in the day and night settings.

 But most important, he said, is to realize that “there will be new plagues and new pandemics ahead. There will be no pre-COVID reset. Disruption is the new status that is never quo.”

 However, “one of the great things that has happened is that the pandemic has destroyed any illusion that we were in control of our lives,” Sweet said. “You have to get rid of this need to be in control and start to trust and obey the spirt. … We are reading God’s story again from a whole new vantage point and rediscovering the centrality of Jesus to that story. I think we’re in for some really great awakenings.”

 Within the Baltimore-Washington Conference, the office of New Faith Expressions assists church leaders as they discover new goldmines and innovative avenues of ministry to explore.

 “We are at a point in our history where we can either lament or lean in”, said the Rev. Bill Brown, the BWC’s director of New Faith Expressions. “We can lament at our perceived losses within the context of being the Church or we can lean into what we have gained during this season. We can lean into a season of pruning so that new growth can occur. We can lean into a new way of being the Church that incorporates our rich history and presents it in new and creative ways.”

 Learn more at www.bwcumc.org/ministries/new-faith-expressions.