This morning, my newsfeeds and social media are buzzing with news that the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine for Covid-19 has been approved in the UK for use and that a huge vaccination programme will begin in the first week of January 2021. There is much rejoicing in the media and rightly so but I wondered how, as leaders, we should respond and what, therefore, the next 12 months look like.
I suppose part of me was prompted by a tweet I also read this morning from someone I don’t know which said,
“Really all I want is a parish church, a priest with a prayer book who can preach, the daily office, all my friends, hours of reading & conversation over coffee & cake & cheese & beer & wine. And a new generation of friends to take up the torch. Surely that’s not too much to ask?”
Now, putting aside the different ecclesiology to mine and the fact that I don’t know why the writer expressed this, it prompted something inside of me. It was a nervousness and anxiety. Entering a new year is often a time when church leaders produce a vision for the year with plans and actions. Whilst these may have some values in ‘normal’ years, 2021 will not be a normal year. Navigating this scenario well and helping those we lead to cope and grow will probably be as big a challenge as helping people cope with the pandemic, especially as many people won’t necessarily realise what is happening.
It is really tempting to caste grand visions and detailed plans which make people think that we are going back to pre-coronavirus days and that the last nine months are some horrible bad dream which we need to try and forget. However, deciding the speed and tone of how you bring your church or organisation out of this crisis will possibly be the most defining moment of your leadership.
Deciding the speed and tone of how you bring your church or organisation out of this crisis will possibly be the most defining moment of your leadership. Click To TweetSo, what do I mean by this, what can this look like as we move into 2021 and does this mean we shouldn’t have a vision for 2021 at all?
We all need to take a breath
The last 10 months have been, quite frankly exhausting. For some, it has been physically exhausting as they work on the front lines of protecting us against Covid-19. I think in a church leadership context especially of our hospital chaplains who have been faced with so much. However, everyone is feeling emotionally exhausted as we have coped with separation from friends and family, changing rules around what we can and cannot do and all of the emotions causes by both the toll of impact of coronavirus and also the mental health and wellbeing impact of restrictions. Very few people have sailed through this unscathed and we all need to take a ‘moment’ to acknowledge everything that has happened over the last year. ‘Acknowledging’ is not simply about noting that it happened but also about saying that it had an impact on me, in some way, shape or form.
For some people, they have literally lost a loved one over the last year, whether though Covid-19 or some other reason. It would be wrong, however, to restrict this to those who are mourning the death of a loved one. Everyone has lost something. It may be our health in some way, whether the effects of Covid-19 or something else. We may have lost a job, income or some life event such as a significant birthday, anniversary, leaving school or university or something. And we have all lost … our life – getting together with friends, seeing family, simply going out and about and enjoying everyday life with others.
The biggest temptation, when the Government relaxes the restrictions on our everyday lives, would be to jump back into “normal life” without either acknowledging all of our losses or without asking whether our previous “normal life” is what we should go back to.
Simon Barrington of Forge Leadership, who served for many years as the head of a disaster relief organisation says that there are three stages of a crisis and details these in a framework for strategic planning in response to a crisis, which can be watched by clicking here. His outline is that there are three stages to a crisis:
Firstly, Response – the immediate aftermath or depth of the crisis where you are running hard and fast and dealing with the immediate. The third phase is Reconstruction – where we rebuild and move forward, possibly with scarcer resources or new values. In between, however, is the phase that people often try to jump, ignore or shorten and that is, Recovery. He says that we should never move straight from Response to Reconstruction and that for most leaders, they want to move on quickly. However, recovery needs time and emotionally sensitive people who can come alongside others and just … be.
This brings me back to my thoughts this morning. I’m not the most overt extravert in the world and I quite enjoy my own company, but in thinking about the second quarter of 2021, I know what I want to do as much as possible (restrictions and vaccination permitting) … meet people. Not for any specific purpose, I just want to get together with people, in ones and twos, small groups and great big gatherings. I want to see friends face-to-face and give them hugs. I want to go to a cafe with a few people and chat and laugh and yes, probably shed a tear or two. And I don’t think I’m going to be alone in that.
So, we need to give space for people to breathe and live life. It may not be a great idea to tell everyone that as soon as restrictions are limited, you are going to run a church-wide campaign with people being brought out every evening. Build in a “pause,” not in all activity but allow lots of space for people to rebuild relationships – have lots of social gatherings, one-on-one, small and large groups. Allow people space to talk about how they feel and to grieve their losses over the last year. Allow people to acknowledge that they’re exhausted!
Everyone Walks At A Different Pace
I think we need to remember the really obvious statement that not everyone is the same. As a leader, you may be raring to go with the vision that you have and may have been waiting to implement for almost a year now, but not everyone else will be. The art of leadership is about bringing as many people with you as possible. There is no point in racing forward with a vision if you only have three people willing to come with you. That is always the case, but it is more so the case in a recovery phase of a crisis. Simon Barrington says that in this phase, people will find it difficult to get straight back to ‘normal.’ We need to work with people at their pace. Some people are ready to move forward with vision, others will take a little bit of time and others may be more resistant to moving forward at all for quite some time.
The church is not a multi-national business driven by outcomes, it is the Body of Christ, with individual people at its heart. Let us never forget that when talking about vision. Click To TweetSo, you need to pick your words very carefully. When you talk about vision, recognise the reality of people’s situations and acknowledge that everyone will walk this journey at the pace that is relevant for them, not according to some super vision master plan!
Your Vision Can Wait A Bit
Did I really just write that? Yes! Sometimes, we tie up so much of our own personal worth as a leader in what we ‘achieve’ that if we don’t have a vision and an associated action plan, then people may question why they are paying us.
In the recovery phase of a crisis, your top priority is keeping people safe and caring for them. It may be that for many leaders 2021 will have been a major success if by the end of the year, most of the people you previously had in your church are still with you, walking with Jesus and have returned to in-person gatherings of some form.
You don’t need to start January 2021 with a ‘vision for the year’ which is detailed and challenging. Very few people in your church are looking for a “challenging adventure.” In fact, please don’t use the word ‘adventure’ when talking about the future at the moment – very few people are looking for a new adventure – 2020 was quite enough adventure for anyone.
We often hate making church seem ‘comfortable’ but after a time of crisis, comfortable seems really nice. That doesn’t mean we stay there or don’t try to move forward in our faith, but church life should be fun, relationship-centred and life-giving. How we present vision should be too.
We need to remember that despite the start of the vaccination programme, the next two to three months may be some of the most difficult and challenging of the whole pandemic. The end is in sight but we aren’t there yet.
So, let’s cut people some slack with our vision. If you have managed to hold your church together over the last 10 months, then you are incredible and have achieved something spectacular. Don’t put pressure on yourself now to go back to the old ways. Give yourself a break – enjoy the heart of what church is about – relationships in all of their forms. Yes, present vision but make it limited and achievable this year. Hit them with a challenge in 2022. You don’t need to do everything in the next twelve months.
Sometimes we build our own worth on what we achieve as leaders, when those we lead are looking for inspiration not desperation. Click To TweetSo, as we enter 2021, take a deep breath, walk at your own pace and with others and be kind in the vision you set for those you lead.
Heres to an amazing new year.