Inflection Points in Life and Ministry

“Most of us can remember who we were 10 years ago, but we find it hard to imagine who we’re going to be, and then we mistakenly think that because it’s hard to imagine, it’s not likely to happen.”

- Dan Gilbert, TED Talk 2014

In a recent Forbes magazine article entitled, The Coronavirus is Creating an Inflection Point in the Future of Work,” its author, Heather McGowan, suggests that the pandemic has become the tipping point for a new paradigm. The normal nine to five in the office with an hour lunch at noon has been shifting for many years but the pandemic has accelerated the change. The article suggests that by 2027 most work will be freelance.

That is a radical shift. Why is it surprising that the pandemic that disrupted our in-person worship paradigm is going to be any different? If corporations are struggling to understand how to live into this new paradigm, so is the church. This doesn’t mean that all work will shift from the office to a freelancer’s home office or that all in-office work will be eliminated. It does suggest that the shift requires a different mindset.

Corporations that sell and manufacture have accelerated the use of artificial intelligence and robotics. Still, operators in remote locations are needed to program and reprogram the operations. An inflection does not mean that a business changes its purpose. It just means that the strategies must change.

The church was forced to adapt to online worship during the pandemic. Many churches have now reopened their doors, but national statistics show that in-person worship has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Research indicates that many people, exposed to new patterns have adopted them or given up on the church altogether. Now our question is not whether we worship online or even keep all our programming online but, “how do we leverage online technology to engage people with Jesus Christ and his ministry in the world?”

Some churches are obsessed with how we get back to the pre-pandemic paradigm, while others focus on the technology instead of how we use the technology to engage people who will not return to the pre-pandemic norms. Disruptions can cause us to lose sight of our purpose. We debate strategy while forgetting the call to engage people with the presence of God.

We are in a period of transition and transformation. We need to talk about strategy, but we must first reconnect with our purpose and our God who is always ahead of us.