2 Priorities As Churches Reopen
A perspective from a church planter and an established church
Justin Erickson
Rukes Alliance Partner
hardwiredcoaching.com
As churches across America (and throughout the world) begin to re-imagine what life will look like post COVID-19, we are all asking, “How do we care for people spiritually going forward when there is no new normal?”
In His kindness, God used the coronavirus to reveal areas of shortcoming in our ministries. Many programs just stopped working because they weren’t durable enough to survive the shutdown. Some of what we were doing needed to die, and COVID put an end to them. Only the essentials remained.
Church in jammies was novel, but not for long. Zoom wasn’t enough. Reopening in certain places became contentious. People in our churches were polarized by masks. The virus and vaccines were weaponized and politicized. Some churches defied the CDC regulations and stayed open; other churches closed their doors and kept them closed, permanently.
But as turbulent as that time was (and in many places still is), God used the coronavirus to highlight areas of opportunity for us to lead. This moment will have not been wasted on us if we learn what God intends to teach us. We have a favorable moment to reorganize our ministries based on a simple and clear set of priorities that are not only biblical, but obvious: content and care.
That’s it. Two basic, clear, and extremely urgent priorities. Content and care. And that’s all people wanted in the shutdown, and that’s all we could do. Churches that thrived delivered quality biblical content for people who were listening like never before, and met their needs, which were more pressing than ever. And that’s the New Testament —
Content and Care.
So with that in mind, I decided to start a church in Scottsdale, AZ. Why not? Jesus is essential. Church is essential. People needed raw truth and real hope, with responsible leadership. And, I reasoned, almost every pastor in America is now a church planter anyway because of the pandemic — everybody is basically starting over. Never a better time to speak His truth and support one another.
And if Jesus will build His church, as He promised, then what could stop it? Certainly not a pandemic. What a testimony to His faithfulness that would be. As long as we were the kind of church He had in mind when He spoke those words. As a startup, we didn’t have the people and resources to do much else. Turns out the pandemic virtually stripped everything else away except content and care.
Across town from me is another pastor, who has faithfully served and steadily grown his church for almost a decade. Jon Benzinger pastors Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, AZ, with about 1500 in-person attendees. There had been standing room only attendance for three services on Sunday. They were ready to add two more services on Saturday night just to keep up with the demand—then the virus hit. Jon read the moment and did the same thing — he restructured his entire ministry to pursue two essential priorities: content and care.
And he did it in every ministry from worship to children’s, and students to seniors. He delivered faithful biblical content in every form: sermon, podcast, music, even children’s curriculum. Then he refocused every single one of his staff to care for the people within their ministries. He realigned staff to do shepherding, double time. Prayer, counsel, and practical needs. He even hired staff to fill the needs within these two priorities. Content and care.
His church is in the top 2% of churches in America whose in-person numbers have increased dramatically since the pandemic. Jon also discovered something unexpected that put this decision into perspective. His giving skyrocketed. But not just from people in his church. Giving among his existing members remained fairly constant. He discovered that his church had begun to reach an additional 1,100 people who were not only engaged with their content, but were now calling Redeemer their home. And not just their home, but the home where they gave their money. In a pandemic. With an uncertain future. Their metrics to measure online virtual attendance and the new giving units led them to find several people in different places, even different countries, who needed biblical soul care and faithful preaching.
As things are reopening in Arizona, we are able to see what is working well and what isn’t so far. Wanna guess what’s working? Content and care. What’s not working? Programs. For our church plant, we are committed to keeping it clear, simple, and compelling. Sunday morning ministry, satisfying fellowship in personal relationship and discipleship. And we have an online presence that reaches people in about 7 different states. For Redeemer, while they definitely prefer in-person services, they have connected to an online audience, who they refuse to leave stranded to whatever else is on the web. Jon is traveling to those locations to organize the groups and care for them pastorally. His leadership is also plotting ways to plant churches in the places to bring them much needed shepherding care. But whether it be in-person or online worshippers, a small church or a large church, the focus is the same: content and care.
Our encouragement to you: do those two things really really well, and let the Lord shape what it ultimately becomes.
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Justin Erickson is the lead pastor of Desert Bible Church in Scottsdale, AZ (desertbible.org). He is also the founder of Hardwired Coaching (hardwiredcoaching.com), a company that measures individual hardwiring to help churches, sports teams, businesses, law-enforcement agencies, and military installations. He is the author of the book, Seven Friendships Every Man Needs published by Harvest House (justin-erickson.net). Learn more about Justin and his ministry at itstandswritten.org.
Jon Benzinger is the lead pastor of Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, AZ, whose content is available on his church’s website (redeemeraz.org), and YouTube at youtube.com/c/RedeemerBibleChurchGilbert.
