3 Lessons To Help You Regather In-Person Services

Reset.

It means to “set again or differently.”

As we regather our in-person church services, we need to do a hard reset. We need to reset three areas for pastors and church leaders. I’ve had to reset in these areas as we have relaunched services these past three months. These three learnings may help you prepare during this post-covid era of doing church.

RESET YOUR HEART AND MIND

The biggest question that pastors want to know is, “Will our people show up to church?” Some statistics share that the return rate of people coming back to in-person church services is around 25-35 percent. We all hope to be above that fifty percent line. However, the reality is that most churches fall below that fifty percent mark. I have had my own emotional journey with this. However, instead of stressing over this, I have learned to accept this new reality and reset my heart and mind. I had to let go of the pre-covid way of doing church at least in this season. It was causing too much stress by comparing the pre-covid and the post-covid church.

Instead, I’ve had to reset my attitude and focus. I had to let go of what it was in the past. Instead, I have gone back to the beginning when I first got to my church. I went back to the church planting mentality. If you did plant a church or launch a campus, then you know what it took to start something from nothing. There is a different mindset when you start something new than when you have been at the church for a few years and built a consistent and steady church. I had to shift my mentality and go back to the beginning of our church days.

In some ways, you are essentially starting over. This means that the definition of success before covid can’t be the same definition after covid at least for the first year or so. We knew that during covid but as we start to regather and reopen services, we will continually need to reset our expectations in our heads and heart. This will need to be done with your staff, volunteers, and leaders. The temptation will be to compare, but it’ll be important to think fresh and start new. It is a new season and that requires a new attitude and mentality.

RESET YOUR VOLUNTEERS AND TEAM

You may be working with fewer volunteers and expecting them to do the same amount as before. That won’t work. It will burn out the volunteers in the long run. We were seeing that with our volunteer team. We knew that we had to make adjustments quickly or else we would lose our key volunteers and leaders. We had to do a reset on our volunteers and teams.

This meant that we simplified the roles of where volunteers serve. We combined many teams, especially on our weekend services. Instead of having separate teams for welcome, ushers, and others, we combined them to one team so that they could float between the essential areas of need. We asked them to serve together in different areas so that we could get enough coverage and help. This allowed us to work with who we had so that we could provide a good enough church experience.

We also reset the way we treated our volunteers. We have this internal campaign called, “Volunteers First.” Our goal is to make our current volunteers feel loved. We want them to know that we see them and appreciate them. The best way that we have been caring for and putting volunteers first is by feeding them. We’ve been giving the early setup team Mcdonald’s breakfast as well as feeding them sandwiches for lunch. There is a cost but the payoff far outweighs the cost. That little gesture goes a long way in keeping volunteers happy and engaged. A hungry volunteer can be grumpy and hangry. We are finding other ways to care for our volunteers by calling, writing cards, and loving on them. We want them to know that we appreciate them. We need them.

We’ve also had to reset the way we approach new volunteers. We’ve been making announcements every week to showcase needs for certain areas of the church. We’ve had volunteers share how serving has changed them and their families. We’ve focused heavily on getting new volunteers and asking them to serve once a month for one hour.

RESET YOUR ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

There was a certain way and style that our church was operating before the pandemic. Now that we have restarted services, we can’t operate the same way with fewer church members and volunteers. We have to simplify. For instance, we have three trailers that we use to set up church every weekend. We had a lot of stuff that we weren’t using anymore but we still pulled it out thinking that we would use it. This got messy and wore our volunteers out. We knew we could not sustain this. The staff took a day to streamline the setup and tear down process. We took carts out and organized them so that we only used what was necessary for our kids, students, adults, and worship experience. We downsized to two trailers. We cut things that we had done in the past so that we could continue to do ministry in the present. This created a better serving experience for our volunteers and a good enough worship experience for guests. It is a win-win.

There are other areas that you may need to reset in your weekend service or other events and activities. You may need to do things more simply. It means saying no to some things temporarily until you grow and get more volunteers.

Resets are never easy. It may feel like you are going backward. But if done well, it will make your current team and church stronger. This prepares you for the future growth that will be coming.

What are areas that need to be reset in your church?