The smaller, mightier, post-COVID church
Wavering church attendance could have set off alarms for pastor Justin Gatlin. At first, when Alvin Missionary Baptist Church resumed in-person worship, about 75 percent of members returned.
“People were excited about coming back,” Gatlin said. Then the numbers dipped to about half. Still, Gatlin wasn’t concerned.
“I felt like it was an opportunity the whole time,” he said.
Now Sunday church attendance is on the rise again, reaching two-thirds of prior numbers.
Pastor John Aaron Matthew at Clear Lake Baptist Church had a similar experience. When the congregation first met after lockdown, there were 70 attendees, down from 115.
Lately, however, that number has risen to 180 — larger than the pre-pandemic congregation.
“We’ve actually grown,” Matthew said. “It’s been one of the most fruitful times.”
Both Gatlin and Matthew consider COVID-19 a chance to consolidate vision and mission.
“All the goals we set, we met,” Matthew said. “And I’m talking about big goals.”
A post-quarantine church
Gatlin said his congregation has grown more unified, its members’ faith strengthened. He likens the effects of the pandemic to clearing out underbrush and cutting back the overgrown branches and weeds to produce a more abundant garden.
“To me, in some ways, it’s a fresh start,” he said. “Almost every church is a new church. This was a great opportunity for us to start from scratch.”
Gatlin and Matthew are both clients of Tennessee-based Thom Rainer, an author and public speaker, who serves as founder and CEO of Church Answers, a resource for ministry and church health.
Rainer’s recent book, “The Post-Quarantine Church: Six Urgent Challenges and Opportunities That Will Determine the Future of Your Congregation,” describes how lessons learned during the pandemic can guide faith leaders in the future. Rainer points to improvements in leadership, rethinking facilities and reaching more people digitally as ways to strengthen the church.
Rainer said that many churches have shrunk by 30 to 35 percent during COVID, which has also caused divisiveness in many congregations, over issues such as wearing masks and deciding when to return.
Still, attendance erosion was happening before the pandemic, Rainer explained. COVID-19 turned gradual change into a rapid transformation.
“The sudden jolt that has taken place is waking up leaders and congregations,” Rainer said.
Though some churches will see decline and might eventually close their doors, other church leaders are hitting reset and re-establishing their vision.
Congregations are finding success by adding worship on multiple days of the week and in various venues, Rainer added.
“Many of these churches will see the healthiest days they have ever seen,” Rainer said. “This is the time to do things for the future like you have done before. And the things leaders could not do in the past, they can do now.”
He often guides clients through a “blank slate exercise,” asking them to describe a church they would build from scratch.
“Write down what it would look like,” he tells them.
Don’t limit yourself to prior models or to your budget, Rainer adds. Then, compare the blank slate church to your current congregation.
“Ask God how you can bridge the gap,” Rainer says. “You’ll be amazed at how much you can do.”
Rethinking and reprioritizing
That’s a lesson Gatlin has taken to heart.
“It’s our responsibility to step back — and see how we can move forward,” he said. “All change is hard. All transition is hard, but if we have the right priorities, we’re better off.”
During the pandemic, he literally went back to the drawing board. Gatlin sat down with the church’s children’s director and created a grid on a whiteboard. They wrote down all of the goals of youth ministry — from learning Scripture and prayer to taking time to socialize. Then, the two analyzed how to meet the goals of each age group.
“It challenged us to find the real need — and how do we meet that in this new world? That same deep introspection, we need to do that all the time,” Gatlin said.
He applied a similar strategy to other church activities.
“My thought was less, ‘Are we going to make it?’ and more, ‘How are we going to do it differently?’” he explained.
Cutting back on some programs and finding new ways to emphasize community became essential.
“It forced us to be creative,” Gatlin said. “I think that the churches willing to be creative and working to shift will come out of this stronger.”
Uniting in vision and mission
Before COVID-19 struck, members at Clear Lake Baptist Church were gearing up for a banner year.
“This was going to be a year of prayer,” pastor Matthew said.
Leaders set a list of goals two weeks before the lockdown. Still, instead of giving up on their mission, Matthew saw members become increasingly focused on accomplishing each objective.
For example, the church wanted to grow its Spanish-language ministry — and by February 2021, members planted a Spanishlanguage church.
Dreams of expanding the church’s food pantry were also realized. Before COVID, the ministry served 200 to 300 families a week. During the pandemic, it served between 500 and 700 families and operated twice a week. Other area churches joined the effort, and now the Clear Lake Food Pantry is its own nonprofit.
“Adversity is not necessarily our adversary,” Matthew said. “God always gives you an opportunity. You just have to look for it.”
Matthew believes that the pandemic provided a chance to reprioritize, recenter and focus on what truly matters.
“We shrank and stopped some of our usual activities,” he said. “But it was an opportunity to consider what was most important, what we needed to do.”
That means some of the usual programs will remain on pause, including Wednesday-night gatherings and some of the small groups.
“We’ve used this as an opportunity to simplify,” Matthew said. “We stopped the busy-ness, and that allowed us to know each other better.”
Ultimately, God is in control, Matthew explained.
“It’s that message of hopefulness and confidence in Christ,” he said. “He’s got a plan, and that’s been galvanizing for our church.”
Taking time to step back
Pastor Gatlin said that prior to COVID, church members often had full calendars and set activities.
“We were moving so fast — as churches, families, individuals; we didn’t have time to appreciate anything,” Gatlin said. “We had this moment where God tapped the break and slowed us down.”
The change, he said, is welcome.
“If we don’t learn anything from that, it would seem like a missed opportunity,” he added. “And that would be a tragedy.”
Instead of managing multiple programs, Gatlin said, he can focus more on individual members. He also has a renewed spirit of evangelism.
Offering online services also made it easier to reach homebound members. And social media allowed Gatlin to create a phone line for prayer.
“It’s allowed us to meet the needs people have,” Gatlin said.
During lockdown, he also encouraged families to invite neighbors to livestream together. Now, those neighbors are showing up on Sundays.
“We have people coming now who have never been here before,” Gatlin said. “It’s organic and grassroots. It’s the kind of community we want to have.”
Focus and invest on committed members
Clear Lake Baptist is also reaching new people — and operating in new ways.
The church now offers rooms where mothers with babies can watch the sermon together, and another space for families whose loved ones have disabilities.
“We’ve tried to offer as many options as possible for people,” Matthew said.
While some people have stopped attending Clear Lake, Matthew said the members who remain — and those who are new — are more committed.
Though maintaining membership is a priority, he doesn’t believe it should come at the cost of a church’s vision.
“Quantity is important, but if it becomes your be-all, end-all, you may never get quality,” Gatlin said.
He advises pastors to step back, look at the big picture and evaluate the essentials at church.
“I would encourage people to get perspective and anchor their faith,” he said. “Remember ‘grace has brought me safe thus far.’
God will take us to the next phase.”