This week we all received good news from our president: the country is going to slowly reopen, and that includes houses of worship. Ken Braddy, Director of Sunday School for LifeWay Christian Resources, recently published a blog post that you will find very helpful regarding 20 questions your church should answer before people return to church. Here are his 20 questions.
- What if your worship gathering is initially limited to no more than 100 people?
- Is a physical “pass the plate” offering a thing of the past?
- What are you doing now to sanitize and sterilize your church building?
- Are you going to continue offering children’s worship?
- Will you continue offering virtual online worship?
- What is your plan when volunteers step down?
- What’s your strategy to continue to clean and sanitize your church in real time?
- Do door greeters do their jobs differently, or at all?
- Is this the time to end your church’s “meet and greet” time?
- Because people may return very slowly to church, how will you count attendance and effectiveness?
- Should you add and/or shorten worship services to allow for social distancing?
- What are you going to do about larger Sunday School groups?
- What’s your plan for Sunday. School curriculum?
- Will you reopen the doors of your church with a “worship only” strategy?
- Do you have a plan for reducing expenses if your church’s offering don’t rebound?
- How will you deal with the rise or resurgence of addictions because of the COVID-19 stay-at-home measures?
- Are you going to decrease the fellowship time between on-campus worship services?
- Are you going to cancel mid-week Wednesday night services, meals, and Bible studies?
- Should you be investing in new digital equipment right now?
- Will a new staff or volunteer position emerge from COVID-19?
These are great questions. Read more of Ken’s full article including how he addresses each question. I am sure you have more question you could add to his list as well.