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. 

  1. What if your worship gathering is initially limited to no more than 100 people?
  2. Is a physical “pass the plate” offering a thing of the past?
  3. What are you doing now to sanitize and sterilize your church building?
  4. Are you going to continue offering children’s worship?
  5. Will you continue offering virtual online worship?
  6. What is your plan when volunteers step down?
  7. What’s your strategy to continue to clean and sanitize your church in real time?
  8. Do door greeters do their jobs differently, or at all?
  9. Is this the time to end your church’s “meet and greet” time?
  10. Because people may return very slowly to church, how will you count attendance and effectiveness?
  11. Should you add and/or shorten worship services to allow for social distancing?
  12. What are you going to do about larger Sunday School groups?
  13. What’s your plan for Sunday. School curriculum?
  14. Will you reopen the doors of your church with a “worship only” strategy?
  15. Do you have a plan for reducing expenses if your church’s offering don’t rebound?
  16. How will you deal with the rise or resurgence of addictions because of the COVID-19 stay-at-home measures?
  17. Are you going to decrease the fellowship time between on-campus worship services?
  18. Are you going to cancel mid-week Wednesday night services, meals, and Bible studies?
  19. Should you be investing in new digital equipment right now?
  20. 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.