2020: How’s Your Vision?
I can’t have been the only pastor to fall for it. We were starting the new decade with a sermon series called Vision 2020. It was a year filled with hope and I had a vision. I was at my church for about five years by this point, and I was excited. The previous five years had been a wonderful whirlwind. I was about a three-quarter-time pastor at the time. The other three-quarters of my time (math was never my strong suit) I spent in my itinerant art/speaking ministry. I loved my life but it was time for a change. I had no idea…
Changes in Vision
There were times when I felt like I needed to give the church more time and spend less time on the road. About the same time, my church board approached me to see if I would be interested in becoming full-time. I was torn. I loved ministering all over the country and I still do and I knew I didn’t feel led to give it up completely. Still, I knew I needed to give more time to the church, so I agreed. Looking back I can see the hand of God all over this decision, but at the time, that wasn’t what I was seeing. My 2020 vision was simple. It would be the year of outreach. I had no idea…
Blurred Vision
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 11, 2020 | China reported its first death linked to a novel coronavirus. |
| January 20, 2020 | The United States confirmed its first case of COVID-19—a traveler returning from Wuhan, China. |
| January 30, 2020 | The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. |
| February 29, 2020 | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a new policy allowing certain laboratories to develop and use validated COVID-19 diagnostics before completing emergency use authorization (EUA) review, aiming to address testing shortages. |
| March 11, 2020 | The WHO characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. |
| March 13, 2020 | The United States declared a national emergency in response to the pandemic. |
| April 30, 2020 | The World Bank stated that the COVID-19 pandemic would plunge the global economy into the worst recession since World War II. |
| June 10, 2020 | Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 2 million. |
| September 22, 2020 | The reported death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 surpassed 200,000. |
| December 11, 2020 | The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. |
| December 14, 2020 | Sandra Lindsay, a nurse in New York, became the first American outside of clinical trials to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. |
| December 18, 2020 | The FDA issued an EUA for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. |
I was having a tough time. A dear ministry friend of mine, who was a few years younger than me, had just died. We never lived nearby, but he always knew when to call, and he had a gift of encouragement like few people I have met. I went online one night when I saw a post about his passing. At first the posting seemed like a cruel joke. I couldn’t believe it was true. He was always so full of life. Because we were so far apart geographically, details on his passing were sketchy. A mutual friend said she heard he died from the flu or something like that. To this day I wonder if he wasn’t an early victim of the pandemic, but it would be a few weeks before I would hear of the pandemic. I had no idea…
March 13 or There About
My 2020 vision was in place. We had a lot of plans for outreach, but here in Pennsylvania, the weather can be a little dicey in January and February. Planning events in those months can be kind of sketchy, but in March we were ready to hit the ground running. Our first major even was to be Friends and Family Sunday, to be held Sunday, March 15. We were primed and ready. The food was ordered, the invitations were given and it looked like we were in for a good crowd. I was excited but about two days before, March 13 or thereabout, the announcement was made. Everything would shut down, “two weeks to flatten the curve.” Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who had no idea.
Getting A Lot Harder To See
“Okay two weeks,” I thought. “We can adjust.” We’ll just postpone. Let’s shoot for April, surely things will have calmed down by then. I remember walking the country roads near my home when I saw my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. It’s okay, we were socially distanced. Good thing this thing couldn’t travel more than six feet. They told me they heard it could be like this for six months. Yeah right. There’s no way it would be six months. The extrovert in me was already dying for connection and sitting at home every day was already getting to me. My 2020 vision was getting a lot harder to see. I had no idea how to do ministry in this world, but things would change soon, right? I had no idea.
Creative Vision?
Every day there was more information, and it seemed none of that information agreed. Conspiracy theories abounded, and many of them were true. It was easy to get caught up in them and it was getting ugly. One thing was certain, the church needed to get to work, but how? The answer was simple. The church was going to have to get creative. This was supposed to be my area of expertise, but the truth is I had no idea.
Blurred Vision
The answer everyone was giving was to go online. And we did that. Overnight we became videographers. We learned about things like Zoom and how to use YouTube. Many got a crash course in all things social media. My church had a bigger problem. Ours was an older congregation, many of them did not go online. I compensated for that by writing my messages out like chapters in a book and mailing them to our folks. It felt like a poor substitute for worship, especially when these were the people who “built” the church. It turns out they were not only grateful for the messages, but they shared them with their friends and neighbors, even mailing them to people in other states. I had no idea.
Faithful Vision
Looking back, I came to realize in the midst of it all God was faithful. My speaking ministry went from 30 to 50 engagements a year to two in 2020. Thank God I went full-time at the church. We made adjustments to be as safe as possible, reconvened and trusted God with the rest. Those first two years were some of the longest years of my life, but God was faithful. He had provided and brought us through. The pandemic forced the church to learn new skills that should help the Gospel to spread further and faster, but there was something more. Yes, some left altogether, but for many of us, we learned we can’t take the church for granted. Church has always been a constant. We thought gathering with brothers and sisters in Christ would always be possible, and as it turns out we had no idea.
Where There Is No Vision
The lesson I learned from 2020 is to hold your plans loosely and hold on to God tightly. I’m reminded of James 4:13-14 “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.” As it turns out, we really do have no idea. What we do have is a faithful God. We still need to have vision, after all, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” Instead we need to confess, we have no idea what will happen. Vision comes when we keep our eyes on Jesus. When we look to Him, He guides and provides. We need to seek Him for our plans, and when circumstances arise to change our plans, we need to trust and adjust. This is especially important when we have no idea.
Certainty In Uncertainty
If you’re creative, times of uncertainty can be “our time to shine.” What we need when we have no idea, is, ironically, an idea. We need to remember we are totally dependent on an unlimited God. He always knows what to do, and one more thing, He is never out of ideas. Seek Him.
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