We’re in Nashville this week for what was expected to be, at times, a testy family gathering. Largely, that has proven not to be the case in the room. Now, you might not know that if all you knew about the convention happenings was based on various social media platforms.
I had thought I would be writing about ministries resuming, in-person gatherings growing, the 2020 election campaigns behind us, and the end of the global pandemic in sight. I still want to write on those topics but I have paused any writing I might do so that I might process the events of January 6, 2021, in Washington DC, the hurried events that followed, and the revelations about famed apologist Ravi Zacharias.
Goodness gracious! Like so many people literally around the world, I thought 2020 lingered far longer than was welcome. This…
A lot has happened in my life that I want to share before returning my attention to other topics such as reopening churches, budgeting during corona, the presidential election, etc. Like many of you, I will not mourn when 2020 passes away and we move into 2021!
Resuming on-campus worship on Sunday morning was just the first step in our plan to slowly transition back to a normal schedule. Sunday will mark our fourth week of on-campus worship services. The last three weeks have gone very smoothly and we anticipate that to continue to be the case as we transition into the next phase of our reopening plan. I strongly believe one of the key reasons for that is part of our plan from the beginning included communication. There are four key groups we knew we needed to have clear communication with.
If there is someone who wants to resume on-campus worship services more than our team, I don’t know him! Seriously, since our church last met on March 15th for worship, we have been closely following the guidance of our local, state, and national leaders working hard to keep the members of our congregation safe.
After our first Sunday online, I have to admit I was down. Like a lot of other churches, things didn’t go as well as we had hoped that first time we moved our worship services entirely online. Yes, we have long had our services on a livestream but it had not been a key focus of our ministry up to that point. Mercy has that changed!
I have been genuinely impressed to see the pastors of churches from across the Southern Baptist Convention creatively adapting to the constantly changing COVID-19 situation. As new information becomes available, leaders at all levels of government have been adjusting their responses to the spread of the virus and asking all organizations in our nation to adapt.
Those are fun discussions, but there was a different question that inspired this post. That question: why do I blog? It’s a good question and one I have actually given a considerable bit of thought to!
Today I want to share a very good way to help save your church money year after year. I’m not talking about something that only larger churches can do either! Nope, this one is for churches of just about any size, assuming you have computers in use in your church. I’m talking about computer software.