They say a crisis reveals who you really are. And sometimes, we don’t like what we see. This might be the case for some faith institutions in the current crisis. We should hope that it is.
In the last couple of months, faith institutions, like all organizations, have faced a choice in dealing with the current crisis - wait it out or adapt quickly to our new reality and lead through it. But they actually made this choice before the current crisis hit. The adapters have long recognized a changing world, innovated, experimented, distributed leadership, rethought the meaning and mission of their institutions and what they stand for in the 21st century. The wait-it-out-ers have maybe tweaked some things, introduced some new technologies but largely continued to do things the way they’ve always been done.
The current crisis, in making it impossible to do things the way they’ve always been done, has made the choice starker - tweak more things, introduce even newer technologies but mainly wait out the crisis until we can go back to normal; or embrace a new normal and the opportunities it creates, innovate, experiment, rethink what it means to be who we are in this moment.
Those that were already adapters will likely navigate the crisis with as much ease as one can given unprecedented events because they’ve been exercising the muscles needed to embrace change and uncertainty. They will position themselves as leaders. Many of those who were wait-it-out-ers before the crisis will likely remain so. But perhaps the severity of this crisis will awaken some of us to the realities of a changing world that we kind of knew before but ignored or denied, whether out of fear or inertia or just lack of urgency.
And while becoming an adapter and leader will require openness to and understanding of certain “worldly” tools (Zoom, anyone?), most of what we need we can find in the wellspring of our faith: compassion, courage, and creativity. Compassion allows us to see and understand the needs in our communities. Courage equips us to do something that is new or risky. Creativity pushes us to think differently about the challenges before us and to see opportunities we didn’t see before.
Winston Churchill is credited (though possibly mistakenly) with saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” While the hackneyed phrase may seem to us imbued with cynical opportunism, the truth is that crisis always creates opportunity. Some see opportunity to profit off the fear and uncertainty people feel, as we’ve witnessed in the hundreds of investigations currently underway against those trying to defraud others. But those of us rooted in better intentions can also see opportunity - to shift our institutions out of old patterns and establish new ones, to give up things that don’t matter and give ourselves permission to try new things, to reach more people than the brick-and-mortar model allowed for, to forge new partnerships, to accelerate our efforts for social change.
We can start small, using this time to start exercising our innovation muscles by simply asking: How might we live out our mission in this moment (of global pandemic, social distancing, growing unemployment, a sense of unity) and in the moments we can see coming (of economic crisis, different forms of socializing, more presence locally due to reduced travel)? The more we exercise those muscles, the more they grow, until soon those of us who were once the wait-it-out-ers will find ourselves adapting with ease to change and uncertainty. Once we’re able to do that, we will be leaders not just for those who walk through our doors (physical or virtual) but for our communities, our cities, our world.
Here are a few of many stories of faith communities innovating in small or big, but all important, ways to meet the moment:
From HuffPost: Sikh Volunteers are Delivering Thousands of Meals During the Pandemic
From Religion News Service: New York City Muslims work to build food security during Ramadan
From Washington Post: A West Virginia church spends Easter making masks, PPE using 3-D printers
From Religion News Service: Black churches, via phones and Facebook, bridging digital divide amid COVID-19
From People: How Indigenous Peoples Are Being Affected by Coronavirus - and Why It’s Time for a New Normal
From Christian Science Monitor: Zoom Shabbat, drive-through confessional: Faith during coronavirus
Photo by Makenna Entrikin on Unsplash