Some dark days ahead for the post-COVID church

If you do an internet search, you will find a number of speculative articles about what a U.S. church may look like post-COVID-19.

It may be a fool's errand to guess what worship will look like once the pandemic runs its course, but I can't help myself. My thinking, admittedly, is a bit dystopian. I predict several outcomes, and I very much hope I'm wrong about all of them.

Some will never return to in-person worship.

Notice the qualifier "some" in the headline. Worship for many is an opportunity to gather with the family of faith, to reassure and strengthen one another in face-to-face fellowship. What the last two months have taught us is worship can happen without gathering in a building, an idea forced upon us by the unseen and deadly coronavirus.

Virtual worship for the admittedly unspecified "some" is just fine, thank you. I don't have to leave my house and don't have to get dressed. Convenience wins.

It will become the norm, not the exception, to give online.

Touching an offering plate seems abhorrent in the near term. In order to survive, churches who previously had no digital presence obtained one during the stay-at-home period. Giving to church, as is shopping on your laptop via Amazon, will be more and more an online transaction.

The 80% rule will become 60%.

In my quarter-century as a full-time pastor, the conventional wisdom was if your sanctuary was 80% full, it was effectively full. No longer. Due to social distancing, which will remain commonplace for some time, 60% will now feel full as people no longer sit right next to another congregant, unless they are family.

Passing of the peace will be eliminated.

In each one of the seven churches I pastored in my ministerial career, the so-called "passing of the peace" was a standard liturgical moment. That's gone. No more handshaking, at least for a long while, and no hugging. Perhaps elbow bumping, but my guess is we'll simply keep our distance.

Many churches will close their doors permanently.

Even before the pandemic, some congregations, perhaps more than some, were barely hanging on. The high unemployment rate means less discretionary income, which translates to decreased giving.

Look for church "adoptions."

A more financially viable church will take on the assets of a struggling one. Survival of the fittest, Darwin's durable theory, was already happening pre-COVID for local houses of worship who have seen precipitous declines in attendance and giving.

Some, perhaps many, who survive will make do with less.

Churches may need to do ministry with at least 30% less income. Where will cuts be made? Typically, with older congregations, very few "bricks-and-mortar" alterations can be made. Tuckpointing must still be done or the building will begin to fall apart. Utilities must be paid. Maintenance must continue. The cuts will come in programming, the vital heart of a congregation. Some churches may cut staff while others may allow positions to go unfilled.

A new great awakening?

Some of the darkest moments in church history have resulted in splendid reformation. The late Phyllis Tickle, with remarkable prescience, wrote the following in "The Great Emergence," a 2008 book I once introduced to a nighttime study group. I'll allow Tickle to have the last word here.

"Every 500 years, the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered so that renewal and growth may occur. Now is such a time."