Covid-19 has taken so much from us. So many of our normal routines have been disrupted and cultural norms have been turned upside down. Businesses, churches, schools, civic leaders and servants, healthcare providers and almost every family and household have all had to learn how to adapt. Global mission activity has also been deeply impacted.

 

Short-term mission trips have been a powerful tool to not only do great, kingdom-building ministry around the world, but also to meaningfully engage everyday followers of Jesus in the mission of Jesus while opening their eyes to mission opportunities around them in their own communities. But how can these Jesus’ followers go in a Covid-19 era of travel bans? Recently, a member of one of our churches shared a solution for the countless now cancelled short-term mission trips that had been planned.

 

A colleague recently sent me a thought-provoking article entitled “Leading Beyond the Blizzard” by Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard. The article posed important questions for businesses and organizations to consider in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The authors suppose that this crisis that we are currently in will significantly reshape culture like nothing anyone alive today has seen before. They forecast that we are not in a blizzard (like many first thought) during which time we hunker down to wait out the passing storm, nor is it a bleak extended season of winter in which we long for spring to eventually arrive, but rather that COVID-19 is perhaps ushering in the beginning of an ice age that could endure for years to come.

 

Whether or not the result of this crisis is a long winter or the beginning of an ice age, the authors suggest that organizations, including the church, need to redefine our business as COVID-19 has shut us down: “If your nonprofit organization depends on gathering people in medium or large groups – and it is truly daunting to consider how many do, whether for fundraising banquets, afterschool programs, or in the case of churches for corporate worship – you are not in the same business today. And this is not just a blizzard that you can wait out.”

Imagine having the opportunity to get to know people in your own community in a non-threatening way. Just think about what you might learn if you could go door-to-door through neighborhoods and ask basic questions of the people who live there. Now envision getting paid while gathering this information that will help you lead your congregation to better minister to the people who live all around you.

 

Every 10 years, the United States Census Bureau hires part-time, temporary census workers to work in their own communities. Personally, I can’t think of a better opportunity for Christians to take a fresh look at the people who live around our churches than to participate in the Census. And good news: you can still apply! Schedules are flexible to work around your life, but typically require 20 hours per week of evening and weekend work, May to July. Employees are paid for training and reimbursed for travel in addition to a generous hourly wage. To learn more and apply online, go to 2020census.gov/jobs.

In over four years here in Texas serving as a mission coach, I have often been asked what a church can do to revitalize its ministry and grow? I firmly believe any congregation can by responding to God’s call to engage in the kind of ministry Jesus did and reach out to the least, the lost, and the left out. Jesus gives us this recipe for community ministry in Luke 15 through the stories of the lost coin, the lost son, and the lost sheep.

 

In Luke 15:4-7, Jesus engages his listeners in a little story about sheep: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” Commentators will often note that a shepherd wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine alone, but with other shepherds and often in some sort of safe enclosure or pen. And I believe this points to the scandal in Jesus’ story: that this shepherd leaves the 99 in the open and vulnerable in order to rescue the one who is lost. For me it begs the question, “who would do that?” The answer: Jesus.

 

What can your church do to grow? I believe God is calling every congregation to engage in the kind of ministry Jesus did and reach out to the least, the lost, and the left out in your community. Jesus gives us this recipe for community ministry in Luke 15 through the stories of the lost coin, the lost son, and the lost sheep.