by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Mar 18, 2024
The past four years have forever put to rest the notion that churches can’t flex and adapt. In fact, the pandemic showed that churches could successfully pivot on a dime. Increased adaptability, resilience, and creativity were all positive outcomes. For this reason, many churches did not suffer the losses that might have been expected during such drastic change. We’re not done with crisis, though. We have a contentious presidential election before us, the impacts of AI, and ongoing structural inequities. The second largest Protestant denomination in the US (the UMC) recently lost 25% of its churches during a split. How can you be ready for the next calamity? Read on for the 4 ways to make the best of the next crisis.
Are the Best Days Behind You?
Before I share the 4 ways to make the best of the next crisis, let’s address one persistent stumbling block, head on. This stumbling block is the belief that crisis means the best days are behind you. That the future is no longer hopeful. And that it’s all downhill from here. This belief becomes a roadblock to recovery. It prevents you from seeing new opportunities and unexpected openings, or to sense God’s blessing around you.
We Had Entered Into the Best Days of Our Ministry Yet
I hate to admit it, but when the pandemic shutdowns first began it felt like the end of the world to me. How will we get through this when community is what we most need, I wondered? How will my ministry survive when we have depended on in-person gatherings? I was quickly losing heart. But I began to speak to friends who were starting new jobs, getting promotions, and even moving across country. It was a jarring sense of abundance amidst a narrowing of my own vision. It prompted me to catalogue the following guidelines. My team and I met, and figured out a way to put everything online. And we had entered into the best days of our ministry yet.
Here are the four guidelines that we followed, that allowed us to not only survive, but thrive, in the midst of very tough times.
4 Ways to Make the Best of the Next Crisis
1) Learn from The Past
During the pandemic, many churches quickly moved online. They distinguished between owning a building and being the church. Church leaders and members expanded their sense of agency and acted quickly in the face of need. In fact, the pandemic did for congregations what they could not do for themselves. In a pinch, churches finally made the changes that they had needed to make for decades.
2) Reframe the Negative
A pandemic seems like a negative. Same with waves of disaffiliations and the loss of congregations. Same with contentious presidential politics. And AI. And persistent inequities. But what if each of these crises actually carry the seeds of innovation? What if each of these challenges carry within them the genesis of blessing? When you actively choose to reframe the negative, the positive can appear that much sooner. Being on the lookout for blessings allows you to innovate with speed. This is part of tapping into Jesus’ miracle mindset.
3) Build on New Strengths
A leader that I coach had to navigate lawsuits, file appeals, and appear in court as disaffiliations took on dimensions he couldn’t have anticipated. This leader is tired, yes, but stronger and smarter than ever. Each crisis will draw on skills you already have, even as you build new strengths.
4) Take Ownership
In a crisis, it can be easy to feel like a victim. Especially when things aren’t going your way. The best way to get through a crisis is to take ownership of what is yours to do. No, you can’t change all the circumstances around you. But you can take ownership of your feelings, your mindset, your reactions, and your prayer life. This will take you a long way toward being more effective and more resilient.
Next Steps
As we look towards Holy Week, remember the God of miracles. Jesus caused the blind to see, healed the leper, and cast out demons. Your crisis is not big enough to stop the God of miracles. Unless you insist on staying stuck.
As we approach the days ahead, let us grow in resilience as we practice 4 ways to make the best of the next crisis. Cultivating resilience in your congregation and your life is possible. It calls for conscious leadership. Come to Elevate Your Ministry: An Introduction to Conscious Leadership to learn about the importance of mastering your mindset, awakening your spirituality, and becoming an intentional visionary.
If you want input on your ministry, click here for a free one-on-one 45-minute Discovery Session with me.
Copyright © 2024 rebekahsimonpeter.com. All Rights Reserved.
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 30, 2020
A few weeks ago, my husband tested positive for COVID. I dropped everything, hurried to the drive through testing site, relinquished my comfort for a long-stick swab of my sinus passages, and prepared for ten days of quarantine at home.
Next up was cancelling appointments, rearranging my schedule, and discovering a grocery delivery app. Soup and other comfort foods arrived at the front door. Like runners intent on training for a marathon, we boosted our immune systems at regular intervals with zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D and the like.
Along with my husband, I had some mild symptoms: sore throat, cough, headache, fatigue, and muscle aches. But they passed after a few days. Then came the real test: would the constraints of quarantine be a blessing or a burden?
The first week was spent on a pre-planned holiday break. With no place to go, I was gifted with time, and the immediate presence of the artifacts of my life: half-finished projects, piles of papers, forgotten tasks, and Jerry, my husband of twenty years.
Spiritual Value
What I experienced during quarantine amazed me. I finished a project for a gardening group, submitted an almost-forgotten homework assignment for an online class, and cleaned out the pantry. I put things away that had solidified into semi-permanent fixtures on the kitchen counter. I took online yoga classes, settled into my body, and did downward facing dog next to my schnauzer, Beau. I held tricky yoga poses with better balance. I called family members and friends I had neglected. I attended online prayer and meditation groups in comfortable camaraderie with people I had just met. Most importantly, my husband and I resolved old impasses, broached new topics and found a new favorite series to watch. And we slept long hours.
I realized that I had been holding myself just so for many long months. Somewhat guarded, somewhat fearful. Quarantine changed all that. It brought me home to my body, my breath, my dreams, my soul, my home, and my marriage. In a word: my life.
By the way, my test results came back negative. (I must have had sympathy symptoms, my rhythms matching my husband’s.) Even so, I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.
I’m very aware that, for some, many even, quarantine can be a stressful and dangerous time, and I empathize with all of those for whom quarantine causes suffering. In my case, however, the burden of quarantine turned out to be a blessing.
Moving Forward
As you plan to be home for the holidays, I want to invite you to join me in a spiritual retreat for Advent called Christmas Through Jewish Eyes. We’ll explore the main themes of the season: light, family, and salvation. We’ll read the Bible in a fresh way, study the scriptures from a unique perspective, and witness the ancient light of Christ, alive in us and in the world. We may even do a little yoga!
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 10, 2020
On election day and for days afterward, I was glued to the TV. I flipped between channels, absorbing election results, minute by minute, county by county. Along with many other Americans, as they counted same-day ballots and mail-in ballots, I watched percentages rise and fall.
My throat tightened, and tears of joy slipped down my cheek as Kamala Harris, the first female Vice President-Elect, spoke to the gathered crowds. I felt my heart fill as President-Elect Joe Biden spoke of an America working together and giving each other a chance. This America is the America I know and love. This is the America I know we can rebuild trust in.
I know I am not alone. Friends old and new reached out and shared their relief and joy with me. At the same time, there are plenty of others—including family members, colleagues, and friends—who aren’t relieved with the results.
Almost as many people voted for a second term for Donald Trump as voted for Joe Biden. As the political parties have grown increasingly distinct, and bipartisanship seems increasingly out of reach, these are not small differences. While about half the country held its breath for the last four years, the other half of the people felt heard, vindicated, and represented. Now the shoe is on the other foot.
Vindication aside, can these two Americas come back together again? Can we have a shared vision even if we don’t share everyday realities? Can trust, even understanding, in each other be restored?
How Can We Rebuild Trust?
If we’re going to have better politics, we would need a shared morality. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, “Morality matters more than we commonly acknowledge. It’s all we have left to bind us into shared responsibility for the common good. Morality is our most powerful resource. Morality helps us turn disconnected ‘I’s’ into a collective ‘we.'” We use Morality to shore up an “us vs. them” mentality, with each side claiming a higher ground.
Rabbi Sacks envisions a morality that “turns selfish genes into selfless people.” It turns “egoists into altruists, and self-interested striving into empathy, sympathy, and compassion for others.” That’s something perhaps ALL Americans could get behind.
If we’re going to have a shared morality, we would need to see each other as worthy. We would need to see each other as beloved human beings and become willing to understand each other’s grievances, hopes, and dreams. That means we would need to stop looking for scapegoats and deal with our problems. America’s problem isn’t immigrants, people of other religions, ethnicities or cultures, or even people of another political persuasion. It’s that we have gotten disconnected from each other and lost our shared vision.
Americans are a creative lot. Guided by the wisdom of the ages, we can figure this out. First, we must rise above fear, let go of judgment, and be willing to do the work of rebuilding a country that works for everyone.
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 4, 2020
These days, Americans can’t agree on a common reality, let alone a common good or the leadership they need to achieve it. In my own community of 53,000 people, 20 people are struggling for their next breath, gasping in ICU beds, with thousands more sickened. At the same time, other people don’t even believe that coronavirus is a real threat.
Given the backdrop of the presidential election which highlights the alternate values and realities that each party represents, the question is real: Is it possible to lead ALL people, forward, together, when they perceive differing realities?
Principles of Effective Leadership
In this blog, I want to share three key principles of effective leadership you can use to move your people forward. Whether these principles are enacted in Washington or not, you still can. As a way of demonstrating this, I want to let you in on some of what we teach in Creating a Culture of Renewal®.
- Effective leaders speak to both the center and the margins. They understand they must bring together all the people they lead with a vision for the common good. Jesus came first to the Jews and then expanded his leadership and vision to include Gentiles.
- Effective leaders understand they embody the kind of behaviors they expect in their followers. President Lincoln showed that he must bring society together that was riven by civil war and competing values. Your followers will rise or shrink to the standards you set. In Creating a Culture of Renewal, we lift up the principle that your people can go no farther than you can lead them. Your behavior, your values, your words set the standard of what you expect of your followers. They will emulate the example you set.
- Effective leaders exercise high accountability and set high expectations. When they lead, they own everything that happened before them, and all the consequences of their own decisions and actions. In Creating a Culture of Renewal, we embrace the fact that high expectations bear a great amount of fruit.
Who will win the presidential election? We don’t know yet. No matter who wins or loses, we’ll need to process the results. What will it mean for the state of the union? What will it mean for the role of faith leaders and faith communities? How can we define a common good? Join me for a series of debriefs in a discussion series called “Democracy, Faith and the Common Good.”
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 22, 2016
True confessions: I’m a recovering worrier. I can worry at the drop of a hat. I do some of my best work in the middle of the night. When a problem gets resolved, my mind naturally searches for the next thing that could possibly go wrong so that I can get a head start. Worry beads would be wasted on me. I need boulders.
As bad as that may sound, I’m not as bad as I used to be. I’ve made progress. I’ve got more peace of mind, more calm and equanimity, a more positive outlook on life. What’s made the difference? Gratitude.
As a Christian, I used to be very suspicious of gratitude. It seemed a frivolous luxury when there were still people in need, still problems to be solved, and messes still to be cleaned up. Gratitude seemed better left for carefree atheists or Unitarians or some such people. For me, a Jewish-Christian, worry equaled caring.
Gratitude has changed that for me. Even so, I can still lapse into guilt at the holidays, what with its focus on thanksgiving and joy. Is it really okay to feel grateful…even with people going to bed hungry, even with the globe warming, even with Trump soon to enter the Oval Office? If you’re like me, you may wonder: What’s a worrier to do?
I thought this would be a good time to reveal the 3 secret reasons to be grateful. Even if you’re not. Especially if you’re not.
Gratitude grows faith. In Philippians 4:4-7, the Apostle Paul famously addressed the worriers at Philippi. “Rejoice!” he insists. “Again I say rejoice!” Why the command to rejoice? When we lace our prayers with gratitude, we create a protective shield against the corrosive power of fear. Fear is the basis of worry. While worry paralyzes, gratitude grows faith.
Is everything going right in the world? Or in your church? Sure doesn’t seem like it! But worry and fear do nothing to change that. Instead, maintaining a connection with the limitless flow of divine love protects us and empowers us.
Gratitude shifts perspective. Worry and fear generate more worry and fear. Gratitude opens up the door to new ways of thinking. Sometimes I play the game of thanking God for things that I think are unjust, unfair, or just plain unwanted. Like my dear neighbor getting cancer. Or my insomnia, even when I go to bed at a decent hour. Or the election of a president I voted against.
Fair warning: It’s not easy expressing gratitude for things you don’t want. I feel fake and self-conscious doing it. But I do it anyway and my synapses get re-arranged. Worry moves aside. A new opening appears as I ask: Could anything good come from this situation?
The answer is yes. It’s always yes.
Now the yesses were there before I thanked God, but expressing gratitude for situations I didn’t want allows me to see them. For instance, in the case of my neighbor with cancer, my prayer prompted me to have a different kind of conversation with her. In the process, I discovered that she had reconciled with her brother, and adopted a stray cat. Who knew? I wouldn’t have known that. Likewise, sleepless nights prompt me to pray and mediate; things I don’t do enough of during the day. Even Trump’s election has prompted all sorts of people to better make their voices be heard.
Here’s what it comes down to: Pre-gratitude, all I can see is the bad. Post-gratitude, I can see the good that is also transpiring. It changes my perspective and expands my awareness.
Gratitude empowers. Finally, gratitude jolts me out of resignation. When I give thanks for the things I’m not thankful for, not only are my heart and mind protected from corrosive fear; not only can I see potential good in every situation; I am empowered to act in a way that brings even more goodness into the world.
At a recent church meeting, a group of leaders stopped to pray in the middle of a worrisome situation. As a result, new ideas came to mind. One of the women who had been very quiet, and very worried, began to smile tentatively, then more broadly. “I know!” she said. “Here’s what I think we could do.” She surfaced an idea that got good support, and the group moved into action. As a result, $12,000 was raised to support a family in need.
The world isn’t a perfect place. Not everything goes the way we would like it to. But that’s no reason to be immobilized by fear. Take it from me, a recovering worrier. Gratitude opens the way to faith, goodness, and action. Try it this holiday season. Even if you’re not grateful. Especially if you’re not grateful.
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Nov 14, 2016
Yes, Donald Trump won the presidential election. No, not everyone is happy about that. Clinton won the popular vote while Trump won the electoral vote. Plenty of people are having to adjust their ideas of the next four years.
Like many people I was surprised, even discouraged, at the election results. My candidate didn’t win. The values I hold most dear are not well-represented in the president-elect. Yet, I still find reason to hope for a world that works for everyone. For me, it all started with this realization: The Kingdom of Heaven is (still) at hand.
Whether you are delighted or outraged with the results of the election, this is an important fact to hold true: the Kingdom of Heaven is (still) at hand. If you’re thinking that your ideal world cannot happen unless the right woman or man is in the White House then consider again the story of Jesus. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God right under the nose of Pontius Pilate and under the rule of Caesar. He proclaimed it not as something that was going to come, or going to be restored, but something that was at hand even then.
Jesus reminds us all—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike—that it’s not our leaders who ultimately create the kind of world we live in. They don’t have that kind of power. It’s up to us to say what kind of world we live, and to act accordingly.
Yes, Trump will soon have executive powers. But that no way impinges on our own inherent kingdom powers of dignity, self-regard, and co-creation with God. The power of the kingdom is already within us: it’s found at the depth of our being. It’s expressed through our thoughts, our feelings, beliefs and our actions. No one can take that away.
At the same time that we are each responsible for our ensuring own personal dignity and empowerment, that doesn’t mean we stop paying attention to the world at large. It’s imperative that we church leaders continue envisioning a just and inclusive society. It’s imperative that we church leaders continue to work for a world in which the needs of all are met. It’s imperative that we church leaders continue speaking up about what works and what doesn’t. Finally, it’s imperative that we back up our talk with action.
There’s been a dramatic uptick in hate crimes by some pro-Trump supporters since last Tuesday’s election. On the other hand, some anti-Trump protests have turned violent. Christian values of loving friends and enemies, forgiving those who have wronged us, offering radical hospitality and welcoming the stranger are more important than ever. Living the Gospel has never been more counter-cultural!
While violence against persons of color, religious minorities, and property should cause us to be vigilant, let’s not go overboard by assuming the worst in others. We have to keep our assumptions in check. We lead congregations full of both Republicans and Democrats and Independents. Regardless of our own political leanings, we cannot assume that everyone who voted for Donald Trump wants to deport immigrants, block Muslims from coming into the country, roll back civil rights, normalize preying on women, or insult and bully people at will. It’s simply not true. Sure, some share those views. More likely, however, most Trump supporters were drawn to one or more of his ideas about the economy, the government, or international relations. Or, they simply couldn’t see voting for the other party. Or the other party’s candidate.
On the other hand, we cannot assume that everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton is insensitive to concerns about the economy or security, supports rioters in the streets, is non-patriotic, or is somehow against everyone else.
Both sets of assumptions are false.
As church leaders we are called to bring people together to live into the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the time to lean into the calling. Not by pretending discord and disagreement aren’t happening. Or by simply reacting in fear. But by actively promoting all that we do stand for.
This is our time. This is our time to love all our neighbors, and all our enemies. This is our time to extend radical hospitality. This is our time to cast out demons, to turn fear into faith, and to cast a vision of a world that works for everyone. After all, the Kingdom of Heaven is (still) at hand. Let’s demonstrate it.