889 words, quick read and questions to discuss with your team as you move from retreat to innovation.
The world has changed. I know, most significant understatement ever. I am indeed stating the obvious. But in a similar fashion to our references of pre and post 9/11, we will forever mark 2020 as the year that separates pre and post Covid realities.
But perhaps not so obvious is what the appropriate response is to this new reality.
In Arthur Frank’s research with patients suffering from chronic illness, he discovered that there were three narratives that defined a patient's perspectives and resulting posture and pursuit of health.
Restitution
Restitution narratives idealize the goal of restoring people to life before illness. The restitution narrative is intelligible and has appeal because it contains resonances—echoes—of some very old stories, especially the story of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Job is a righteous man who is tested by God: he loses his family and his wealth and suffers terrible disease. At the end, God restores to Job all that he lost: his health, wealth, and family.
This perspective focuses on how much better life was before and the posture and pursuit are solely focused on getting back to the way it used to be.
Chaos
In chaos narratives, one thing happens after another, but nothing leads to anything else; there is no ordering of events, and that is what is chaotic. No ending, in the sense of a resolution, is in sight. In chaos narratives of illness, a new symptom appears or old symptoms intensify, another member of the family becomes ill or injured, some property is damaged, an insurance or welfare benefit is withdrawn—and, crucially, nothing can be done to stop this progression of disasters.
The perspective of a person living the chaos narrative is one of feeling defeated by life. Their posture is one of feeling stuck - they’ve lost sight of the past, can’t imagine the future and therefore there is no real pursuit forward just stewing in the present.
Quest
People tell quest stories when they say that despite all the suffering, they can appreciate what their disease has brought to their lives. More important, people who have experienced some self-transformation through illness want to share this with others. Thus in quest narratives, illness and suffering become sources of insight that the ill person understands the world as needing. The quest is to tell the healthy world truths that can be learned only through illness.
Quest patients operate with an acceptance perspective. What is … is what is. And this serves as a springboard for adopting a posture of meeting challenges head on; incorporating them as a part of their identity and reality. And ultimately pursuing healing as a journey to what’s next.
And it will come as no surprise that patients that thrived most adopted a quest narrative.
So what does all this have to do with the pandemic and your church?
I believe that the options are much the same as that of a patient facing a chronic illness. You can …
Retreat
Focus on how much better life was before and expend all of your energy and resources to getting back to what was comfortable and effective in our churches. The risk here is to turn your back on some things that will be forever changed. Instead of engaging the unknown, the pull is to go back to what was known. As I think back through the history of the church, this was rarely a good idea. Our story should be one of restitution only in the sense of restoration and transformation and that always requires looking forward not backward.
Where are you or your church retreating? Is what you are going back to effective or just “known and comfortable?”
Hang On
Even over a year into this new world, everything seems somewhat unstable, a little chaotic. In my conversations with leaders, there is a fatigue associated with the quantity of decisions being made which is amplified by the reality that a decision made today may have to be remade the next week, the next day, perhaps even the next hour. Many have become mired in the chaos of realizing that the past is broken and the future is uncertain and are adopting the posture of just hanging on; just surviving to see what happens.
Where are you or your church hanging on? What one step can you take to move forward out of the mire?
Innovate
Reminder - Quest patients operate with an acceptance perspective which serves as a springboard for adopting a posture of meeting challenges head on; incorporating them as a part of their identity and reality.
The same is true for “big L” leaders in the Church. They lean into what’s next. They innovate.
How would you define your post Covid reality? What has changed? How are you innovating?
As I said at the beginning, the world has changed and we are living in the early transitional days of the post COVID world. What story do you find yourself living into? What about for the church that you lead?
Wherever you find yourself on this journey, don’t do it alone.
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Email me your innovation experiments and stories at greg.ligon@generis.com.