As Churches are being closed around the country due to COVID-19, pastors and church leaders alike are concerned for their congregation, finances, and liability coverage.
Hear from pastors on how the pandemic is affecting their congregation and on the proactive steps they’re taking to serve their churches well.
Tony from Capitol is joined by Bruce Smith of College Park, Mike Crull of Northview Church, and Greg Moore of Connection Pointe Christian Church.
You can read the full transcription of the webinar below:
Tony Grahn:
Looks like we have a great group of people on hand. Thank you so much for joining us. We are thankful that you’ve chosen some time with us today on this busy Thursday no doubt, for you to hear an interview with three local pastors considering recent disruption in our lives by the Coronavirus, also referred to as COVID-19. My name is Tony Grahn, I’m the owner of Capitol Insurance located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since 1981, Capitol has had the privilege of ensuring and providing safety resources for nearly 800 different churches, camps, schools, and other faith-based ministries throughout Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. Like I said, we are so glad that you have taken time to join us today. Whether that means you’re at the office or working comfortably remotely in your pajamas at home, let me begin by sharing some logistics and we’ll go from there.
First, this is a live webinar as of 12:00 noon on Thursday, March 19th, 2020. I state that because many more churches and individuals are expected to be listening later. In fact, if you must leave early, this webinar should be available within a couple of hours after its production, and certainly by tomorrow morning. You’ll receive an email at the time with a link to re-listen at your convenience, or you can go to capitolins.com and view it there. That’s capital with an O, so that’s C-A-P-I-T-O-L-I-N-S dot com. You’ll also be able to go to capital’s website at any time and find several resources. We’ve devoted our entire first page to COVID-19 resources for church and business clients. So please, from governmental on down, please check those out and share those links with anyone that might need the help. May I also encourage you to forward the email you received to any of your church staff or congregational peers as I trust these interviews will be encouraging to all of them. I would encourage our three guests today to do the same, to pass that on too.
Second, we anticipate the webinar to last approximately one hour with some Q&A at the end. Since we will not be taking live questions, please open the chat feature or the comment section in front of you and submit your questions any time during the interview. We’ll get to as many of those as we can. Before I open in prayer, I want to start with an insurance related comment, and that’s only because we’re getting a lot of calls and emails, as you can imagine, in the past few days. If any of you are wondering if your current policies provide loss of income as a result of having restricted access to your facilities meaning a loss of tithes and offerings because you have been mandated or told by a civil authority you can’t meet, it’s important to understand that 99.9% of all commercial property insurance policies in the country exclude this coverage as it relates to viruses. Even for the one-off insurance company that has added back a nominal amount of protection, it will take time to determine how claims will be adjudicated or denied. The reason most exclude the coverage is because a virus is unpredictable, can spread quickly, and create such a catastrophic loss that insurance companies could be forced to insolvency.
That’s enough on the insurance standpoint. Let me go ahead and open us in prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you that you are a sovereign God. We are reminded that there is nothing outside of your control and that nothing comes to pass that does not accomplish your purposes. We thank you that you’re worthy, that not only wholehearted aberration that you do that, but that our complete trust is due to you. You are a refuge for us and in your word, we find how you have continually shown yourself to be faithful and trustworthy. In fact, time after time, you have delivered your people and have provided for your people. We thank you that as believers, our hope lies not in our leadership or medicine, that our ultimate hope is rooted in the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross. We thank you that the future is secure for those who have been washed clean in the redeeming blood of Christ. We thank you that while this pandemic is a serious concern that spreads fear and anxiety through our community, that it is also an opportunity for your people to rise and proclaim the Lordship of Christ.
It is an opportunity for us to love our neighbors. Serve our communities and share the eternal hope that we have in Jesus. We thank you for Bruce, Mike and Greg and the time that they are giving here today to join us and to be our guest. You tell us in James 1:5, that if anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. We asked for wisdom for these three men and for all those tuning into the webinar today and those who will hear it later, that you would help us to navigate these uncertain waters, that these men would be able to lead and shepherd along with their lead pastors, their own congregations and point their communities to Christ. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Okay, Fasten your seat belts everyone. This should be a great dialogue and hopefully a reassuring message to those listening. We have three local pastors that I’ll be asking a handful of questions to, and in no particular order, we have Bruce Smith, who is the Executive Pastor of Operations of College Park Church. We also have Mike Crull, who is the Operations Pastor of Northview Church, and then lastly, we have Greg Moore, the Executive Pastor of Connection Point Christian Church. Gentlemen, we are one week yesterday, having hearing the World Health Organization, WHO, declaring the rapidly spreading Corona virus outbreak a pandemic 9:00 PM that evening, the president addressed the nation. The Dow Jones has lost all its gains in recent years within one week, in the days that ensued, the governors of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan addressed their citizenship just like around the country.
By the end of last week, churches and businesses alike were scrambling whether or not to send employees home and what to do about Sunday services. Thursday morning, on a personal note, at 1:00 AM, my wife and I welcomed our new grandson into this changing world, only to discover it that five hours later leaving community hospital, they restricted all access to anyone, but the patient’s spouse and significant other. Families started raiding grocery stores, hoarding toilet paper and water, gyms, schools, restaurants and bars ordered to close access except for drive through or pickup. Even our beloved Costco set wood pellets out to separate the entrance and exits from people congregating together, and the entrance sign stating health warnings and social distancing reminders. Well known celebrities, Congress people, athletes and others have contracted the virus. In the last 24 hours, The cases in New York have doubled. Bruce Smith from College Park, welcome to the forum and glad to have you here today.
Bruce Smith:
Thanks Tony. Glad to be with you.
Tony Grahn:
Mark Vroegop, the lead pastor of your church, looked at his congregation, I believe during their last in-person church service and said, “Christians, this is the time, this is it.” As if to rally Christians to go deepen their faith and to be ready to minister to others. Bruce, and light of the events that I just mentioned and the initial panic, I would agree with him. Do you agree? And what does that look like to you?
Bruce Smith:
Yeah, it really is an extraordinary time, Tony. Just to think two weeks ago, three weeks ago, this wasn’t on anybody’s radar here in the States. God’s not surprised, but we as a people, we always are looking for ways to protect ourselves, our families. We build buffers around our selves, and when the whole culture gets shaken like this, medically, our leadership, financially, people start wondering, where does my security lie? Where does my hope come from? This is a time for Christians to step up and be able to love their neighbors, to provide tangible material and emotional support, and to share that our hope comes, and our trust and security comes not from this world or we’ve acquired, or our health, or our medical systems, but through the finished work of Jesus Christ. And people are wondering now, where does my hope come from? Where does my help come from? And we can point them to the Lord.
Tony Grahn:
Yes, yes. Thank you indeed. And Bruce, let me also ask you, how is your church College Park working with local government and health departments, and why do you feel that is important?
Bruce Smith:
Yeah, good question. We really value the governmental authorities, and the leaders in the different fields that are working on our behalf to determine what next steps should be and provide guidance, and look for a cure and vaccine. We’re so appreciative of the folks in the medical field and the governmental agencies. They’re the experts, we are appreciative of the gifting and skills that the Lord’s given them, and their efforts to guide our culture, our country, our state, our city, back into health. We want to be good neighbors, we want to be part of the solution, and being part of the community means we listen closely and respond and support the efforts that they request us to.
Tony Grahn:
How is your church working with local government and health departments and how do you feel that as important? What have you seen from your side?
Greg Moore:
Yeah. One of the things is we’re fortunate that we have a doctor on our elder board here, and he’s on our Hendricks County Board of Health. We’ve had some good interactions with him and he gives us good advice. And just like you heard earlier, we believe that these guys have been put in place by God, they’ve been gifted. And so we want to do the same thing, is listen to what they’re telling us and give us good advice. We’ve also been in contact with the county health departments and we’ve been monitoring the state health department sites and the CDC for different recommendations. And so, prior to anything that we do, we’re really just spending time listening to them, finding out what their thoughts are, and then trying to make the best informed decision that we can make. I know from our perspective, we also want to respect the government and the authorities, and just do what they’re asking us to do.
Tony Grahn:
Yes, yes. Excellent.
Mike Crull:
Sorry, I had my mute on, so if I could just take a second and also respond to your question. Because we’re spread out in multiple locations, we’ve echoed what Bruce and Greg have shared, but also we’re really asking our campus pastors at those locations to interact with the county health departments and governmental officials. That’s a unique aspect of it, is just making sure that we are following the directives and the guidance and advice, the requests from the local officials. Of course, our senior leadership, our senior pastor, Steve Poe and the two executives we have, we are engaged in following the WHO, the CDC and other resources and agencies as we all are, I’m sure.
Tony Grahn:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. I know as growing up, becoming a Christian as a young kid, I remember over the years that our churches many years ago used to really lean on that separation of church and state sometimes to a fault to where they were always leery of the government. But it’s become more apparent in recent years that we can’t do that, that we coexist and the Bible even speaks to that extent, and it’s just good to see the way you gentleman, all three of your churches are leading in that regard. I think that shoots the gospel through your actions sometimes as much as someone going through scripture. So very important, glad to hear that. And Mike, let me continue with you now that your thing is not muted.
Mike Crull:
Glad to hear that.
Tony Grahn:
I know. Mike, are any of your staff working on site or is everyone remote? And how is your church adapting to this changing environment?
Mike Crull:
Almost everyone in our organization is working remotely. However, there are a few employees working on the properties. They’re working obviously exercising practices of social distancing, but doing the necessary jobs to keep the buildings functioning and cared for well. But we have most of our staff working remotely, and I think we’ll get to some of the how tos of that in a question coming up. But we’ve also implemented just an HR policy called the COVID-19 leave policy for our employees, just give some care to them and some guidance on providing some structure and process around the hours that they’re working, whether they’re salaried or hourly from home or remotely. And again, that’s been a good tool that we’ve used here in the last few days to support our staff.
Tony Grahn:
Yeah, that’s helpful to hear. I just received an email at 3:00 AM this morning. I wasn’t up that early, but my email indicated from a law firm of all the potential lawsuits now relating to COVID-19, and the legal environment is going to be changing rapidly and already has, the insurance industry too is all coming together and re-evaluating things just like the World Trade Center attacks, how terrorism was excluded, the government stepped in and said, this can’t be, at least we know you can’t sustain these losses as insurance companies, so we’re going to create the Terrorism Treaty Act, and they did that, devise the way over years to ship the amount that insurance company pays. But we’re seeing the legal side, and like you just hinted too on HR and all these things. Those are considerations for churches too and I really appreciate you bringing that up. And then, Greg, what about you or any of your staff working on site or is everyone remote, and how’s your church adapting to this changing environment?
Greg Moore:
Yeah, great question. Up till this week or through this week, everyone’s pretty much been on site, although we have given them the option to be remote if they wanted to be remote. I think we’ve also been fortunate in that we’ve had in the past, a couple remote workers already. So we’re prepared for that, and how they can access our systems and different things. I think that’s helped prepare us for today and where we’re going to go with this. But yesterday we had a meeting with our staff and said that we want them to work remotely if at all possible. We also left the door open as of today, and things are changing all the time, so we’ll have to see how that goes. But if they want to be here, they can be here, but the more people that are gone, the more opportunity we have to have social distancing on the campus. We also want to keep our campus open if possible, so we have a few pastors that are being assigned to be here for walk-ins, or prayer or help with different things. But the majority of them are going to be offsite.
We also have some HR things we put in place as far as like tracking of time and different things. We spend time with them yesterday just talking through how they could use teams, which we’ll talk more about, I know later, but to get in and do remote things. But also, we encourage them as departments to set goals and plans and just that we would just really be trying to work around achieving those goals and plans for simplicity as they go forward, and just connecting them with the volunteers. One of the things we hope will happen is that as they’re working, they’ll also stay connected with their current volunteer base. Maybe even at the same time, like if they normally had volunteers at 9:15 on Sunday, how do they stay connected with them at the same time so that when we’re through this, that it’s still a natural thing that they’re connecting. Those are the kinds of things we’re working on right now.
Tony Grahn:
Very good. Each of you have mentioned the term like I did, social distance. I can’t ever remember hearing that before until now, and I remember a few years ago when our worship pastor got up and during the meet and greet time said, because there was some flu or something going around at the time, some winter bug, he encouraged everyone to give knuckles instead of shaking hands. And then it was just last week or the week before, now we’re going from that to using our elbows, like the presidential candidates using their elbows to greet each other. And then we’re going from that to not touching each other, so we’re doing high fives and other weird things. Things are changing fast, and so it makes us think … I mean, the word social distancing doesn’t sound very gospel oriented to me, but in a sense, I guess you really are ministering by not touching, you’re getting too close to people. Bruce, what technical resources or applications have you used to connect with your people or to help them connect with each other?
Bruce Smith:
We’ve been grateful that we had some things Microsoft Teams that we’ve used in the past and we’re using it at a higher level now. We’re doing a lot of Zoom meetings as well, as setting up a FaceTime, the different technologies. Who would’ve thought technology be so invaluable, this would have happened four or five years ago, it would have had even more disruptive effect on the church. So our staff, like the other men are primarily remote now, and boy, everybody said to learn new processes, and it’s different working at home, and so the team’s been really good about learning and trying new things. You have to be fairly agile and nimble to make the adjustment, and we’re grateful that the College Park teams made this change so quickly and so well.
Tony Grahn:
Mike, what about you? What technical resources or applications have you used to connect with your people and to help them to connect with each other?
Mike Crull:
Well, over a year ago or even longer, we started utilizing Zoom conferencing technology for our staff primarily because we’re spread out over multiple locations and campuses. And so, we’ve been pretty accustomed to using that, and so that’s what we’re using as most of our employees currently are offsite, we’re using Zoom conferencing technology. It’s a great tool. I think many of you online and listening are using that as well. I’ve been on since, just this week alone, since Monday I’ve been on probably a dozen or more Zoom meetings continuing to come conduct business, continuing to conduct ministry that’s essential. The other thing that we’ve done is we’re seeing great traction with Facebook groups. And so for all of our locations, we’ve set up Facebook groups to basically build community at those local areas. We’ve created these again, for each of our campuses, this is a way for people to stay in community, and we’ll continue to see these used as life groups or meeting and communities are coming together at the local level.
I’ll give you an example. Last Sunday morning for example, a family at our Westfield campus had a baby on Tuesday, and people were able to jump on the Facebook page for the Westfield Campus and just send their congratulations to this family and to the mother and the father. And so, that’s just a really cool way to, again, build community at the local level by using Facebook groups.
Tony Grahn:
… to meet a need, and so that’s neat. Thank you. Some good options there. There are many churches listening today that those resonate with them too. I mean, who doesn’t have access to Facebook and some other social media outlets, but to be intentional and knowing how to do that and then organizing it. Fortunately, the three of you, I know none of you would bring this up, but each three of you come from large churches, over 200 plus staff members together between the three churches, and so you do have an advantage in one sense that you have several employees and staff and resources in that regard. So there are a lot of things that a big church can do that smaller churches can’t. That’s not to be discouraging today, but hopefully having this discussion is helpful to our other churches that don’t have those resources. We understand, we feel your pain.
I think I speak for Bruce, Greg and Mike, that as time allows, they would be glad to entertain any calls or emails and try to help or connect you, help them meet our pastors out here and so keep them in mind. I know you inboxes and texts are jamming up like mine, but I’m sure you three would be glad to be available to any of our smaller church pastors and administrative teams. Greg, let me ask you and some of these questions, these were pre-questions I typed up before. Some of you already answered some of these things, but I’m just going to go ahead and continue to ask them as new things come to mind for you. Greg, what additional ways besides Sunday church are you using to ministry throughout the week to your congregation?
Greg Moore:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Obviously on the weekends, we’re live streaming our worship and our preaching. We’re using things now like daily devotionals that can go out through text or on Facebook that our lead pastors put in together. He’s taking like anywhere between a minute to three minutes and trying to send out encouraging devotions to keep people connected. We’re doing a lot of social media posts and videos in the same vein from different ministries and trying to keep people connected that way. Emails are going out on a consistent basis to connect people. We have an interesting that we have a fitness area here as part of our church, our fitness area is putting together videos of the different fitness routines that people can then go on and download or look at and do their routines at home since we’ve closed that pretty much down. And so, they can do things at home or at work through us, Also doing things like a live worship night and prayer nights, where we can live stream that and people can get together. Like on tonight, we’ll have a night of worship and we’ll have a prayer night coming up, do some cool things.
I think also with the community and the congregation, is that we have the Red Cross that wants to use our facilities for blood drive, so we’re connecting our congregation to that, and a couple of things like that that we’re doing too. Those are some of the ways we’re connecting still.
Tony Grahn:
Good to hear that. Bruce, what about you at College Park? What additional ways, besides Sunday church are you using to minister throughout the week to your congregation?
Bruce Smith:
Yeah, Tony. I’m thinking too of a church that’s maybe not the same size as College Park. Some of the things we’re doing that would be accessible to really any size church is we’re working on a virtual prayer meeting where we’ll have a call in line where people can call in and we’ll pray together, worship together just over a conference line. We’re broken up into parishes throughout the region, and so we have folks that are working with and trying to serve the folks that live close to them. We’ve identified who the higher risk potential church members are, and we’re having people contact them weekly just through simple phone call, see how we can help, see where they or their neighbors might need us to be able to provide some assistance or spiritual encouragement. We are certainly doing all the macro things that many churches are doing, but we think the personal touch right now just prayer, text, phone call are a really meaningful.
One of the things we’re doing as well, is we’re starting to develop a medical professional and medical professionals family outreach, as their lives are going to be pretty disrupted for a number of weeks we imagine.
Tony Grahn:
Yes. Yes indeed. Our attendees today, the number is increasing, so more people continue to join. I want to thank those for jumping in even though it’s late, and just a quick announcement there. We’re talking with Bruce Smith an Executive Pastor of Operations from College Park Church. We’re also talking with Mike Crull, the Operations Pastor from Northview Church, and then also pastor Greg Moore, who is Executive Pastor from Connection Point Church. And also for those listening and joining in, please jump in and ask some questions through the comments section there. Go ahead and type away, if not, we’ve got some questions here we can can add in, but we still have a few more to go. And so now, let me jump back to Mike Crull of Northview. Mike, what strategies are you implementing?
And this is important question because I know there are pastors out there, and some of our smaller churches there are just rightfully concerned, and trusting in Jesus that’s still being concerned about finances and wondering, what are we going to do? My staff, I can barely afford to pay them now because we’re ministering faithfully to a small congregation and they can only afford so much. I want to ask you, Mike, what strategies are you implementing to encourage and help your church members to continue supporting the church financially?
Mike Crull:
Good question. Good question, Tony. We’re helping to train and facilitate more and more online giving, especially the reoccurring giving that takes place. We’re fortunate at least going into this situation to have anywhere from 65% to 70% of our church members are attenders, give online reoccurring. That’s a real blessing. Most of them participate that way, and that’s been a great thing. In addition, just in the last week, of course, we’ve made that process more accessible to our church family, and they’ve joined and starting to bring their giving online. I think just this last weekend if my number’s correct, we had over 40 families or individuals set up online giving, and there’s been more since then, I’m sure. That’s been a good thing. And then just in all of our social media platforms, the weekend services, anywhere where we have a footprint online, we’re providing giving options in those areas as well. I think the church understands that it needs to encourage and pastor and support our people to continue to give as they can, and make that an opportunity, so that ministry to our communities, ministry to our church family can continue in this difficult environment that we’re in now.
Tony Grahn:
Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mike. And then Greg, what are the strategies that your church at Connection Point Christian in beautiful Brownsburg, Indiana, what are you implementing to encourage your people to help the members to continue supporting the church financially?
Greg Moore:
Yeah, good question. Very similar to Mark, we have about 65% of our people right now who give online and obviously we’re trying to improve that. We have other options where they can sign up online. So, as we send out our devotionals during the week or on daily basis, there’s a box where they could sign up to go online or to give emails, different links, we have out through social media, they can sign up. We’ve also had to drop off boxes in the lobby where we’ve got some resources set up for people that they can come and pick up here. And so at the same time they come and pick up those resources, they can drop off a check in the lobby. Other things we’re doing is just emailing a lot of positive stories that are happening, and how the giving of the church is impacting lives, and we’re trying to help people remember the importance of what they’re doing and what they’re giving to, and how we need them to continue to give so that we can continue to impact lives. So, using a lot of stories to do that.
And just the reminder from John as he sends out things, that the value of giving and the why. And so again, just using those stories to try and get them to go online or to keep giving.
Tony Grahn:
I think each of you have probably touched on my next question in some aspects or other, but let me go ahead and ask it to Bruce from College Park. Bruce, my pastor often encourages us to build bridges of grace that can support the truth of the gospel, the weight of the gospel. How are you doing this at College Park with the community considering … reaching out to the community, considering this crisis that we’ve never had before, and that’s new to us here with COVID-19?
Bruce Smith:
Yeah. There’s some opportunities we’ve got to partner with several different organizations in the community so we can assist in their endeavors to help. But I would mention for all of us, we’ve been encouraging our church family just to be the church. Our neighbors are anxious, we’re going to run into people who are working less hours or have medical issues that preclude them from going to the grocery store. So, we’re encouraging people just to be alert to needs in the neighborhood, to their neighbors, to their family and friends, and to just engage, meet them. We’re not going to be able to run all the needs that we’re going to run into through an organized church structure. And so, we’re encouraging the church just to be the church, love your neighbor, meet needs in the name of Jesus. That’s going to be, I think the biggest impact that our church family is going to have during the season.
Tony Grahn:
Okay, great. Great. Let me go ahead and jump in. Someone watching has taken our suggestion and entered a question. This is the question, and I’m going to let either of you answer this, so whoever speaks up first gets the answer this, but what areas of society do you think will be affected most by COVIT-19, and how can the church mobilize to respond to these needs? Who wants to jump in on that?
Mike Crull:
This is Mike. I’ll go ahead and jump in if that’s okay. I don’t think anybody is immune from the impact of this. This is going across not only all industry and all sectors of business and nonprofits and churches. And really, I think we’re learning this is a global matter, and I think here again, it’s just the idea that there’s great opportunity here to lean in and for the church to provide a model, just good leadership. I think those who probably are most effected, of course, I think our mind goes to those single parents who are struggling and who are often hourly workers trying to support their families. I go to the older demographic of our communities whose health is at risk, especially in this situation. Those are the two examples of the communities I think we all are ministering to and wanting to help that come to mind.
Tony Grahn:
Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask Greg a question here. One of our attendees has chimed in with a question, and this lady asked, what technology resource are you using for the virtual phone calls for large group prayer?
Greg Moore:
For our large group prayer, what we’re going to be doing is having a lot like live streaming of it, is one way we’re going to do that. A pastor or a group of people could sit and just have people come onto the live stream and just give prayer options, things they can pray for. As far as virtual phone calls, we’re not really using the phone to do that. I don’t know if someone else was doing that. We’re using livestream to do those things.
Mike Crull:
I would echo that, we’re not using the phone per se, but a lot of live streaming, Instagram live, our student services are being conducted at their times on Friday and Sunday nights via Instagram live, Facebook live, our worship pastors and our groups and teams, pastors are connecting with their people. Just again, live streaming I think is the way to go in this case.
Tony Grahn:
Sure, sure. And Mike, while we’ve got you on there, another attendee has asked, what … maybe you just addressed this, what online giving tool are you using and what problems have you experienced? I guess you touched briefly on that earlier.
Mike Crull:
Yeah, I did. One of the things that we’ve done that’s been really helpful is to create a pop up with suggested giving amounts that has been sent out via our text platform, our database. We use the Rock here at Northview, and it has the ability and the feature to really do a blast and send those giving opportunities out to everybody who are a part of our family and beyond. The pop up feature of that and a suggested amounts, we’ve seen some activity there.
Tony Grahn:
Sure, sure. And then, let me see here, another question we have. I’m going to let any of you jump in on this because I don’t know who has this on their mind or been doing a lot. I think you did talk a little bit about HR, but someone here, a gentlemen asked, any chance on more information about the COVIT-19 leave policy, would we be able to consult that document to consider applying that wisdom to our own employees?
Mike Crull:
Okay. Yeah, Tony. Mike here. I mentioned that earlier in the webinar, and we did develop very quickly our executive pastors, Jason Pongratz and Mark Crull, under Steve Post’s leadership crafted very quickly a COVID-19 leave policy. They worked with our HR director to formulate that. It addresses all staff in fact who are working remotely, and it’s providing again structures for that. What I would tell you is that we’ve seen this in other areas as well. The city of Carmel has done that for their city employees, something similar, not quite the same, but similar. And I would tell you that I can provide some … if anybody wants to contact me or contact you, and then you can work with me on just some of the basics of that, I’d be glad to share on that.
Tony Grahn:
What we’ll do, Mike and Greg and Bruce, is I was going to encourage you three anyway and do it publicly here, is if you guys, after we finish this webinar, if you have any thoughts on some of these resources that you have referenced, and that you and your staff or maybe one of your staff members could help assemble this for you, that you’d be willing to share with our listeners, please email that to me, and I’ll get that to my team here, and let us know which of that is can be put online, and we’ll add it to our other COVID read sources at capitolins.com, or if it’s just something that needs to be shared on a discretionary one off basis. But any resources like that you gentlemen want to share, shoot that to me and then listeners, we’ll be sure to get that, make that available to you. Thank you guys, the people that are sending those questions, that’s very helpful.
Let me see what else. We have another person, and I’m going to shoot this question over to Greg. This one made me smile at first, but actually that’s a very good question and I smiled because I believe I heard talk that Easter Egg Hunt in Washington DC has been canceled. But I have a question and this is extremely relevant for churches because the biggest time of the year for not just giving, but attendance is Easter. So someone has asked, has anyone begun to think about Easter plans if we are still meeting digitally. So how does that play out, Greg, in your mind with regards to Easter and doing it digitally? And I’m not referring to an Easter egg hunt, I’m referring to the whole Easter, reaching out to the lost and to your parishioners, et cetera.
Greg Moore:
Yeah, that’s a great question. We’ve been talking about it, we have some things that we had printed off as far as invitations that people could have, if they were on campus, could have picked up and taken out to neighbors and stuff. We have some cute things like the peeps that they could have taken and delivered. What we’ve done is we’re still making those things available in our lobby, so if people come in and they want to pick up different things they can use and distribute and to invite people. The real idea is that we’re putting together a resource package for them that they can come in, grab a box and grab some of these things, put it together and then take it to their neighbor, we’re calling it COVID-19 connecting opportunity for them so they can still do that. We’ve had people coming in, in our lobby and picking those up and distributing them. We also are still looking at the same services we would have had at the same times, and so again, we would just live stream those services if that’s what it comes down to, and at the same time, we would have done the other services on the same nights and just make those all available to people in the same way, because that’s what they already know we’re doing.
So those are the things that we’re doing, is just trying to get people to grab the resources we already have, take them out to their neighbors and their coworkers if they’re still around them and then be prepared to live stream.
Tony Grahn:
Okay. Okay. I’m going to let anyone jump in on answering this question. It appears this one is from a pastor. The question is, as the pastor of a smaller church, what would you say are some appropriate ways to share the responsibilities of the church without risking exposure to other members and board members? Anyone want to tackle that?
Bruce Smith:
Well, that’s a really good question and I appreciate this pastor’s heart because he or she is a shepherd to their people. I think we have to recognize that the social distancing, the hygiene protocols, all that are need to be followed, that’s being a good neighbor. And so, if there’s visits that need to be made, you need to find alternate ways using FaceTime or using a phone call, and we have some higher risk congregants that folks have stopped by, and spoken through the storm door, through the window, left things on the front porch, a handwritten note is really meaningful. So, you just need to find ways to provide pastoral care without jeopardizing or putting either yourself or your congregant at risk.
Tony Grahn:
Okay. Another question here. Thank you, Bruce. We’ve got several here. Once again, you guys have touched on a lot of these, but I still want to throw these out in case there’s new thoughts and ideas. The question here is, how have you seen, or how do you expect to see God working through COVID-19? Who would like to answer that?
Mike Crull:
Mike here. I was in a meeting yesterday and somebody was just providing some perspective and some encouragement, and that is, if you look back through church history and the history of the world, in fact, you’ll see that many revivals actually began in situations like this, during where there was great impact on the world where times were extremely difficult for millions and millions of people. So in this situation, I just think that we need to be open to what God is going to do, be expected for that, and to, as we’ve all said, just be very intentional in our pastoral ministries and our care for our people to really be the hands and feet of Christ, and to really call people to faith and belief in God. I think the longer this goes on there, the more or opportunity there be for that, for sure.
Tony Grahn:
Another question that someone has mentioned is referring to insurance, so I will just touch upon this briefly. The question was, Tony, I’m sorry if you addressed this already. Many insurance policies have a clause for major natural disasters and disease impacting ability to pay or protections against revenue lost or reduction. What does your company offer? That is true. I started by saying 99.9% of all companies, for years have had a virus related exclusion, and I won’t repeat what I said at the beginning if you did join late. As I encouraged others, please feel free to reach out to my staff, and I’ll be glad to help you with that, especially our clients. But anyone is welcome to reach out to us, and we’re an independent insurance agency representing several different shorts markets. I don’t want to name or promote one of our companies over another, but I’d be glad we can address that after hours. Let me see what else here. I think we’re getting close to time, so we’re going to start wrapping this up.
I’m going to give one more question, and let Greg answer first, and then I’ll ask Bruce to answer the same thing. And so just one last opportunity, Greg, what advice or encouragement can you give to fellow churches during this troubling time?
Greg Moore:
My advice would just be a couple areas, really is the just be continuing in prayer, to be seeking God at this time and what he wants to do in and through your church and through your congregation. But maybe even asking the question of, have we made idols out of things that we need to be re-looking at as a church and as individuals, and just going back to God in this and saying, what’s our part in this? What do we need to be working on, and what do we need to be changing? I would just encourage you also to be thinking about how you can put some type of maybe a COVID response team together, where if there’s issues in the community with homeless or people having financial issues, or there’s food pantries that need food or just all kinds of different things, how can you as a church come alongside those? We recognize in our church, there’s people with specific gifts that can fix things and can help people, and so we’re right now trying to gather those people and see how they can help and come alongside our community and our congregation. I think that’s how God is probably really going to use us as we move forward.
I’d also lastly encourage you just to keep planning financially. I know that we are right now looking at our budget and saying in different phases, if this were to happen, if this were to happen, if this were to happen, how do we get ahead of that, so that we are determining based on our finances, what we’re going to do, rather than wait and letting our finances determine what we’re going to do, if that makes sense. We’re just trying to stay ahead of things, seeking God, making sure we’re doing all the things we can to reach our community and help our congregation, but also to be planning for the future. I think as you do that, I think God’s just going to use this on a tremendous way.
Tony Grahn:
Yes. Thank you. Let’s go ahead and close with Bruce answering that same question with Bruce from College Park. What advice or encouragement can you give to fellow churches during this troubling time?
Bruce Smith:
Greg’s comments are really helpful, so thanks for that, as well as Mike’s. Thanks both you guys. I have been reading out of Luke recently, and Luke chapter 12, Jesus reminds his followers to not get all anxious about things that come their way, not to be anxious about food tomorrow, or what’s going to happen. And then he says in there, he says don’t be afraid little flock, for t’s your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. And in this season, we’re looking at some things and we’re going, wow, our resources are really scarce. Maybe it’s medical availability, or maybe it’s financial resources, or there’s uncertainty about how school’s going to work out, et cetera. But the father’s given us the kingdom, and if we can change our perspective, understanding that we need to be concerned and prudent, but don’t miss the abundance that even now God’s providing. He’s providing relationships that are meaningful to us, he’s providing health and life today. We have enough food to for today, and so we need to celebrate that.
Even though we’re looking at some scarcity, God is abundantly providing for all that we need and he promises to, and he’s the most faithful promise giver that there is, and so we trust in him. Don’t get anxious, but make sure we’re making prudent decisions and God will provide. He cares for his church more than we do, and he’ll care for us through this whole COVID-19 season.
Tony Grahn:
Yes, indeed. Thank you, Bruce. I appreciate the words of encouragement from you, Greg, and also Mike throughout this. Well, that about wraps up our time. I want to thank all three of you pastors, Bruce, Mike and Greg for your time and your faithfulness to your churches, your communities, and foremost to Christ. Everyone watching or listening today, as a reminder, you’ll receive an email either by the end of today or certainly by tomorrow morning. It’ll have a link to this webinar. So, if you missed part of it or came in late, you can re-listen to it, but also, don’t forget the several COVID-19 resources are at Capitol’s website available for you. It’s at capitolins.com, CapitOl with an O. Before I close in prayer, I want to encourage everyone to remember that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. God bless you all, I appreciate you attending. Let me close in prayer.
Our father, thank you for a great meeting and for these men who have given up their valuable time with the pressing needs they have and large staffs, and even family members to take care of. I know one of these men in particular has a family member who has been deeply impacted by, or could be by this incident, this COVID-19 and we continue to pray in that regard. We want to lift up our nation’s leaders today, would you give them guidance to make wise decisions for our country as they seek to help reduce the spread of this virus. We ask that you give our church leaders wisdom as they seek how to best serve their churches and communities. It is a challenge to know how best to protect the congregations and care for them, but as you have called us to do at this time, would you please help lead us well in that endeavor.
We pray for all the churches, families, and business owners in our communities who will face hardship as a result of this virus. Please help, whether it is the loss of a loved one or financial burden, we ask that you provide for comfort and sustain all those who will be hurting. We pray that the body of Christ would not retreat into itself, but that we would be the hands and feet of Jesus as we interact with our friends, family and neighbors. We pray that we would walk in faithfulness before you. Even if we are unable to gather together for time, would you help us not to neglect being in your word, communing with you in prayer and leading our families well, going deep in our faith, and then sharing the gospel and the good news that there is hope. Would you be glorified and exalted using even the Coronavirus to magnify your name, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Thank you attendees for attending and thank you Bruce, Mike and Greg and God bless you all.