5 steps our church is taking to prepare for our restart

This may or may not be helpful. For those who are interested, here are five things we've done to prepare our church to restart. These aren't inspired and they may or may not work. We'll know soon!

1) We started using the word "restart" very early. The week after Easter, "restart" became an important element of our leaders' shared vocabulary. We wanted to hit the ground running when the time came.

2) We talked about "change" and "growth" as critical pieces of our restart. From the very beginning, we discussed this "stay-at-home" time as a sort of sabbath. We asked people to spend time considering three questions:

- What have you learned about what is really important in life?
- What would you like to change about your life's rhythm when you restart?
- How are you going to do that?

3) Once we set a target date, we repeatedly used four words to communicate the important details of the plan:

- MAY 31
- RESERVATIONS
- MASKS
- FLEXIBILITY

4) We claimed Philippians 2:3 as our key verse during the restart. In particular, we focused on the last four words of the NIV's rendering, "value others above yourselves." This is becoming more and more important as this issue becomes unnecessarily politicized.

5) We have over-communicated. I normally send one email per week to the church. In the weeks leading up to the restart, I am sending at least three per week. Additionally, we have been very intentional with our Facebook strategy during the two weeks prior to our restart.

If these thoughts are beneficial for you than I am happy. Perhaps they will inspire even better ideas for your restart. If I've been of no help, I apologize for wasting your times. Unfortunately, I don't offer refunds.