Four Key Attitudes of Leaders Whose Churches Will Thrive in the Future

The topic of COVID or the pandemic often brings feelings of gloom and despair. Indeed, the year 2020 will be, in many ways, a year we will choose to forget. It has been difficult for many people and many organizations.

But during this trying season, I have been devouring news and studies of churches and other organizations that are poised to move positively in the future. These organizations are not succumbing to the inevitability of life getting worse and organizational health deteriorating. They do not have their metaphorical heads in the sand. To the contrary, they are looking up and looking around to see the new paths and the new possibilities in this new reality.

When I recently synthesized many of the articles and podcasts addressing these challenges positively, I saw a pattern. There were four attitudes among the leaders common to most all of them. I believe these four attitudes are emblematic of successful organizations of the near future. 

1. “God is not done with us yet.” To be clear, the leaders of secular organizations were unlikely to articulate this attitude in the same way church leaders were. But all of the healthy organizations had attitudes of hope and possibility. Defeatism was a foreign concept to all of them.