A Year Later: Lessons Learned in a Pandemic
It all seemed to happen so fast. One winter weekend early last year, I was teaching my Sunday school class at church. As usual, we were sharing prayer requests at the beginning of our time together. One of our members, a woman from East Asia, asked for prayer for her church back home which had been forced to suspend their in-person gatherings due to a rapidly spreading virus. At the time, it seemed like such a distant reality, one that most of us had a hard time grasping in our own understanding and imagination. Within a matter of weeks, even days, things changed dramatically around the world, including right here in Louisville.
It was one year ago today that our leadership team met and made the decision to send students home, to move employees to remote work models, and to take all of our classes to online platforms. Our president led the entire institution through a whirlwind of decisions that had to be made, many of them with urgency and information that was coming to us incrementally. Early on, we sensed this was a massive disruptor, one that had the potential to destabilize broad sectors of American society, including education.
Of course, we could never begin to imagine what the twelve months to follow would be like. The shockwaves of a global pandemic left no corner of our lives untouched.
I would never choose to relive the past twelve months. But the Lord has graciously brought opportunities for growth in all of them.
The Pandemic Has Been a Stress Test
Early on, I remember telling fellow leaders, both at work and at church, that we were at the beginning of what we should expect to be a stress test, which would provide us with some helpful diagnostics about our organizations. Little did I know how true that would prove.
Stress tests are never particularly enjoyable. After all, the whole concept is predicated upon elevating the pressure or stress on a subject so as to reveal any internal deficiencies of health or vitality. The idea is that when things are “normal” those deficiencies can hide, going unnoticed for lengthy periods of time, but meanwhile growing stronger and deadlier.
Of course, stress tests can also reveal strengths we did not know were there. I have seen firsthand how colleagues have stepped up, taken on additional responsibilities, provided servant leadership where needed, and shown previously unseen abilities or gifting. You learn a lot about an organizational culture when it is subjected to this kind of pressure. Team members will either turn against one another or draw closer together. They will either turn inward, fixating on their own frustrations and fears, or they will turn outward, actively seeking ways to care for the needs of others within their orbit. In my own context, I have been amazed at how colleagues have joined together to advance our mission and done so with joy and hope in the Lord. In particular, our faculty and staff have been extraordinary, demonstrating a unity of conviction and purpose that feels almost historic.
I wish I could tell you I only saw positive test results. But that would be far from the truth. In so many ways, the stress test of the pandemic has revealed dysfunction. This is true of our national life, just as it is of our institutions. The acrimony and bitterness that has marked so much of our public life—culminating in an actual mob insurrection in our nation’s capital—was brought to the fore under these pressures. The pandemic did not create these dynamics, it merely revealed them.
That kind of revelation has been traumatic for many. Organizations and businesses have been faced with difficult, even excruciating, decisions. Conflict is inevitable and to be expected in these stress test scenarios. Some are surprised by the presence of conflict. But the real symptom to watch for is how the organization handles the emerging conflict. Passivity and fear have prompted far too many leaders to surrender their responsibility in an attempt to placate the loudest and most disgruntled voices. Admittedly, many organizations could never have anticipated all that would emerge in the context of COVID-19. But leadership demands the ability to quickly assess what is happening and to respond decisively with the necessary strategy.
The Pandemic Has Been an Accelerator
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruptor for so many sectors of the American economy, often painfully so. Business owners have struggled with changing restrictions and regulations, trying to do all they can to keep the lights on and forge a path forward toward survival. At the same time, that desperation has sparked all sorts of innovation.
Some of those innovations will change or dissolve altogether in a post-COVID reality. For example, we all anticipate that children will return to in-person instruction in our local schools. No one believes that fourth graders can flourish through exclusively online learning for the indefinite future. Similarly, we all assume that people will travel again, take vacations, go to concerts, and make reservations at their favorite restaurants.
And yet, it is clear that some of these innovations will be far more enduring. In my assessment, most of those are developments that were already in process, but COVID simply accelerated their arrival. In my own world, that of higher education, it seems especially pronounced. Our sector was already facing something of an existential crisis, as colleges, universities, and seminaries were working through strategic plans to navigate the choppy waters of looming enrollment threats, upside down business models, economic instability, etc. The pandemic has forced those schools to reckon with those forces sooner, rather than later. Whether in resetting their tuition models, streamlining their degree programs, or taking honest stock of sustainable personnel costs, COVID has pressed the urgency of these pressures upon institutions of higher learning in inescapable ways. Every school now has some form of online learning, even those that had once thought they never would. And at the most advanced degree program--the Doctor of Philosophy--students and institutions have now had to learn how to effectively implement remote seminars, digital research tools, and videoconferenced dissertation supervision to ensure their students make progress in their programs. Of course, not all of that will remain. But it seems unimaginable to conclude that some of it will not.
The Pandemic Has Been a Mirror
This is perhaps the most personal reality of the pandemic. The pandemic has shown us so much of ourselves. I suppose this could be subsumed under the stress test analogy, but I think it’s worth isolating because of how significant it is.
The truth is many of us have learned things about ourselves we probably did not like. In particular, some of the idols of our hearts have been revealed right before us. It’s always easy to see the idols others worship, but it is another thing entirely when our own idols are pulled out of the shadows and into the light.
Perhaps our love for comfort has been chief among these. No one particularly enjoys discomfort, inconvenience, or hardship. And so many have suffered deeply, even losing loved ones to this horrible virus. But for most of us, our grievance and grumbling have been at the disruption of our everyday lives. Perhaps we had gradually been lulled into thinking that we were somehow entitled to the conveniences of modern life or the very real pleasures of God’s common grace. When those were suddenly removed, some dark corners of our hearts took hold.
Similarly, all of us would hope to have a stellar reputation. No one would wish to be misrepresented or slandered. I can’t tell you how many leaders—especially pastors—I have talked to in the past year who have been absolutely exhausted and worn down, much of it due to the corrosive criticism and attacks on their judgment from their church members. The same has held true for leaders in virtually every type of organization. Hard decisions inevitably bring criticism and disagreement. That’s not new. But the past year has delivered more than a surplus of that hostility. And for many of us, it has been a vivid caution to us that our love of reputation can be a powerful idol, blocking us from obedience to the Lord if we allow it to paralyze us in fear. Courage and integrity mean making the necessary decision, trusting the Lord, and entrusting yourself to the Lord.
Christian integrity demands walking by faith, trusting that Peter’s admonition still holds true:
“For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:21-23, CSB)
Perhaps no idol is more powerful than our human pride.
I suspect any sincere Christian can share their own reflections on how this past year has shown them their own brokenness, frailty, and sin. As painful as that is, it’s a gift of grace. It is God’s kindness to show us our need for mercy and to turn our focus away from ourselves and toward the risen Christ.
The past year has brought more than its share of hardship and trial. I don’t think any of us would choose to relive it if given the option. But seeing through the eyes of faith means we are able to look at it all and trust that the Lord has indeed been at work in all of it. It means coming to terms with the fact that none of us know the mind of God. His hand of providence can indeed be heavy and mysterious. But walking by faith means increasingly trusting that His work is always good, even when painful—perhaps especially when painful.
I don’t know what the “new normal” on the other side of COVID will look like. But I do know that there is no going back to the way things were before. And that too is a gift, especially when it comes to the sanctifying grace of God at work in us.
I pray this past year has made me more sober-minded, more courageous, more humble, more eager for Christ’s return, more compassionate in action toward suffering around me… more confident in the promises of God.
I find it a curious providence that today also happens to be the day I am scheduled to receive my first COVID-19 vaccine. Years from now, I don’t know how clear my memory will be. But today, I’ll roll up my sleeve and say a word of thanks to a good and gracious God. He has brought us through the past twelve months, seeing us through fire and storm. And He will see us through all the way, all the way home.
