Liz Perraud
Executive Director
GenOn Ministries
A LOGOS ministry is intricate. When done effectively, it takes a leadership team, implementation of four regular parts (Bible study, recreation, worship arts, a shared meal), and many called and committed people to keep it running week after week, year after year.
And thankfully, all this intentionality leads to something good. For LOGOS, the many people and the regular participation grows heathy relationships. Put Christ into the center of your plans, and the result is intergenerational Christian community--worth dealing with the complexity and hard work, right?
Sometimes, though, we need simplicity.
For decades, we’ve had a saying at GenOn Ministries that when it comes to dealing with a challenge, it helps to remember two things: prayer and relationships.
Church leaders throughout the US and Canada faced a challenge last summer: How would they continue their beloved LOGOS ministry during the restrictions of a pandemic?
Prayer and relationships.
No surprise, these churches came up with creative and flexible solutions after much prayer and ideating: drive-through dinner pick-ups; YouTube Bible stories; in-person gatherings either outside or distanced indoors; Zoom meetings with breakout rooms for Bible study, recreation, worship arts; video-conferenced groups of households eating dinner together; porch drop-off supplies; church pick-up supplies; meetings in local parks; cross-generational pen pals. And throughout it all, the emphasis was on relationships.
We heard over and over from these LOGOS leaders that “content is important, but relationships more so.” Relationships was their top goal for the COVID-year as well as their top concern that they wouldn’t meet that mark in a swirl of screen fatigue and concern of the spreading virus. During one of our LOGOS Round Table Zoom gatherings in August, someone expressed the simplicity as, “Remember this is a year of ministry of presence—showing up and providing support will be a sign that you care.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t always take a pandemic to remind us that simple is good and that “keep the main thing the main thing” sometimes means letting a few things go and focusing on the people to help them experience God.
Church, can we help you focus on the simplicity of relationships? Pandemic or no pandemic. It’s what we all do best.
Read about how three churches have creatively kept their LOGOS ministry going during the pandemic.
Other IG Mix Articles: November-December 2020
Come to the Table with LIFT
Keeping LOGOS Intergenerational Ministry Going in the Pandemic
Two Questions: Trevecca Olkham
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