Leading through Changing Times
The past couple of years have been called challenging, unprecedented, and definitely memorable. I would like to add another description - Changing. Change is constant in our lives, and the last two years have seen a lot more change in things and ways with which we might not be comfortable. We have had to adjust how we live our lives, how we work, how we interact, how we shop, how we eat, and how we educate our children, just to name a few.
These changes have had profound effects on all of us and, indeed, challenged us. This comes on top of a backdrop of climate change, police violence, and our increasingly polarized discourse on a variety of topics. All of this can feel profoundly demoralizing and overwhelming, as if we cannot make much of a difference in the world.
I am an optimist at my core and history has backed up my optimism. Although many businesses closed throughout the pandemic, business leaders bounced back, adjusting to changed circumstances and trying out new ideas. I think that with really big problems, it can help to take a bigger view of things.
For example, there were a number of the positive things that have been happening amidst the pandemic, including the following:
Approximately 5.4 million new businesses opened in 2021.
Although life expectancy has decreased some in the last couple of years, it is still far better to be alive today than at any time in the past. We live on average 25 years longer than we did 100 years ago.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/
Motor vehicle deaths and injuries, although jumping during some periods, continues to trend downward.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearly-snapshot
And although electric vehicles have been around for a while and are only slowly gaining traction, during this Super Bowl in 2022, we had more electric car commercials than ever before!
https://www.vox.com/2022/2/13/22927509/super-bowl-2022-gm-bmw-kia-electric-car-ads
And while all this is going on around us, our church is changing too, with a new interim minister, an opening for our music director, virtual meetings, and hybrid worship. These changes can be looked at negatively - we loved Reverend Lora, we miss choir music in the worship, and zoom meetings seem to be non-ending!. And this can be disorienting when you look to church to be the one thing that is solid in the world. And yet, this can be a time to rediscover what is important to us as a church. Music, I have found, is very important, not just to my family but to many in our congregation. Finding what is important to each of us will help us focus the church on the things that now matter to us most and not necessarily what we used to find important. Covid has definitely caused a lot of us to prioritize our lives differently. We have to continue to adapt to the world around us.
As we continue to confront, adapt to, and even sometimes resist changes in our world, let us strive to work together as a church to identify what is important for all of us, as well as for each of us, individually. We have many challenges in our world that can either hold us back or be opportunities for growth. Let us all assume positive intent, that a positive outcome can occur, and that we can all end up stronger in the end when we work together.
- Rusty Nejdl, Board Trustee