Kingfisher Leadership News - March 2021

King sher Leadership

1st March 2021

Kingfisher Leadership news Leading out of lockdown

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here is light at the end of the Whilst mental health had become a more tunnel! Around the world, people acceptable subject to talk about before the in their millions are being pandemic, there will be a large-scale increase of vaccinated and governments are beginning those who struggle with mental health issues. to plan for life in a post-pandemic world.

Many people of all ages have experienced a As leaders we too should be sin the process negative impact on their mental health and this of tarting to plan for this. What particularly includes children who do our priorities need to be? have experienced months from their How can we ensure a positive, friends and school routines. There is healthy restart to the various a looming mental health crisis that aspects of church life? Here are makes just ‘getting back to normal’ Coming out of some of the key considerations highly unlikely lockdown, we we need to plan for A recent news headline read as cannot just hit There is no ‘going back’ follows: ‘Psychics report a boom there can only be ‘going the ‘restart’ since coronavirus as the bereaved forward’. button and seek solace in spiritualism’. It is also ‘When are we getting back to expect things to true that the move to online religious worship has encouraged an normal?’ Is a question that is return to normal increase in people exploring faith, often asked and it is an including (but not exclusively) understandable one. The Christianity. Many have explored Israelites remembered the good Christianity through the medium of aspects of life back in slavery in online church services and have Egypt, and centuries later they come to faith. remembered their life back in Jerusalem as they fond themselves in exile in Babylon. It RELFECT: is human nature to look back with longing, no matter how much we moaned about life What strategies could you engage to back then when we were actually there! But reinforce this message? the truth is, things will be di erent in the post-pandemic world. The landscape has changed.

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Many companies are planning to retain at least a certain level of working from home.

This will have profound implications for ongoing loneliness and isolation

King sher Leadership

1st March 2021

We need to envision people for mission and service again.

The rise of online services has been really helpful in terms of keeping people connected and providing a window for visitors. However, it has also encouraged a sense of passivity that we need to address. Whereas before people would get up, get ready, get in the car or walk to church, where they would be exclusive towards the service in their time and concentration, now people can ‘be at church’ whilst still being in bed, they can go through the service whilst having breakfast, they can listen to a sermon while dong housework, preparing lunch or whatever. Or at the quick change of a website address, they can tune into another church to hear a di erent sermon. In this sense, church has become little di erent to a Net ix box set! If you have sat through a Zoom small group meeting you will also appreciate the passive nature of this. The church meeting or group meeting ends with the words, ‘Good bye!’ and a click on the ‘leave meeting’ button.

We need to focus on encouraging people away from this passive, consumer mentality and back to a focus of mission and service RELFECT: What strategies could you engage to reinforce this message?

We need to acknowledge what has been lost, allow people to grieve, but encourage people to focus forward to a new start.

At this current moment in the UK just over 122,700 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID-19. Worldwide this gure stands at 2.53 million. Many people are grieving the loss of a loved one. Many others have experienced di erent kinds of loss - the loss of employment, the loss of human Saturday, October 10th 2015 interaction, the on-going e ects of ‘long covid’ etc. As mentioned 10am - 4pm above, the impact on the mental health of our The Location: nation (children and adults alike) is hard to The Eventsand Room, exaggerate there is likely to be a tidal wave of Westgate Street Building, Gloucester. mental health needs in the coming months and years. We cannot pretend that things are just getting ‘back to normal’ as lockdown restrictions ease. Neither can we a ord to allow others - or ourselves - to become stuck in the place of grief or fear.

In February’s issue of Leadership News we looked at how God is calling us to a fresh focus on Ephesians 3:20 - “Now all glory to Him, who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine” and this challenge from the Holy Spirit is a vital one to weave into the life of those whom we are leading. However, it would be a great mistake to not give space for people to process their grief and come to terms with all that has been lost, in order to be free to begin to embrace the ‘exceeding, abundant’ new things that He has got in store for us.

RELFECT: What strategies could you engage to reinforce this message?

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