Life.Church Senior Pastor Craig Groeschel has encouraged church leaders who are feeling “a sense of uselessness, exhaustion” and “burnout” coming out of the pandemic to allow the needs of their communities and the power of the Gospel to compel them to fulfill their God-given mission.
At the recent Exponential Reset Summit Groeschel said — Pastors need to “lead with confidence” moving forward and need to examine the “whys behind what we do.”
The Oklahoma pastor and bestselling author said church leaders are dealing with “a sense of loss and grief” as their churches reopen and attendance is low, while others have seen an increase in numbers over the last few months.
Groeschel added –“I don’t want to rebuild to the past; I want to build to the future.”
Groeschel, who contracted COVID-19 last March, told pastors: “You’re not going to get everybody back that was coming 18 months ago. Just not gonna happen. … I wouldn’t wake up talking about getting everybody back; I’d wake up thinking, ‘How do we reach the lost? How do we assimilate them into a larger Body of Christ? And let that mission overwhelm any grief you have of what you’ve lost. Let it move you past any sense of feeling displaced.”
The theme of this year’s RESET Summit was “Leading With Confidence in the Post-COVID Church.” Other speakers included Francis Chan, Matt Chandler, and pastor and author Pete Scazzero.