What’s Your Sweet Spot?

May 15, 2020•2 min read

Churches are beginning to make plans for moving back into their buildings – some sooner than others. Some churches are more anxious than others to do so. Many precautions are being identified, planned, and executed to keep everyone safe. These technical steps are very important and must not be overlooked. No one would debate this fact in the least.

When Home Depot was asked recently about their plan for staff and customer safety, they shared a Venn Diagram type of approach with three areas of foci: safety, flexibility, and proactivity. They felt their sweet spot would be at the intersection of those three important priorities. They had a plan. They had identified their three top areas to focus around and provided resourcing and communications around them. Everyone was on the same page and working towards the same outcome.

In the Church Pulse Podcast last week, Barna reported the result of a recent poll indicating 20-33% of churches (likely under 100 in worship attendance) will close this year as a result of the pandemic. How sad! I wonder how many of those churches had identified their sweet spot. I wonder if they had identified their three areas of focus. I wonder if they saw this time as an interruption (just waiting to get back into the building). Or, I wonder if they saw this as the opportunity to reach new people in new ways – a holy disruption!

Let us be sure to do what we technically need to do to be safe. But, let’s not miss this opportunity to also be adaptive. How will the church be different as it gathers again? The culture has changed. The community has changed. The church will need to change, too, if we want to be culturally relevant. We can’t act as though we hit the pause button in March and can simply hit the play button again when we return to our buildings. The world has moved on – with or without the church. One of the top complaints we hear from unchurched people in regards to the church is how irrelevant the church has become. This is our chance to step up. This is our chance to step out. This is our chance to reset. This is our chance to relaunch.

What will your three areas of focus be? What is your sweet spot?

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, a TQ (Transitional Intelligence) Certified Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

Back to Blog