We've been collecting and curating the best resources we can find for Christian leaders who are seeking to respond with faith, wisdom, and love to the coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic. We've grouped them into 3 categories below. We'll update this as we go.
Theological resources
How to think and talk with people about a pandemic.
- This is still probably the best theological, pastoral, and practical resource we've found, so it gets top billing: Love in the Time of Coronavirus, by Andy Crouch
- Esau McCaulley wrote about the seemingly paradoxical situation we are in, when loving our neighbor means keeping our distance: The Christian Response to Coronavirus: Stay Home
- From Kenneth Tanner: Trust in the Human God (this could also be pastoral, but it's magnificently theological as well), and maintaining community and courage in the midst of the crisis.
- Another one from Andy Crouch (and others), talking about how churches will need to rethink everything going forward (we're not going to "get back to normal"): Leading Beyond the Blizzard: Why Every Organization Is Now a Startup
- An interview Andy Crouch did with Mark Labberton on leveraging our greatest resource during a time of change: trust.
- N.T. Wright reminds us that Christianity offers no answers about coronavirus, but that's okay because it's not supposed to. It's a great article on lament.
- Andy Crouch on how Christians gathering in small numbers created an alternative culture in the midst of Rome's worst-case scenario.
Leadership resources
How to care for and lead others (and yourself), because we're not meant to live like this, and this will affect our mental and spiritual health.
- From the good folks at Praxis Labs: Strategies for Winter: Redemptive Leadership in Survival Times
- Here's a letter I (Ben S) sent my (small, Anglican) church after we first deciding to cancel our in-person worship service.
- Here's a letter we the following week about how we are seeking to stay connected in a time when we can't gather as usual.
- Mandy Smith's on learning to employ playfulness as an antidote to anxiety,
Derek Vreeland's pointers on pastoring a politically-polarized people. - A special podcast episode from us: Leading in the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic
- From David Fitch: The Potential of Faithful Presence During a Pandemic
- A couple good articles from Lyman Stone, who is going through this pandemic in Hong Kong: The church must be a refuge in the midst of fear and Christianity Has Been Handling Epidemics for 2000 Years.
- From HBR: That Discomfort You're Feeling Is Grief
Practical resources
How the virus actually works, what to do with worship services, how to do the tech stuff, recommendations, etc.
- One of the key aspects of reducing the deadliness of the spread of COVID-19 is "flattening the curve" of how many people have the disease at any given time. Here's an explanation. Here's another.
One of the things people need in times like these is simply solid scientific information about what's happening, so here's a good explainer video from "Science Mike" on what COVID-19 is, how it spreads, some of the misinformation that's out there, and some practical ways we can all help "flatten the curve." - A special podcast episode from us: Being the Church in the Time of Coronavirus: Imagination and Possibility
- A Liturgy During a Pandemic, by Porter Taylor
- A Litany Amidst the COVID-19 Outbreak, by Michael Kurth
- From W. David O. Taylor: How to Lead Online Worship Without Losing Your Body--Our Soul
- Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has put out a resources page for churches adapting to social isolation.
- Curt Thompson on why Zoom meetings are so exhausting, and some good advice on how to cope.
Unrelated to coronavirus
Because not everything can be about a pandemic 24/7. Here are some diversions that we've found helpful:
- Here's a deer exploring the beauty of a cathedral. I found this strangely moving.
- Here's a sheep that escaped a farm and spent 6 years in the mountains, grew 60 pounds of wool, and when wolves tried to eat him, they couldn't because "their teeth could not penetrate the floof."
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