“What happened? How did it make you feel? What did you learn? What would you do differently?” 

These are questions a mentor in seminary encouraged me to ask when experiencing something difficult or disorienting. It may have been a lesson that fell flat. A conversation that went sideways. A holiday with family that was less than hoped for. He would encourage me to think through these questions and my response to them so I would grow from the experience and, hopefully, be better prepared for the next time a similar situation arose.

This kind of “Monday morning quarterbacking” is quite common. Many staff, session, and leadership team meetings will engage in this sort of reflection. So, when looking back on what I experienced in 2020, what have I learned? What did those months of isolation, distancing, and online worship teach me?

The Need for Physical Connection

The first takeaway is the most obvious: the need for physical community. Of course, leveraging technology in order for the church to sing and hear God’s word was helpful. However, the lack of physical proximity was significant. 

I had always believed that our physicality was important. God created a physical world and gave us physical bodies. I had preached sermons that spoke about how we worship with our whole being – lifting hands, singing songs, tasting the wine and the bread – but you don’t realize exactly how important these things are until you go without them. 

The need for physical togetherness hit home when on our first Sunday back we shared the Lord’s Supper for the first time in months. After fencing the Table, I called the people to come forward and receive the bread and wine, saying, “The fast is over. It is time to feast.” Many in the congregation, myself included, came to touch, taste, eat, and drink with tears in our eyes. 

There’s a reason why Paul speaks in Ephesians 5:19 of “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (emphasis mine). It’s because we’re a physical community. Isolation isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. We are made for community, and community is best when it’s near. 

Building Perseverance

Another significant lesson that I learned was the importance of self-care in order to build resiliency. I realize this phrase is so common that it feels cliche, and I admit that I used to roll my eyes when I heard it. But when I experienced what a friend called “compassion fatigue,” I knew I needed some support. 

After the pandemic restrictions were lifted, I thought everything would return to normal. But many people were still feeling the frustration and latent anxiety stemming from months of isolation. I had many conversations with congregants who were angry and disappointed, not at me, but at what we had been through. 

As a pastor, it’s common to hear people’s emotional pain, and I consider it a privilege to be invited into the deepest parts of people’s hearts. But after the lockdown, it was like a waterfall of emotion. People had gone for so long without physical presence that when they had it, they needed to release all their disappointments and frustrations. 

I found myself internalizing these conversations; they weighed heavily upon me. But when I could no longer cope with the weight, I started to mentally check out. I noticed that I would be daydreaming as people poured out their hearts to me. I was experiencing compassion fatigue.

I brought up my problem in two separate conversations with friends who are counselors. Both friends said the same thing: “You’re carrying everyone’s frustration. What are you doing with it, and what are you doing with your own?” After hearing this twice in two days, I found a counselor and started to process my own fatigue and anxiety. Of course, COVID-19 and its aftereffects were unique, but my exhaustion, sadness, anxiety, and stress weren’t limited to a pandemic. 

Four years later, I still talk occasionally with my counselor. The Lord showed me that if I’m to give myself to others, I have to have something to give. I’ve learned that I need to think about self-care and emotional wellbeing before circumstances become difficult. In other words, we prepare for how we’ll respond to hard occasions by preparing when things aren’t hard.

An aspect of pursuing emotional well-being is learning to lament. This can be hard for some who believe emotional distress has no place in the Christian life. However, the Psalms are filled with lament. 

Consider Psalm 77. The psalmist brings his honest questions to the Lord: Will the Lord…never again be favorable? (v. 7); Has his steadfast love forever ceased? (v. 8); Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? (v. 9). The psalmist inquires of God and is honest with him. Yet, he’s not honest in order to remain despondent, but so he can have his faith directed to God.

The lament Psalms aren’t complaint fests. They’re honest reflections that lead to hopeful assurance in the Lord. If we’re going to build perseverance for times of struggle, then we need to learn to lament biblically and make space for others to do the same.

Deep Friendships

There are other aspects to self-care. Physical activity is important, as is personal time and those moments of reading or journaling when a profound truth becomes evident. Hobbies are also good. These, as well as other pursuits, are helpful, and I encourage us to have these in our lives. Yet when I look back, what was most beneficial to me was how the Lord had provided me with deep friendships to lean upon. 

A few years before the pandemic, a pastor invited me to be part of a pastor’s cohort. The pastor, a former seminary classmate, was somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend when he asked if I wanted to be part of a group of pastors who would be committed to supporting, loving, challenging, and caring for each other. “I need some friends,” he said. “I bet you do too.” 

He was right. 

In time, this group of men began to email, text, meet on retreats, and call one another to support each other in the work of ministry. We began to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and rejoice with each other’s successes (Romans 12:15a). When difficulties arose, these were the first people (after my wife) to hear about them, and they would offer correction, encouragement, and prayer.  

Even before the pandemic, I experienced the benefits of this group. But during the pandemic, the text messages, phone calls, and Zoom conversations provided a place to lament, vent, laugh, and be reminded of God’s care for his church. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to go through that season without men in similar situations to talk to. Every pastor in America was trying to figure out how to care for the church during this unprecedented time. Yet, because God had providentially given me these men, in addition to my church staff and officers, I had other pastors to lean on as I also tried to figure out how to proceed.

Final Encouragement

I’m sure no one wants to live through an event like the 2020 lockdown ever again. Yet we know that until Jesus returns, there will be hardship, pain and sadness, disease and joblessness, strife and division. Even if I don’t personally experience all of those things, I will know my congregants’ experiences of them. When we weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15b), we can’t help but feel some of the weight they bear. 

We prepare for those times of difficulty during seasons of peace, health, and joy. We strengthen relationships so we have people to turn to in our sadness. We build emotional resiliency for those times when we’re exhausted. What I learned from the pandemic was that we prepare for hardship in times of calm. 

And so, I encourage us – not just pastors, but all of us – not to neglect the fellowship of believers (Hebrews 10:25). We must lean into our relationships and pursue those men and women who will love and support, challenge and pray for us. 

It’s easy to assume that people in the church will automatically have relationships like this, but one thing I’ve learned is that living with people around us is different from living with people who know us. Ask yourself, “Who are the people I share my fears and hopes with? Who will love me by speaking challenging words as well as words of grace to me? Am I known?” 

If you’re coming up empty, let me encourage you to be like my friend who took a great risk by calling me. He wisely suspected that if he was feeling alone there probably were others who were feeling the same way. He courageously invited me to something better than mere acquaintanceship. I’m exhorting you to follow my friend’s example and pursue deep relational connections. 

The importance of physical connection, lament, building resiliency, and deep relationships, these are but a few things the Lord taught me during 2020.

John Pennylegion serves as pastor of Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Virginia.