Lately I’ve been thinking about the “Stockdale paradox.” Not familiar with it? The concept is from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest ranking prisoner during the Vietnam War, spending 8 years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp after his plane was shot down.

Stockdale told Collins that the key to his survival was that he never lost hope that he would prevail in the end, but he also accepted the brutal reality that he would spend a long time in the most dire conditions.  At one point, Collins asked Stockdale, “Who didn’t make it out?” (from the POW experience). Stockdale answered, “The optimists.” He explained that they were the ones who were convinced that their release from prison was imminent, and he concluded that “they died of a broken heart.”

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the perspective of many church and ministry leaders was “we’ll switch to digital for a couple weeks and then get back to normal.”  But with each passing day, “normal” seems more distant and what we’ll “get back to” is more challenging. Perhaps we were being optimists in those early days, but I think we were just ignorant.

Today we need to embrace the Stockdale paradox: “confront the most brutal facts of our current reality” AND “retain faith that we will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.” This means admitting that reopening is not just around the corner. It calls for us to be honest that we won’t gather again, in the same ways as in the past, for quite some time. We may even decide that it’s better to continue with remote ministry than to regather with restrictions such as limited attendance, required masks, closed children’s classes and childcare, worship without singing, deep cleaning, and more.

But leaning into the Stockdale paradox also calls for us to proclaim our confidence that God is at work. It challenges us to hold true to our mission even as we’re reinventing our practices. It invites us to celebrate the ways that our ministries are continuing and that lives are being changed. And it reminds us that the story of prevailing in the face of overwhelming obstacles is at the core of our faith. 

People aren’t looking for a Pollyanna leader. They don’t want an Eeyore either. They’re looking for leaders like Jim Stockdale, who don’t sugarcoat the hard truths and yet maintain an unwavering faith that they will prevail. Is that how you’re leading? 

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The helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and 7 others had many tragic storylines. One that struck me is that the helicopter had almost risen above the clouds before it began its fateful descent. If the pilot had reached that point, he would have been able to see clearly and the story would have had a very different ending. 

Church and ministry leaders today also feel like they’re flying blind. The dramatic changes caused by the coronavirus have occurred at an incredible speed. The future seems more foggy than ever. And without the ability to gather corporately, we’re missing one of our best sources of information. It’s easy to generalize that people must be anxious, but it seems impossible to know exactly what they’re thinking and feeling without our typical face-to-face conversations. So how can you lead well if you don’t have a good read on the people you’re leading? 

Is our only choice to blindly forge ahead? I don’t think so. Here are four ways that you can clear some of the corona-driven fog:

• Meet virtually with your leadership team. You’ve probably already met with staff, but have you had a virtual meeting with your lay leadership team? When you do this, don’t immediately jump into addressing the urgent issues that are on your mind. Start by asking how they are feeling and what they are hearing. 
• Create an online prayer portal. Technology makes it easy to receive confidential prayer requests through your web site or app. If you haven’t already created this system, set it up and make it prominent on the home page. Be sure to have a process in place to pray for these requests and to follow-up with the people that submit them. If you want to take it a step further, categorize the types of prayer requests to get a broader sense of what people are most concerned about.
• Leverage existing groups. Your already have a structure for connecting with people – your small groups or Sunday school classes. So ask each of the group leaders to reach out to the members of their groups and report back. If you want to be more systematic, give them 3 or 4 specific questions to ask and a format for summarizing what they learn. 
• Take a poll. The final, and most data-rich option, is to do a simple online survey. This can be created quickly and distributed by email so that everyone in your congregation is invited to respond. Questions on a poll could include: (1) How anxious are you right now? (2) What are you most concerned about? (3) How can we best serve you? The first two can have dropdown answers, which makes it easier to tabulate results.  You can come up with your own, but whatever you do, keep it simple.

Part 2 of this blog will address ways to improve clarity with your finances. We can’t get rid of coronavirus or fog, but we don’t have to fly blind in these uncertain times. 

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