Shortly after World War I, a popular song captured an important question that is relevant again today, “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?).”  The concern at that time was whether American soldiers from rural areas would come back home to work the farm after they’d experienced the city life and European culture of Paris.

Today, the concern church leaders have is how the Church will come out of this experience of quarantine and social isolation. Many wonder how the “new normal” will look and what does their local church need to do to adapt.

Prior to the coronavirus and the shutdown of gatherings, most churches were already experiencing decline. Everyone knows this. But one of the most impactful trends of this decline was not that fewer people were attending church, it was that regular attendees were attending less…