West Columbia, SC (Paul Kirby) – A volunteer from Brookland United Methodist Church recently penned an article explaining the church’s operational and adaptive changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. After being written, the article ran in American Steeples, a publication that, according to their website, “produces and curates content that sparks your curiosity and nourishes hearts, minds, and spirits.“ It was so well received that others from across the nation have asked to use it in hopes of integrating its ideas into their churches too.
For Joey Yandle, 33, a current and lifelong member of the historic Meeting Street church and its media coordinator, the pandemic didn’t throw a wrench into the machinery of the church’s operations, rather it provided a wrench with which the church’s leadership and congregants could build and expand upon new, modern, and innovative ways to spread the word of God and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ while serving their community. The leaders did this not only for the existing congregation, but also for people of all ages, races, and histories of organized religion. People who were searching out guidance, stability, and the love of a higher power in their lives through church during these harrowing times.
Always very active in the church, since the pandemic first became recognized as the world changing event it is, Yandle, along with the help of many others and the support of the church’s leadership, has conceived and helped implement programs that are a beacon to the community. He and the leadership of BUMC did this by making changes in the church that would have been unheard of years ago.
This church, located at 541 Meeting Street in West Columbia, has more than 100 years of history in its past. With that many years of traditions and members that have attended for generations, sometimes change can be unheard of, resisted, and very painful. Understandable so, any changes to the church, “my great-granddaddy helped build,” can shock senior members of the congregation that have a deep and abiding love for the church and its traditional way of doing things.
Yandle’s article not only gives step-by-step details of the changes Brookland United Methodist put into place; it also explains the successes the church has reaped because of these changes.
Use this link to go to Yandle’s article in American Steeples and read it in its entirety. If considered, It could help other individuals and congregations to change, adapt, and overcome as the world and its population still searches for the new normal in their everyday lives: https://americanasteeples.com/surviving-hard-times-in-life-as-a-church/
