Last weekend, one of my youth asked, “How long is this going to last?” and I had nothing better to say than, “We actually don’t know for sure.” My church’s face-to-face meetings have been suspended through the end of March, and that’s nice and clear, but what about April and May? Without a clear time frame for how long this altered state of affairs will last, those of us with jobs that involve planning weeks ahead can become deeply frustrated by the new complexity of this challenge.
Should we give up on planning altogether and just live week to week? The idea has its merits in the simplicity department, but some things demand advance planning no matter what. Quality takes time, effort, and intentionality. Going from emergency to emergency may keep fires at bay, but it doesn’t lead to a deliberate destination. This is where the art of contingency planning comes in. In other words, it is always wise, even without the heaping measures of uncertainty we are experiencing right now, to consider realistic worst-case scenarios when planning events and have a back-up plan to deal with them. The easiest back-up plan in one’s bag of tricks, of course, is to cancel. For a lot of things, this is the best option. Weird situations like the one our world is in right now have a wonderful way of revealing just how many trivialities lurk on a given calendar. In the ordinary course of events, it is remarkably easy to throw a lot of time, energy, and even money at certain things that demand our attention more from habit than actual purpose. Also, sometimes things that are ordinarily quite important still need to be cancelled to preserve resources to deal with the emergency that caused the cancellation. The other easy back-up plan is to postpone it. This makes the most sense when there’s a clear notion of when the event can happen again. Alternatively, postpone so conservatively that it feels absurd that things could possibly still be like this—one event I was registered for that was supposed to happen this June has been postponed to 2022. In general, the more conservative the plans are, the less danger the plans are in. It’s easier to go through with things that involve few people and few resources than large events that involve large numbers of people and a good deal of money. That brings me to the principle of downscaling. If, God forbid, your wedding date falls in one of the disputed months, I might recommend cancelling or postponing the wedding celebration, but not the actual wedding. It only takes five people to do a legally binding ceremony, and there’s no good reason not to go the simple route when the only other option is to postpone. If, God forbid, an immediate family member dies during this thing, a large in-person memorial service is a bad idea, but an intimate immediate family graveside service can go a long way towards bringing comfort to those closest to the deceased. In less drastic situations than weddings and funerals, downscaling can mean honoring the spirit of planned trips to see family by firing up the phone lines instead. It can mean having tea with a friend in front of a camera instead of at a coffee shop. It can mean games and movies at home instead of going to an amusement park or movie theater. Thinking of alternative ways to do things can be a fun thought exercise. One of the weirdest hobbies I had in middle school was to look around my school gym during lunch time and try to think of interesting ways to use the space for concerts and plays. I didn’t do this because my father was the music teacher and occasionally found my ideas helpful, but because the exercise of doing it amused me in the same way that others find crosswords and su doku amusing. I loved event planning as a hobby growing up (and now as a part of my job) because there’s this rush when things click into place that’s even more satisfying than filling in the last number of the su doku, the last letter of the crossword, or even—and this is saying something—the last piece of an actual physical puzzle. Making enormous changes in plans on the fly can be a real pain, but just like su doku and crosswords, your ability to plan quickly and make adaptations on the fly can be built over time. The more you practice, the faster it will come to you. Whether you cancel, postpone, or downscale around everything that’s happening, learning to think adaptively about planning now will make you all the sharper about it when the restrictions lift.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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