I recently taught a class on blogging. I had advised the class to have a list of at least 50 blog topics in mind before they start to write. That was their homework assignment.
That proved to be a challenge!
I presented an approach I call the Liberal Arts Approach to Brainstorming.
Look at the blogs mission in a global way and then start to apply various disciplines to everything you see.
Keep switching hats.
How would the scientist see this? Break it down by area of concentration. (The chemist, botanist, geography buff, social scientists, psychologist, geologist, ecologist, etc.)
How about people in the arts? (Writers, artists, poets, musicians (all kinds), dancers, chefs, etc.)
How about people in the humanities? (Philosophy, teachers, journalists, linguists, historians, theologians, etc.)
How about business people? How about sports people and entertainment people?
How about people at different stages or stations in life?
How would pros see the topic as opposed to amateurs and novices?
How would the views of older and younger people differ? Students vs professionals?
How would the white-collar world see things differently than blue-collar?
What can each of these learn from one another?
It also helps to apply the senses. How can you help your readers see, hear, smell, taste and feel the mission of your blog.
Start mixing and matching. The possibilities are infinite!
Wearing all those hats can be tiring but it will help you come up with ideas!
Very few churches have blogs. Some pastors start one but usually give up after a month or two. Results are not immediate and other things take precedence.
That’s a shame. There is transformational power in blogging regularly—daily if possible.
Why don’t more congregations start blogs?
There are four major roadblocks.
Because blogging is new and untested.
Because it is work.
Because no one knows who should do it.
Because they don’t know how to start.
Because it’s not in the budget.
When a congregation can overcome these roadblocks, they will have created a valuable mission tool.
People blog with the hopes of being read. For some bloggers, it is enough to have a readership of a dozen colleagues. Others strive for bigger numbers.
Numbers aren’t that important in evaluating other church activities. Many churches are pleased to reach fewer than 50 people each week in church—and we keep doing this without question!
Our 2×2 blog, a project of Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls, has about 200 readers each day between subscribers and “unique” visitors. (We consider you all “unique”)
We consider ourselves just starting out. There is great potential.
To reach people is certainly a goal. We reach more people today than when we had our own brick and mortar church. (That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like our church home back, please.)
At the end of our first year of blogging, our average daily readership was 25. Today it’s more than 100 with another 100 or more subscribers.
We have been blogging for two and one half years now. I can say “we” because, although I am the “voice” of 2×2, our members are very involved. They discuss 2×2, they send ideas they’d like to see posted. They encourage. They prod. I just shape and organize the voice of our congregation.
As we grow 2×2 we are discovering that the daily exercise of blogging benefits US. We are becoming more conscious of our faith. We have become a thinking congregation.
That may, in some congregations, be the role of a pastor—to lead congregational thought. But we haven’t had a dedicated pastor since 2006—and maybe that’s why we were able to pioneer our blog.
Blogging has become part of our parish discipline. There is something magical about putting ideas into words and taking care in publishing them—especially when you know that people are looking for ammunition to use against you. We know how Paul might have felt!
Blogging forces us to think through issues, be careful with facts, anticipate objections and reconcile them in our thinking before we publish.
We write about issues in the church and we do so with passion. When we visit other churches we sense that the people are only marginally aware of church issues. The Church cannot witness effectively when its people exist in marginal awareness.
Perhaps the real value of blogging is in understanding scripture.
Spreading the Word is part of our congregational mission. And it drives our traffic. We write about scripture as much as we write about anything. 600 people find our website every week when they search for scriptural help.
Through our blog, we explore scripture before Sunday and after Sunday. It has become our own educational curriculum.
Clergy are aware of the liturgical year and the corresponding three-year lectionary cycle and how the various scriptures weave together in telling the greater story.
However, in many churches, the weekly scriptures are “sprung” on worshipers. They may be unaware that we are in Lectionary Year A, B or C or how the four weekly passages relate to one another. The pastor comments on usually just one of the scriptures for 20 minutes.
We use our blog to expand the experience of scripture. We begin writing about next Sunday’s scripture on Monday or Tuesday. We usually have two posts before Sunday arrives. Everyone knows what scriptures will be read when they come to church on Sunday. It is not unusual for our members to discuss them before worship begins or as we drive to one of our visits.
We are not hearing the Sunday scriptures for the first time during worship. When the pastor begins to preach, he or she is adding to our experience. We record our Sunday experience on our blog and can build on that experience.
And so our understanding of scripture becomes more central to our lives, and we can apply it to our secular endeavors seamlessly.
Blogging makes you think.
How do you overcome the roadblocks?
Get started. Start by posting twice a week and build.
If you dedicate yourselves to blogging for one year, you will never want to give it up.
2×2 has written extensively on social media for churches. Just type a topic into our site search engine to find help in getting started. Or contact us. We want other churches to harness this tool. We’ll be glad to help.
Seth Godin, one of the earliest and most prolific bloggers, celebrates his 5000th post today. Congratulations, Seth. You make a difference in many worlds!
2×2 is approaching 1000 posts. We have a way to go!
In Seth’s reflection on his exercise in sharing an observation with the world daily for more than ten years, Seth writes:
My biggest surprise? That more people aren’t doing this. Not just every college professor (particularly those in the humanities and business), but everyone hoping to shape opinions or spread ideas. Entrepreneurs. Senior VPs. People who work in non-profits. Frustrated poets and unknown musicians… Don’t do it because it’s your job, do it because you can.
Why don’t more preachers blog? Surely they see themselves as shaping opinions, values and spreading ideas.
Blogging is a gradual art. It’s like having coffee or tea with your neighbor every day. The bonds build slowly.
Once a day, you take the time to share.
Once a day, you take the time to think through issues and ideas that might benefit other people. Writing really pushes the thought process!
Once a day, you see something new in the ordinary.
As you search for ideas, you will start to connect with other thinkers and bloggers. Their thoughts will enrich your own. You will benefit personally.
Day by day, you will build your voice and influence.
Why don’t more preachers blog? It’s work. The rewards are not immediate. It’s not part of the job description.
Preachers still think the world is going to come to them.
I’ve noticed a few church websites that contain blog entries. They tend to be once a week for about six weeks before they drop off. I remember one that I opened eagerly from the link on the home page. The announcement was so enthusiastic! It had just one blog entry that had been posted more than a year earlier.
2×2 challenges pastors to blog daily for a year. If that’s too hard, blog daily for three months. Any shorter and you won’t learn from the experience.
Do it first thing. Share with your community before 9 am. Or post at the end of the day—whatever rhythm works for you.
See if it doesn’t make a difference in your community. It may also make a difference in you!
As Seth notes:
I’ve never once met a successful blogger who questioned the personal value of what she did.
2x2virtualchurch.com has been an experiment in using social media in the realm of religion. We started in February 2011, following a WordPress how-to book.
Wait a minute? I just wrote “we.”
2×2 is a “we.” Our members subscribe, comment on posts (usually off line), suggest direction and lend support. We get together every week and discuss 2×2’s direction. But the writing on 2×2, for the most part, is an “I” job.
One thing I’ve learned about social media—it is hard to write that word “I.” I posted for nearly a year without using it. I was thinking about “we,” so I thought it was the fair way to represent our mission.
However, in this journey of discovery as an online ministry, we/I have discovered that the word “I” is more powerful than the communal “we.”
“We” can become a crutch. The person saying “we” can say with confidence almost anything. There will be someone in a group that thinks that way. The more and louder you speak, the less likely those that disagree are going to speak up.
“We” can be an excuse for thinkers with ideas that aren’t fully cooked. It becomes an army of phantom support — like the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain and what do you see?
“We” can become theologically lazy. “Well, if that’s what everyone else thinks, they must be right.”
It can take centuries to undo the sometimes tragic results of “we” thinking.
This is especially hard in church work. Church/congregations are communal in nature. We are used to expressing ourselves as a group. That’s what church hierarchy is about—making sure the voice of the church is authentic to the word of God.
The practice began with authentic concern but has morphed in the modern world (and probably long before the modern world) to being a shield—protecting influence and sanitizing the behaviors of church leaders who we all know are just as human as everyone else—capable of sacrifical love, tempted by selfish interests. It becomes crippling to the millions of church thinkers who don’t have a platform in the church — unless they blog!
When we consider the consequences the power the word “I” carries in church work, it is no wonder we refrain from using it. A Martin Luther or his modern namesake—King, a Ghandhi, a Bonhoeffer don’t pop up until things are really, really off track. Saying “I” in the “we” society of church can make life’s journey pretty rocky.
2×2 has learned that “I” is a more powerful word than “we.” The more personal our posts have become in recent months, the faster our traffic has grown. Admitting that I am one person within the group that sponsors 2×2 (Redeemer Lutheran Church, East Falls) is honest. People connect to individuals more easily than to groups. Online readers appreciate honesty. They’ll keep you honest, too! A writer thinks twice when he uses the word I in the sentence.
In two years, 2×2 has grown from one visitor per month to 2500 per month, doubling its monthly average in the first two months of 2013. (We suspect little Redeemer, has become the congregation with the biggest following and widest reach of any church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America —SEPA/ELCA.)
There is power in the vulnerability of the word “I.” That one letter is difficult, at first, to type. The advice was always there in the how-to books: write as an individual. It takes a while to become comfortable with the idea that yes, these are MY ideas. I am putting them out there for others to criticize. It becomes powerful when others add their 2¢. The “we” that “I” serve in writing this blog starts to make a difference.
That’s how we all grow in faith. By practicing the “I” word. And remembering that every “I” is a child of God. Every “I” that is part of Redeemer matters. That’s the story I tell.
In general, the sermon is a dead medium. Quite possibly, a sermon is well-reasoned and based in sound theology. It may impart important information about understanding the text. It may be delivered from the heart even when read.
This is accepted in the world of church. Preachers preach. Congregations listen.
Yet frequently the medium of sermon, central to the church experience, lacks the power that live interaction can give—even though they ARE live! Ironic! Live may not be the most lively!
The temptation, which makes sense, is to preach to the people who are there—to meet the expectations of the people who give their offerings—until the offerings run out.
Today there are far fewer people in church listening. Most of the listeners are over 50 and presumably still have an attention span that lasts longer than 20 minutes (even if our short-term memories are just a memory). There are practically no children in church.
The offerings are going to run out.
Yet the delivery of the 20-minute sermon is still the norm. Preachers preach. Congregations listen. Seminaries are still working hard to teach preachers to do this well.
Some of them do!
Many of them don’t.
One of the faults of the preaching world is that no one reviews or critiques pastors once they complete seminary training. Preachers rarely hear other preachers speak. They are isolated in those pulpits! They are what they are.
There is no place more status quo in the Church than the pulpit.
We listeners at Redeemer have heard a lot of sermons from a lot of pastors. Our versatility in listening to preachers is a by-product of having no pastor most of the time for a decade or so. We had supply pastors. This has continued in our rejected status within the church as we attend other churches and listen to an unending string of “supply” pastors.
In our experience, we have heard some supply pastors give the same sermon unaltered a half-dozen times. We’ve heard a few others ramble about the morning news — preaching the newspaper was the theory. Failure to prepare was often more evident.
We’ve had sermons read to us. We’ve had sermons rambled at us. We have become familiar with formula sermons that build to a climax and drop us right into the post-sermon hymn.
We have heard some good sermons. Good as they were, they aren’t remembered long.
Preaching in a sanctuary is an opportunity to shine—to inspire and reach each set of ears in a personal way. But there is something about the format that no longer resonates with today’s world. It may be too late to recover.
The missing element may be immediacy. Three examples.
We live in a world where news is instantaneous. We are likely to hear it from a stranger nearby—like the guy on a cell phone in the theater lobby during intermission who loudly reports the score of the playoff game to every disgruntled mate who was forced to choose between the theater and the TV screen.
I was in an airplane when the news broke that ObamaCare had passed. Each passenger was busy about their own business, until a young-20-something announced the news. A lively debate was struck crossing the aisles and over the backs of seats. It continued as we filed out the aisle and into the terminal.
I attended a boychoir concert one Sunday afternoon. The choir was very professional and poised. Suddenly, and fortunately in between numbers, the back row of teen boys erupted with inexplicable joy. One of the tenors was wired and had passed the news that the local football favorite had scored a winning touchdown.
News is fresh. Vital. Interesting, Relevant. Necessary to our lives. Catalytic at is finest.
We seem to have lost these qualities in the telling of the Good News.
Delivering the Good News once a week may have fit the slower-paced life of yesteryear. It may still have an important place in today’s world, but it is not the most effective way to reach the most people.
Yet we listeners are locked in. Congregations still pay a hefty fee, often a mission-crippling fee, to make sure there is a preacher present in the sanctuary each week, preaching to a dwindling audience. It is live, but it is not lively.
Blogging, on the other hand, is live in a different sense. It is interactive. It reaches beyond sanctuary walls. It creates a following who are motivated to share. It allows you to address local problems in real time — not waiting until Sunday to muster the energy of the faithful to act. (By then they will probably do little more than pray.) Blogging is THE medium made for modern preachers.
Very, very few have been able to switch gears.
Change comes hard. But it does come. For the art of preaching to survive, it must adapt to the modern audience.
Yesterday’s post talked about the characteristics of a viral post — a post that readers share in large numbers. One of the characteristics is that a viral post is actionable.
An actionable post results in a reader doing something. When marketers use the term, they mean the reader either bought something or took a step towards buying something. Marketers have embraced blogging because they see it as a customer relations, customer retention and sales tool—all in one.
Churches have the same needs but use evangelical/ecclesiastic terminology.
Yet churches seem to be puzzled by the blogging genre. They tend to see a blog as an online musing . . . an extension of the sermon. It is so much more!
The easiest way to move away from this thinking and to begin to harness the power of the web is for churches to think in terms of writing blogs which prompt action.
In church terms, this could mean a number of things.
Here are some actions that could result from congregational blog posts:
A reader might subscribe to your blog or the congregational newsletter. Your congregation could then reach subscribers with a short message every day. (They probably won’t sign up to read sermons, though!) 2×2 has about 63 subscribers and another 100 or more who subscribe via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. We reach more than 500 new readers every week! (Imagine what we could do with a building!)
A reader might share your post with someone else. I occasionally send links to Pastor Swanson’s daily emails, 7 Minutes A Day. I find them to be inspirational and motivating and hope others will, too.
A reader might take some action they might not otherwise take. Pastor Swanson’s posts have prompted me to read more of the Bible and look at familiar Bible passages in a new light.
A reader might become interested in a new ministry. A congregation could blog about homelessness and inspire someone to do something about it.
A post might inspire someone to make a donation (sweat or dollars).
A post might inspire a new understanding or make a new connection. I can’t remember how our posts led us to ministry friendships with Christians in Kenya, Pakistan, and Sweden, but they did!
A blog post can lead to new alliances. Our early posts on the value of Vacation Bible Schools created alliances with like-minded Christians in other areas of the United States.
A reader may comment on a post and that may spark an online conversation.
A reader just might be inspired to faith and salvation.
How A Blog Might Impact A Common Scenario
In yesterday’s post, I posed a scenario where a congregation became aware that their neighborhood was changing. A new and very different ethnic group was moving in and changing the demographic. This isn’t a stretch. It’s happening all over our city (Philadelphia). A common result within our denomination is to declare churches closed in changing neighborhoods. We can only guess that they feel their message will not fly with the changing demographic. (Actually, we are not guessing, that’s what our church was told by our regional body.) This is foreign to the biblical mission of the church—and unnecessary—especially if congregations use social media as a mission tool!
What if a congregation started blogging about the changes in the neighborhood in a way which fostered interaction between the settled population and the newcomers. If they did so regularly, it would be noticed within a few weeks. Doors would open. Introductions would be made. When the new population began to show an interest as neighbors, they would feel like they already know the people who sponsored such a welcoming blog.
Civic organizations would likely notice, too. The church would gain respect in the neighborhood. The voice of the Church might carry more weight. Mainline news might notice. The possibilities are endless.
Actionable blogs should be a goal of every congregation.
Many of these benefits can be achieved without a blog. But there is no denying that blogging amplifies the likelihood and the reach of ministry efforts. It is work. It is a new discipline. But it is exciting. Time must be carved out to learn new skills. But the potential for ministry is so much greater with a blog than without. Frankly, the time invested in blogging will steal time from ministry efforts which may be traditional but which are not resulting in church growth. No real loss.
One last thing!
An actionable post should end with what in business is termed a Call To Action. This can be as simple as posing a question. Or it could be a simple form.
Here’s our Call to Action!
If you’d like help getting started in social media or blogging, submit the brief form below. We’ll see if we can be of service or point you in a helpful direction.
One of the first things you will encounter when you join Twitter is the self-serving tweeter who bombards followers with sales pitches ten times a day. A real turn-off for the whole platform.
No one likes to be sold. Especially in matters of faith.
Your tweets should be a gentle and welcome presence in your followers’ online life.
My early experience on Twitter was negative. I followed a couple of local people I know. Every time I opened my Twitter account there was a sea of invitations to seminars from these two people. No business tips. No inspiration. I stopped opening my Twitter account. I’m still working to overcome that aversion.
Approach Twitter with the intention of helping other people. Ask yourself what kind of message you would welcome. Peruse the messages of the people Twitter forced you to follow to get going. Which are fun and helpful? Which are shamelessly self-promotional.
I followed National Geographic as a neo-Twitter user. They don’t overdo it and their tweets link to fascinating articles that have impacted my thinking.
Inc., on the other hand, bombarded me with pop-up ads—so many that I wanted to quit the whole program. I couldn’t even see what they were about for all the ads. I will be glad to “unfollow” them, no matter how great they may be.
Some others have linked me to blogs that have been inspiring, providing plenty of fuel for my own writing. I will enjoy following them and when the relationship is built, I may do business with them.
Use your experience to imagine how your tweets will be received. If you don’t care about your readers beyond the numbers, if you don’t mind tricking and manipulating them, then copy the techniques of those that treat their followers as targets. If you want to build long-term relationships that are two-way, craft your tweets to enrich the lives of your followers — not your pocketbook.
We tweeted a link to this compelling advice from one of social media’s leading voices.
Since we are just starting with Twitter and have a small following, we are providing a link on this post. His arguments are on target. Church leaders need only substitute the ecclesiastic equivalent to the business world to understand the analogy. His advice applies to any church serious about mission.
Here’s the link. Please, TWEET it as part of our experiment.
Facebook, the king and queen of social media, has some problems as a platform for churches.
To be used well, it is a lot of work.
It is unabashedly about monetization of cyberspace.
The rules change frequently.
It can easily become more intimidate than a congregation of unrelated people want to be part of. Facebook rules just changed recently to make posts more public than many users ever intended their Facebook pages to be. We’ll wait with everyone else for the fallout on that.
Facebook has been embraced by business and some nonprofits. They are more likely to have a top-down structure with monetary and hierarchical controls. In other words, Facebook will be part of somebody’s job. It might be their whole job. Few churches can afford that!
Twitter on the other hand comes with some control. You can create a following but you can direct your “tweets.”
The Twitter platform is stripped to the bone. You are limited to 140 characters (practically 120 characters). Who can’t write one sentence a day!?
Let’s look at Twitter. What is it, anyway?
Twitter is a social media platform first designed for people to answer the question, “What are you doing?”
People send simple, short messages. No pictures. No video. No fancy type.
The first reaction from the public, the echoes of which can still be heard, was “I don’t care what you are doing!”
But some people kept reporting their activities to the world anyway.
They soon learned the difference between “This sandwich is delicious.” and “Route 95 is backed up 20 miles. Stay away!”
Slowly with explosive bursts of potential, the world began to realize that there is power in caring about what someone else is doing and how we can influence what happens to them.
Does that not sound mission-oriented?
The power of Twitter is in making connections. Once those connections are made. It is really up to us what we do with them. Twitter is the spark.
There is a good explanation of this power in the book The Tao of Twitter, by Mark Schaefer. There are many good books explaining Twitter. Most of them are written from a marketing point of view. Marketers tend to love numbers and analytics, which if you can bear reading them, are impressive.
(We’ve provided a link to Amazon in our widget column for this inexpensive book.)
Most pastors and church people are not “numbers” people. If they were, they may have already fled the church scene. Church numbers are dismal at first glance and alarming with analysis.
Mark’s book dwells on Twitter’s power, beginning with person to person, one-on-one power. This is something every church needs. It is foundational to mission.
The current and traditional church mission focus is invitational. Build a building, open the doors on Sunday morning, and hope that people are curious enough during those few hours of the week to come to us. We sit in our big churches and wait. For decades we didn’t know how to do mission any other way. The tools to do a better job were out of reach, practically and economically. So we keep doing things the same way, rewarding the congregations that do this the best, despite the nagging realization that even the biggest churches are statistically ineffective.
To use Twitter, requires making an effort to unlearn and change this collective mindset.
How does Twitter differ from Facebook?
Twitter is beautifully stripped down. You must tell your story in less than 140 characters. Church people can respond to this limitation in one of two ways.
Protest! We can’t possibly tell our message in 140 characters.
Cheer! How hard can it be to write one sentence a day!
Twitter will be manageable for any pastor or any lay leader. It is possible to put Twitter to work with as little as 15 or 20 minutes of effort per day. That’s good news!
The Alban Roundtable discussion this week presents cautionary tales on what can go awry when using email to communicate.
Comments so far have been: We know, we know. But this is the world we live in.
They are right. If people are going to email, there is nothing you can do to stop them. You CAN, however, provide good content to encourage reasonable and helpful online dialog.
Create a church blog.
2×2 advocates the development of church blogs as a less emotionally charged way of promoting online discussion. Blogs invite participation. Thoughtful posts will result in thoughtful comments—moreso than on Facebook and Twitter. Blogs allow you to moderate comments, but generally we recommend that you moderate the first comment only, simply as a way of verifying that the contributor is not a spammer. Access to the online discussion must be fairly free. If you start editing or rejecting comments, your blog will be seen as the voice of the favored in the church.
Establish guidelines for your commenters. People will cooperate. If you feel you must edit a comment, you can tell the contributor (offline) why it violates your community rules.
There are many advantages to blogs. Some you can anticipate. We’ve listed some above.
Here are Mark’s insights as they have applied to our church blog . . . and can apply to your church blog as well.
Blogging heals
Redeemer, the sponsor of the 2×2, is a congregation experiencing ongoing rejection and bullying within the Church. It’s painful, and the Church has been unresponsive—hoping we would just roll over and die—even five years after that tactic has proven ineffective!
Blogging has given us a voice which is healing to our community. It has given us reach and it has validated our ministry (to other Christians if not to our nearest neighbors). We know we can still fulfill our “missional purpose.”
Blogging connects
This has been the most amazing benefit of our blog. We have connected with other Lutherans, other denominations, other religious institutions and ministry efforts all over the world. We have come to know many by name and hear from several daily. Some have been helpful to us. We’ve been helpful others as well. We have invitations to visit in Asia and Africa!
Blogging defines
Where does the church stand on issues? Often we allow church experts to draft statements about what we believe, but let’s face it. They are rarely read or used more than a month after they are published.
Why do we allow others to decide what we think? In the past, there was little choice, but dialog online can help congregations participate in issues and respond at the local level. The official response can be helpful but it shouldn’t replace our own consciences.
When you take an issue you aren’t quite sure about and start to write, you can begin to sort out your thoughts and realize what you believe. Sometimes it surprises you!
2×2 posts some ideas, knowing they are not fully defined. Sometimes the ones we think are most nebulous start to get responses — often by email—thanking us for our position. We often learn that others are struggling with the same issues. They add a penny or two to the dialog—which we incorporate in future posts.
Blogging teaches
Mark Schaefer points out that his blog opens his eyes and teaches him. 2×2 says “ditto!”.
Blogging inspires
2×2 looks for messages that inspire and includes them in our editorial mix. We often get emails thanking us and telling us how they intend to use the information in their ministry.
These are five things every church needs. Why aren’t we doing it more?
We have one answer to this question! Tomorrow’s post.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
