I’ve probably heard the word pivot more in the last three months than I have heard it in my entire life. I’ve probably used the word pivot more in the last three months than I’ve have in my entire life. In a COVID-19 world, pivoting has become trendy. We are doing things in a new way, If you look up the definition of pivot, it means “to turn.” Lord knows, we’ve been doing a lot of this during this time.

The question becomes, “where are we turning?” I drove past a church last week that had a big banner outside touting in-person worship with the tagline, Back to Church. Now, I know they were well-meaning and all, but something about this banner really bothered me. First of all, we never left church, just the building. Most of all, the sign encourages us to something we cannot do and should not do.

Pivoting means turning and turning means going in a new direction. Since I dabble in church, I’ll use the church as an example. How much time have we spent wondering when we can do something new? If only we had a period of time where we could stop doing what wasn’t working and really concentrate on where God might be leading us? If only we had a moment to pivot! Well, here it is. I’ve seen faith communities be more innovative in the last four months than many of us ever could have imagined. We’ve pivoted. It would be a shame if we spent just as much energy trying to go back to the way things used to be, rather than continuing to move forward.

This is true is most areas of life. Once we’ve pivoted to the future, there is no going back. Life moves forward, God moves forward. There is no going back. So why spend the energy trying to doing something we can’t do and often shouldn’t do? Instead, use that energy to turn, to move forward.

When the ten most used words of 2020 are published, I bet pivot is one of them. Since we are saying it, we might well do it as well. In spite of all 2020 is bringing us, we can still pivot towards a hopeful future.