Baptist and Reflector

FRANKLIN — It has now been almost one full year since COVID-19 first began reshaping the culture and forever changing “the world as we know it.” 

Recently, the Baptist and Reflector connected with the entity heads from the various Tennessee Baptist Convention organizations to get their thoughts on the past year in regard to how the pandemic has impacted their ministries. 

Here is what each had to say:    

Jason Little
Baptist Memorial Healthcare

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

COVID-19 continues to have a profound effect on our organization, but thankfully we are overcoming the tremendous obstacles this pandemic has put before us.

Caring for COVID patients takes a tremendous toll on our team. A number of these patients spend weeks in the hospital alone, separated from their loved ones. Our nurses, respiratory therapists, dietary team, environmental services team and others become their family. They encourage, comfort and reassure these patients throughout their stay with us. And unfortunately, some of these patients don’t survive, so our team members also have spent a lot of time grieving these patients they’ve spent weeks trying to save. This is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting work, and they have persevered under tremendously challenging conditions. They are my heroes.

As an organization, we have faced a number of challenges, from having to suspend elective procedures on several occasions, to dealing with critical staffing shortages alongside extremely high patient volumes, particularly in our ICUs. However, I believe these experiences have made our team even stronger. Everyone, from our leaders to our front line team members, clinical staff to support staff, have given their all to ensure we can continue to respond to this COVID crisis.

Question: What was the major blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

We have had several blessings and accomplishments. The most important one to me is that our employee engagement survey scores rose significantly this year, compared with previous years. Our team members took the survey in May, in the middle of the pandemic.

We also established a COVID-19 assistance fund to help team members who were experiencing financial hardships because of the pandemic. In just a few months, our team members contributed more than $1 million to the fund. These are just two examples of how our team has come together to strengthen our organization, and I could not be prouder of them.

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

I would ask that you pray for our team. They have worried, cried, prayed and hoped along with our COVID patients and their loved ones for almost a year, and it has been incredibly difficult for them. While they are prepared to deal with difficult situations, most have never seen it on this scale. At the height of the pandemic, we were treating over 600 COVID patients per day in our hospitals, and the progression of this illness can be particularly tragic. Patients can appear to be fine one minute, then rapidly deteriorate and sometimes pass away. Other COVID patients stay in the hospital for weeks, and while some eventually recover, others do not. I don’t know how this will affect our team long term, but I pray for their healing and restoration, and I would love for Tennessee Baptists to do the same.

######################

Charles Fowler
Carson-Newman University

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

Carson-Neman was impacted in similar ways to any other institution. Our core constituents were confronted with fear, loss, and anxiety over the unknown. 

Fear resulted from not knowing who was going to get sick and what devastating results the disease would have. A sense of loss has permeated the pandemic. Everyone has lost time with friends, important events, corporate worship, and many other losses. Ultimately, a sense of loss will define this pandemic for many. 

Finally there was anxiety. People were anxious over getting sick, losing their jobs/business, experiencing financial difficulties, and grappling with the reality that they did not know what unfortunate events could happen. Because of fear, a sense of loss, and anxieties about the future, C-N has had students who chose not to begin college. We have had faculty, staff, and students who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. We have experienced financial difficulties. There has been more heartache than we would have ever imagined. Events like sitting in classrooms together, enjoying late night study groups in the dorms, cheering on sports teams, gathering for chapel, and taking mission trips have all been lost due to COVID-19.

Question: What was the major blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

In the midst of all the challenges, God has demonstrated Himself to be faithful. We have found new ways to teach, more creative ways to study, and grown more flexible in every aspect of living and learning at C-N. We are more grateful for the small things because so many of the larger things have been lost. While finances are tight, we are navigating the pandemic well. We have enjoyed record enrollment as an expression of God’s favor. We have been reminded of the importance of in-person instruction. We have not lost our mission, we have just discovered new and creative ways to express it. God has sustained us, empowered us, and inspired us through this incredibly difficult year. As I reflect on this past year, I see the goodness and grace of God!

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

Pray that we never lose sight of the lessons learned through COVID-19. Pray that our Christ-centered mission is never sacrificed or compromised. Pray that the impact that Carson-Newman has in this world is increased for the glory of God.

######################

Mark Anderson
Tennessee Baptist Adult Homes

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

I will use this question to answer the NEGATIVE impacts of COVID-19 on TBAH this year. The negative impacts, as might be expected, were financial. Our Father’s Day Offering revenue was $107,000 below our goal. I suspect that shortfall was due to churches not meeting in person as well as the churches probably having financial issues of their own. We also paid out nearly $40,000 more than budgeted for wages to our group home staff due to overtime incurred. Finally, we were unable to fill empty beds due to our inability to conduct onsite interviews and visits, creating another $50,000 or more in lost revenue.

Question: What was the biggest blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

Ironically, an illness (COVID-19) has given us the healthiest months at our group homes in group home history! Our very limited contact into the community has eliminated colds, stomach and intestinal flus, and other communicable infections. As you might imagine, a stomach virus in a group home of 8 men can create days of unpleasant work for home managers. All managers have been grateful not to have such matters to deal with for nearly a year, now.

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

Please pray that our good health continues, even after the pandemic is over and we re-enter the community at large.

Pray that our empty beds may be filled, not only to help remedy the revenue shortfall, but more importantly that TBAH will fully serve out its mission of providing a Christian home for men and women with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Pray that our churches will respond with compassion for these men and women who lack the resources to financially provide for their ongoing, lifetime needs. Pray that our churches will be moved to support this needed ministry through the annual Father’s Day Offering.

######################

Greg McCoy
Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

Protecting the children in our care is a top priority so TBCH took several precautions to keep them and our houseparents healthy as much as it depended on us. A few of these precautions were:

• Canceled volunteer activities and campus visits. We lost hundreds of volunteer man hours on all of our three campuses.
• Limited off campus trips and events for our children and staff.
• Stopped allowing in-home tours.
• Support staff worked from home.
• Created meal-trains and safe ways for volunteers to still participate by providing meals.
• While we continued accepting donations of food and supplies we restricted the donation of non-essential items.

In addition to precautions taken, TBCH saw church giving at a historic low. The number of churches that contributed financial support to TBCH last year was 1,171. That is down from 1,363 in 2019. However, some churches gave more to our ministry than they had ever given before! The final result of church giving was a $350,000 decline from 2019.

While church giving on the whole was down, individual giving as well as on-line giving was very strong! We are praising the Lord for His faithfulness to supply our needs and for the people who care about children in crisis.

Our Family Care plans of training hundreds of church volunteers to recognize sexual abuse and how to appropriately respond to it was completely put on hold. We are praying for these opportunities to help churches and to protect the children in them to open back up very soon. 

Question: What was the biggest blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

More important than the strong financial position in which we ended the year was the fact that 13 of our children were born again in 2020! “Welcoming children in hard places with the love of Christ” means that we talk about Jesus and do everything we can to point children and young people to Him. TBCH served 99 children in residential care in 2020.

TBCH residential staff also adapted very well to the challenges of having the children 24/7. School areas on each campus were set up as well as adding necessary staff on each campus for distance learning. 

While challenging for our Foster Care team, there were 16 children whose adoptions were finalized in 2020. This team worked through the challenges of communicating and managing their cases remotely while still maintaining excellence in their work of serving our children in foster care as well as our foster care families. TBCH served 180 children in Foster Care in 2020. 

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

Pray for our houseparents’ and foster parents’ physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

Pray for our children who are already in a hard place. The pandemic causes more fear and uncertainty in their lives. Pray that they will experience the love and peace of Christ in a way that overcomes any anxiety or fear they may have.

######################

Bill Gruenewald
Tennessee Baptist Foundation

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

We had to cancel 12 estate planning and legacy events we had scheduled between March – June. We were only able to reschedule two of these before Dec. 31. Not being able to meet with churches has been the biggest disappointment during the pandemic. We had to learn a new way to work — remotely, which was challenging but we found a way to make it work so we can continue to carry out our mission: “Managing funds with integrity and helping Tennessee Baptists leave legacies with a Kingdom focus.”

Question: What was the biggest blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

We had our best year in the past 10 years with new funds added and addition to our existing funds. Many churches realized from this pandemic that having reserve funds are vital to ongoing ministry and we were blessed to be the vehicle to help them accomplish this.

We were able to use ZOOM in our one on one meeting with Tennessee Baptists regarding estate planning. We were able to help families complete more plans in 2020 than in the last five years.

Faithfulness of Tennessee Baptist churches in their giving during the pandemic to the Cooperative Program was a blessing and helped us in our ministry in 2020.

How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

Pray we will be able to get back to more in person meetings with Tennessee churches and help Tennessee Baptists unleash the power of legacy giving through their estates.

Pray as we seek God’s person to fill the staff vacancy of Executive Vice President.

######################

Walter Grubb
The King’s Academy

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

The King’s Academy has been severely impacted in the areas of student enrollment, loss of income, general frustration with restrictions on student life activities and the episodic necessity to move instruction out of the classroom into a virtual format.

Parents of students have been caught in a frustrating bind as many of them have had to reduce or terminate their own employment workloads in order to care for and manage online education for their children. Teachers have had to quickly learn online teaching skills, and then perform dual roles as in-person instructors and live, online teachers — at the same time.  Workloads for resident life personnel have increased due to the limits of off campus activities and the need to monitor resident students in quarantine status.

Question: What was the biggest blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

It would be difficult to state which benefit rises to the level of biggest.  As with any major restrictive situation or event, we have been “forced” to re-evaluate our vision and mission, and that is a good thing. We have been reminded of our raison d’etre.

We’ve been made to clarify the most important components of our program, and ask/answer the question, “Why are we really here?” We have developed a deeper appreciation for our international boarding students, and realized how much they add to our campus.  On a somewhat paradoxical note, we have nevertheless been able to have 15 nations represented in our high school student body.

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

(1) Pray for our presidential search committee as they seek our next president/headmaster.  Pray for that person to have a distinct and obvious call from God to assume this leadership role.

(2) Pray for the international students who are not permitted to travel from their countries (Brazil and China especially) to the United States. Pray that the US embassies will reopen so these students can obtain their travel documents and resume their educational program at The King’s Academy.

(3) Pray for our teachers. May God grant them extra strength and grace to maintain their usual high instructional standards.

(4) Pray for the parents of our students. Many have lost jobs.  Many are stretched thin as they continue to work a job to support their families and assist with their children’s online classes.

(5) Pray for our students, that they will have as much of a normal school experience as possible, all the while learning perseverance and flexibilty.

######################

Dub Oliver
Union University

Question: How did COVID-19 impact your institution in 2020?

Like almost everyone else, COVID-19 upended our ability to operate as we typically do. In the early days of the pandemic, because there was little knowledge about the virus, mandates caused us to pause in person instruction. Because face to face instruction is our primary pedagogical model, and the one we believe is best for the Christian worldview and intellectual formation we are pursuing, this was a massive challenge. 

Even still, our faculty rose to that challenge and shifted to a remote model for the remainder of the spring semester. Our students, faculty, and staff have been champions of working together throughout this pandemic. The strength of our community has helped us every step of the way.

As we were going through the decision making during those early days (and even until now), we sought to make sure that our decisions were carefully thought out in light of our Christ-centered mission and our desire to be a caring and grace-filled community. Thus, as one example, we issued refunds to students and their families for the unused portion of their spring residence hall and meal plans. We knew that students and their families were facing financial challenges caused by the pandemic and we wanted to do everything possible to show them that we were with them. We trusted that the Lord would provide for Union as we refunded over $1.7 million, not really sure exactly how the budget would come out at the end of the year.

During the summer, we focused on how we could safely reopen and return to the face to face model our students and families desire. We have creatively adapted throughout the summer, fall, and now the spring semester in order to continue to pursue our mission and educational philosophy in the safest way possible for our community. 

Again, the strength of our community has been on display as traditions held dear still happened but with a few changes. As we look forward to the future, we are reminded that God has called us to our mission of providing Christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to Church and society. No matter the conditions surrounding us, our mission remains.

Question: What was the major blessing/accomplishment at your institution in the midst of the pandemic?

God’s provision. God has provided every step of the way. Financially, we were able to end the fiscal year in the black even though we had refunded $1.7 million to our students and their families.

God provided with creativity, giving us new ways of thinking about programs and services. Some of those changes are actually helping us reach more people. As an example, when government mandates meant that campus visits would not be allowed, we shifted to virtual visits. 

And, while we shifted back to in person campus visits for prospective students and families as quickly as possible, we have continued offering virtual visits at least once a month. By doing so, we are having the opportunity to interact with people from Maine to California (many of whom would never have been able to come to campus and meet us). 

On a recent virtual visit, we had parents from Bangkok and Eastern Europe. God’s provision. At the beginning of the pandemic, we gave all of our medical supplies (remember when N95 masks were desperately needed by health care workers?) to local hospitals. Those supplies had been gathered for medical mission trips that could not happen because of the pandemic. 

But, we were able to serve our local communities. We made thousands of face shields in our engineering lab with our 3D printers. All God’s provision. And, even now, our College of Pharmacy students and faculty are volunteering at vaccination sites across West Tennessee, ensuring that people have easy access to the vaccine. God’s provision. We celebrated Union’s 198th birthday on Feb. 3. He has been providing for Union University from that first day. He provides still. He is faithful.

Question: How can Tennessee Baptists pray for your institution as we move forward?

Pray that we will be salt and light in the world. Pray that our faithfulness to God’s Word will encourage many to trust the Lord unto salvation. Pray that the Spirit will give supernatural wisdom as we lead and make decisions. Pray for God’s protection and provision. Pray that we might walk worthy of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And know of our deep gratitude for Tennessee Baptists whose prayers, Cooperative Program gifts, and love encourage us day by day in our mission. B&R