An Octogenarian Ponders The Church In The Post Pandemic World

Two years ago, just as we began to settle into the long winter of COVID this haunting quote froze my attention:?“From today onward leaders must recognize that the business they were in no longer exists. This applies not just to for-profit businesses, but to nonprofits and even to churches.”[1]??True indeed!?

The great pandemic has brought church life as we know it to a halt. Rousing us from a deep sleep and waking us up to seismic cultural and religious realities we too long ignored.??This glacial shift has left many pastors and congregations in a quandary, depressed and paralyzed.?

My sense of church has been shaped by the nearly forty years I spent as a parish pastor and the twelve years I spent at a public university as the founding director of the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at Indiana University. During those twelve years it was my privilege to work with nearly three thousand congregations reflecting the diversity of congregational life in America. What I discovered was this: most congregations have difficulty thinking about their future.??For many, trapped in a one-year-at-a-time survival mode, their tomorrow is but a blur.??

I also observed that savvy pastors recognized that they dare not sit back permitting fate to run its course if their congregations were to have a tomorrow. Their quandary is this: how do you plan for tomorrow in a fractured, fast moving and every evolving world??

Clergy need conversation partners to walk alongside them as they navigate the murky shoals of congregational life. To that end, it strikes me that there are three questions clergy and congregations should address as they contemplate their tomorrows.??

1. How do we plan for an uncertain future??
2. How can we best manage the messiness of change and innovation??
3. What are the questions we should be asking as we face the future?????

In exploring these questions, I discovered three wise and insightful conversation partners to share with you and guide you in your journey.???

1.?HOW DO WE PLAN FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE?

In their book?The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future, Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt lay out a tripartite methodology – a three-way mirror – that enables organizations to address this question.[2]??To gain insight into the future it is essential to look in three directions: backward, forward, and sideways.?

>>The look back unveils something as to the DNA of a congregation.?How has it managed change in its past???

Every congregation is its own culture with a unique history and story to tell as to the conflicts, crises, and economic challenges it has endured. How it has embraced or resisted new forms of worship and mission outreach.??How it has handled controversial social/political issues such as racism, human sexuality, immigration, and the interplay between religion, science, and life, etc.

The look back tells us who has initiated change, spurred, or opposed change; the role laity and clergy have played in times of transition and controversy.??

>>The look forward?focuses on the forces changing America.??It provides a window into the issues framing the horizon: demographically, economically, technologically.???

1. Demographically?– The population is shifting; the Northeast and Midwest are declining; the Sunbelt is booming, neighborhoods change.??The nation has historically been overwhelmingly white. By 2045, whites will make up 49.8% of Americans, Hispanics 25%, Black and Asians 21%.??America is aging those 65+ are ballooning driven by the baby boomers. 35% of millennials – those born after 1980 – describe themselves as “none’s” claiming no religious affiliation.?
2. Economically?– The US is hurtling from an industrial economy to an information economy which is fueled by knowledge and focused on outcomes uprooting the vocational and economic stability of many. Educationally the demand is for just-in-time programming – non-clock-based offerings – available at the customers convenience.??Historically, congregational life has been Sunday morning centric with programs and activities taking place at set times and places.??
3. Technologically -?The internet and mobile devices are changing how we communicate, worship, learn, socialize etc. Longer term, AI and Virtual Reality becloud the horizon. Technology has accelerated change. It used to take 20-30 years for technology to make a big leap forward; now it happens every five to seven years.?

>>The look sideways?reveals the way other organizations have managed change.?It informs us that change is inevitable.

For most organizations change happened behind their backs as they were trying to do business as usual. Their responses were helter-skelter with change occurring in stages by reform and repair.??While technology was the changemaker, it was the consumers – the users of the new technology – who drove change.?

This isn’t surprising, as historically, two truisms shape change and innovation:?

1. innovation travels from the periphery to the mainstream.
2. innovation drives customers and learners from the mainstream to the periphery.

The three-way mirror also provides a big picture view as to the future of institutional life.[3]

• The demands of a global, digital, knowledge economy will reshape church life.
• Congregations will not all change to the same degree, but all will change.?
• The power of the consumer will increase while institutional control decreases.?
• With universal access to digital devices people will seek from the church consumer produced content with a premium on convenience: anytime, anyplace.??
• New content producers and distributors will enter the religious marketplace driving up institutional competition and consumer choice.?

The wisdom of the three-way mirror is that it offers us principles to put to practice as we face the future.[4]

• Don’t plan for business as usual. The pandemic is more than a disrupter of life as it was, it is an accelerator of changes to come.?
• Focus on these questions: What business are you in? What’s your purpose? What difference will your church make????
• Focus on where you are going not where you have been. Tomorrow will not be a repeat of today.
• Listen to what is going on in the pews. Focus on the needs, hopes and fears of the people God has entrusted to your care and keeping.??
• Restore the connection between the church and the street, between faith and life.?????????

2. HOW CAN WE BEST MANAGE THE MESSINESS OF CHANGE AND INNOVATION?

Congregations must first be open to transformation and the refurbishment of the current church model. Roland Heifetz, Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School has created a process by which institutions may redemptively address this kind of change and innovation: via the practice of?Adaptive Leadership.[5]

What is Adaptive Leadership?

It is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle the challenges of change facing a congregation. It is based on the conviction that difficult problems are best solved with input from the entire organization. It is unlike traditional institutional leadership, which relies on top-down problem-solving primarily by clergy and religious professionals.??

Adaptive leadership involves two core processes:

1. Diagnosis?in which leaders distinguish between technical problems and adaptive challenges.
2. Action?whereby the leadership team of a congregation takes responsibility in addressing issues.?

The Adaptive Process?begins with the creation of?a Guiding Coalition.?The Guiding Coalition is a task force that serves as a think tank, or congregation-based leadership laboratory. It is comprised of:?

1. People who represent the lay and professional leadership of the congregation.
2. People who are faithfully committed to the church with an understanding of the congregation’s history.
3. People who are open to change, willing to risk failure and innovate for the sake of the gospel and the future of the congregation. .
4. People of irenic spirit, willing to ask hard questions, respectful of divergent perspectives and committed to the ministry of reconciliation.??

The guiding coalition functions as a safe- haven where people can openly share their fears, hopes, dreams, and discuss their differences with respect as the congregation navigates its way through the stormy sea of transformation.??

The primary task of the guiding coalition is to?distinguish between technical issues and adaptive long-term challenges.?

Technical issues:

• changes that may be made quickly and easily, finances permitting
• may include practices of hospitality or facility upgrades.?
• are often technological, calling for professional consultants and the purchase of the equipment necessary to permit the streaming of worship services and educational programs, allow online giving, redesign a user-friendly church website etc.?

Adaptive challenges:

• are more institutionally threatening as they may alter the current practices, values, and identity of a congregation
• may demand longer-term attention as they require attitudinal changes of heart, mind, and practice?

In addressing adaptive challenges, adaptive leadership requires that congregations figure out what practices to conserve and what to discard and find ways to build on the best of the past with theological integrity and practical discernment.?

Adaptive leadership also takes time, time to thoughtfully address the deeper issues that may threaten the status quo and change the life, witness, and practices of a congregation.

3. WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ASKING AS WE FACE THE FUTURE??

To address change and innovation in a redemptive manner, clergy and congregations need to take a step back and wrestle with some basic issues.[6]??

In the itch to become relevant and grow, congregations may be tempted to focus solely on technical issues. Left to itself, technological adaptation is a hollow and wearisome savior. Trying to keep pace with the latest in technology in order to grow or maintain an audience can be exhausting and depressing.?

More importantly, when the sacred plays second fiddle to technology it is easy to lose sight of the living God.?

Ecclesial Questions

Institutional change usually falls into two buckets: the adaptive bucket and the disruptive bucket.[7]?Adaptive congregations embrace change but believe that the church will essentially remain as it has always been. Today’s more disruptive voices believe the church as an institution or denomination to be passe.?

Both polar visions raise ecclesial questions, addressing both the forms and functions of the church and our life together. For established congregations and new emergent faith communities alike, wrestling with such questions takes time and demands fidelity to their heritage, calling and purpose.??

• What is a church? What purpose do congregations serve?
• How do emerging new forms of congregational and community life fit into the more traditional and denominational understandings as to what is a congregation?
• How do stand-alone faith communities see themselves, to whom are they accountable??
• What ultimately shapes the purpose and identity of faith communities primarily built around personal interests, political or social values???
• How will online congregations administer the sacraments, nurture faith formation, build a sense of community and mirror the Kingdom of God?

Theological Questions

The church exists to witness to God’s redemptive presence in the world. However, the world in which the church now lives is not the world in which most of us grew up.??

Per the philosopher Charles Taylor “our time is a secular time.”[8]?A secular world is not a world without religion; it is a world where belief in God is understood to be but one option among others. A world in which is it assumed that God is absent and unbelief normal, with little or no connection between God and everyday life. In short, it is a world shorn of any sense of transcendence, a sense of God.

In this century of steeply declining church membership, it is imperative that congregations move beyond mere technical adaptations in their effort to be relevant and keep up. Church leaders must first step back to pause and figure out how they might breathe new life and meaning into an old and oft-abused word:?evangelism!??

How? It becomes with congregations asking themselves deep, theological questions:

• How do we talk about a God who is deeply incarnational, who arrives and acts in history??
• How do we help those who no longer need a God encounter the living God in their lives??
• How will we pastor people for whom faith is essentially a private matter disconnected from public life?
• How do we talk about sin – bad behavior, corruption, narcissism, messiness – in a world suspicious of moral codes of conduct???
• How will we enable the Bible to speak with fresh verve and pungency??
• How will the church witness to God’s presence in the world and tell stories of holy intrusions amidst the ordinary??
• How in our preaching and teaching can we enable people to reimagine the possibility of divine action as we tell the story of an incarnate God punching holes in the ordinary?
• What makes for a spiritually vital and theologically faithful congregation? What are we doing that’s spiritually helpful to people? What could we be doing that we are not doing to nurture faithful disciples??

Ignore these questions and I fear congregations are in danger of becoming little more than nesting places for pre-existing Christians. Embrace and wrestle with these theological questions, and congregations will find themselves reframing reframe the good news as they pour the aged wine of the gospel into new wineskins.?

THE NEW EVANGELISM

Theologian Andrew Root addresses the challenge facing modern congregations in his trilogy?“Ministry in a Secular World.”[9]?He reflects on the role of the church in a secular age from three angles:

1. The practice of faith formation.
2. The role of the pastor.
3. The mission of the congregation.

Faith Formation

Faith formation in a secular world is a lifelong process that is transformational, as we are being slowly conformed to life “in Christ”. It is a process waking us up to the reality of God’s continuing activity in the world. There is much more to faith than believing in God, embracing certain doctrines, and participating in the church as an institution. Faith is a cosmic encounter with the living God in which we find ourselves focusing on basic life – ontological- questions: Who am I? What does it mean to trust? What does it mean to love? What is commitment? What does a well lived life look like? These God encounters in turn shape our identity, opening our eyes to what it means to be children of God and truly human. Faith formation informs us that as humans we are part of a story that is bigger than ourselves. Faith is the gift of trusting that the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is reality.?

To be formed in faith is to be in a community that tells these stories over and over again; stories as to how the living Jesus came and comes to us.[10]?Root concludes: “To know if Christianity has veracity is not to memorize its doctrines but to hear its story told through the ministerial action of persons embracing and loving” each other and others.[11]

The Role of The Paster

The role of the pastor in a secular world is to be more than an “institutional curate,” it is to be a shepherd who leads people into “experiences of the ministering God.”[12]

In the story of the Exodus, Israel experienced God as a pastor who ministered, who wandered, who moved with the sheep from place to place, who risked her well-being in search for a lost sheep, who was on the lookout for wolves in the woods. Shepherds minister as they travel with their sheep.??

The shepherd God comes into the world to minister.[13]?The force and sway of the pastor as shepherd is that of care, the ultimate wellbeing and salvation of the flock.?

The God of the Bible is a God who shows up amidst the events of life. The role of the shepherd-pastor is to pay attention to events and help people discern the meaning of life’s events and discover anew the reality of a living God.[14]

Discerning is both praying and storytelling. The shepherd pastor teaches people to pray. In prayer we enter into dialogue with the living God. In storytelling, as in prayer, we relive the saga of a ministering God who meets us amidst the events of life and in the personhood of others.[15]

The Mission of The Congregation

In a secular world, the congregation is the house of ministry; the mission of the church is to unveil God’s action in the world.[16]??The church is not an institution seeking its own life. It is a grace-filled community whose life is “in Christ”; a place reflecting life in all its fullness.?

However, the full life is not to be confused with the busy life. The mission of the church is also to listen, to mind time and slow down, to enable people to discover the sacredness of time and the wisdom of the slow practices of prayer, reading Scripture and serving others.[17]??

The mission of the congregation in a secular world is to focus on?resonance, not relevance; on?revelation, not innovation. A resonant congregation “connects with the world and those in the world who call out to us.”[18]??It is sensitive to the yearnings of the secular soul that longs to live life more fully and find meaning in everyday happenings. It is a visual and experiential catalyst as it exposes the sacred ever lurking amidst the nooks and crannies of our world.?

“If a congregation wants change,” concludes Root, “it will start by not being concerned with relevance and resources, but with the good life of resonance, seeking the living Christ where Christ can be found…in the world.”[19]

MY FAITH IN A SLOW GOD

I do not offer any answers to the questions I posed; to do so would be presumptuous, if not downright impertinent. The questions are intended to serve as channel markers for clergy and congregations as they traverse their uncharted future. They are questions to be addressed by each congregation in the light of their particular ecclesial tradition and theological orientation.

Ironically, I have always found congregations to be amazingly resilient. They may be on life support systems, but they refuse to throw in the towel. They may be chronic one-year-at-a-time congregations, but they refuse to shutter their doors.?

What is the source of their tenacious hope? It is rooted in their sense of calling and their trust in a slow God who nonetheless shows up.??

Today’s changes blowing in the wind are clearing out the cobwebs of stale church life. The wind blowing is more than the howl of secularism. The blowing wind is the?ruach;?the wind, the breath, the spirit of an uncaged God. To a confused and bewildered Nicodemus, Jesus whispered this wisdom: “Listen to the wind, Nicodemus, listen to the wind!”[20]?The challenge of congregations grappling with an uncertain future is to listen; to listen then dare to pour the new wine of a living God in new wineskins.[21]

As I ponder the future of congregational life in America I am filled with hope. I find the future to be exciting because it is framed in a mingle of challenge, change, uncertainty, and creative possibilities.?

More importantly, my hope is invigorated by the young clergy I have come to know and walk alongside of in recent years; they are more than up to this challenge. Indeed, if I could, I would turn back the calendar of my life sixty years and begin again.?

?????????????????????????????????????????PRACTICAL POSTSCRIPT – CODA

How might a pastor and a faith community put these practices and principles to work? As with all change, it is a process that requires both trust and faith –?trust that God has a plan for the church and faith that god will help you find it.?What I outline below are six basic steps that any congregation, of any size, can follow to prepare for the future.

Step 1. Start with questions

With growth, sustainability, and on-going spiritual engagement in mind, ask yourself two key questions:?When you think of the future of your congregation post-Covid, what are the issues to which you need to pay attention? What don’t you know about your congregation that would be beneficial to know as you ponder your congregations tomorrow?

Step 2. Build your congregation’s?Guiding Coalition

To find meaningful answers, you’ll want to turn to trusted voices and perspectives. Most congregations would be wise to form a small group of ten to twelve people –?a Guiding Coalition?– to wrestle with these questions. This Guiding Coalition serves the church as a congregational based research laboratory and think tank. While it should be chaired by the lead pastor, and may include members of the professional staff, lay members of the congregation should make up the majority. (See p. 4)?

In very small congregations, the governing board of the church or faith community is probably best suited to address these questions, provided they do so with intentionality at each board meeting.???

Step 3. Face the three-way mirror

The first task of the Guiding Coalition is to utilize the three-way mirror to unearth the issues needing attention. (See pp. 2-3) In your deliberations, listen carefully to the stories people tell, the words they use, and the feelings they express.

·??????In looking back,?ask personal, open-ended questions like:?How did you come to be part of this faith community??What do you find to be attractive and heart-warming about our congregation? How has the congregation changed during your time as a member? Looking back five to twenty years, what are some of the challenges your church has faced? When you think your congregations tomorrow what are your hopes and fears???What is the one “I wish” you have for your church???

·??????In looking forward,?focus on the demographic, economic, and technological issues via the lens of your faith community.?Over the last twenty-five years, how has the face of your congregation changed as to size, age, racial identity, budget, staffing, etc.? How has the neighborhood changed in which you are located???What do you see God to be about in the neighborhood, city, zip code you call home???What is special or unique about your congregation that sets you apart from other churches???In what ways has the internet and the presence of mobile devices changed how you do church?

·??????In looking around, search for inspiration, success stories, cautionary tales and other examples you can learn from.?When you look at other faith communities and religious organizations, what do you see???How are your peers managing or not managing change???In looking around name the congregations that are your role models as well those you see to be your competitors and say why. What might you learn from other churches and religious service organizations???

?Step 4. Sum up what you’ve learned

Now, take a step back.?What have you learned about yourself as a congregation via the three-way mirror??Summarize your insights and carefully list any issues you may need to address as a congregation and the changes you may need to make if you are to have a life-giving tomorrow.?Is your congregation ready and willing to embrace these changes and challenges? What are the issues and attitudes you must address to do so???

Make sure to take special note of any immediate opportunities for ministry and outreach that may be sitting outside your back door, as these may be more easily embraced and consequently help you set the stage for additional change.

Step 5. Separate the technical issues from the adaptive issues

Utilizing?the Adaptive Leadership model, distinguish between technical issues and adaptive issues. (See pp. 4-5)?

• The technical issues you identify can be referred to the governing board or appropriate church committee for discernment and implementation.?
• The adaptive issues –?those that may be institutionally life changing and threatening?– then become the deep work of the Guiding Coalition.

Step 6. Embrace diligence, not timelines

Keep in mind that the Guiding Coalition does not live by a timeline; its assignment is to think long term.??The challenge it faces is to address adaptive issues with thoughtful candor and caring respect for diverse perspectives.?

• This means first considering each issue within the context of the congregation’s ecclesial and theological heritage. (See pp. 6-7)?
• It also means being sensitive to the influences and yearnings of the secular world in which we live. (See pp. 8-10)

How long does it take??

Though this process can’t be rushed, it can be measured out with both integrity and intentionality.?

As convener of the Guiding Coalition, it falls to the lead paster – with the sage advice and counsel of the Guiding Coalition – to determine when and how to address individual issues and communicate the Coalition’s findings and recommendations to the governing board and congregation.?

Step 7. Be guided by faith, grace and compassion

In a secular world, faith formation and the making of disciples of Jesus is both a challenge and opportunity. An opportunity for pastors and congregations to be creatively evangelistic as they seek to pour the wine of the gospel into fresh wineskins. (See pp. 8-10) A challenge because change of any kind can be scary, scarier still when it involves something as central as one’s community of faith.?

Where there is no vision, no sense of tomorrow; people (congregations) perish! When they can’t see what God is doing, churches stumble all over themselves.??When they pay attention…they are most blessed.??(Proverbs 29:18. The Message)

[1]?Andy Crouch,?Leading Beyond the Blizzard: Why Every Organization is Now a Startup,?Praxis, March 20,2020.

[2]?Arthur Levine & Scott Van Pelt,?The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future.?While the focus of the book is on higher education, I am interpreting the writer’s methodology via the lens of church and congregational life.??

[3]?Levine & Scott, pp. pp. 215-235.

[4]?Levine & Scott, pp. 259-281.

[5]?Roland Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, Marty Lisky:?The Practice of Adaptive Leadership.

[6]?Andrew Root,?The Congregation in a Secular Age,?Chapters 5-6.

[7]?Levine & Van Pelt,?The Great Upheaval,?pp.2-3.

[8]?Charles Taylor:?A Secular Age.

[9]?Andrew Root:?Faith in a Secular Age, The Pastor in a Secular Age, Congregations in a Secular Age.

[10][10]?Andrew Root:?Faith Formation in a Secular Age,?Chapters 7-11

[11]?Ibid, p. 210.????

[12]?Root,?The Pastor in a Secular Age,?p. 272.

[13]?Ibid, Chapters 9 & 10.

[14]?Ibid, Chapter 11.

[15]?Ibid, pp.?

[16]?Ibid, p. xvi.?

[17]??Andrew Root:?The Congregation in a Secular Age,?Chapters 4-8.

[18]?Ibid, Chapters 14-15.

[19]?Ibid, p. 261-262.

[20]?The Gospel According to John,?Chapter 3.

[21]?The Gospel According to Mark,?2:22.