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I Get the Need – Where Is It Best To Start?
Let’s face it, a lot of people reading this article (besides seeing if they even “want” to read it) would be more comfortable if the word “Safe” were substituted for “Best.” I have no problem with that, but then it’s a relative term. If you look seriously at trying to change anything in our present congregations, it’s a bit like intentionally choosing to commit suicide.
Pastors I know are well aware that whatever was working for the church decades ago obviously is not working very well today. It doesn’t help a thing but the masses share almost an unspoken sense of relief that we are not the only ones in trouble, that with little exception congregations everywhere are steadily getting older, greyer and smaller. Pastors count on the shallow hope that before it’s too late the answer will eventually come from somewhere, but it’s a hope often sustained only by moving from parish to parish. To let discouragement creep in feels sinful, but the reality is no movement or program so far discovered has been able to sustain help to slow or stop the decline.
This appears to be a classic illustration of something I heard somewhere else, that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins. The last half century has seen dozens of efforts to tweak the way of doing church to fit a totally different age, but at best these have been trying to treat a core problem with a band aid.
Many pastors have said to themselves, “Even if I felt brave enough and comfortable enough to test the waters of transformation, I get cold feet when I see others navigating continually shifting paradigms that bring one layer of change upon another. Am I up to stepping into something that unknown and scary when I’m not sure what I’m doing? And then, if I were to attempt this in a well established congregation, will I end up in a crisis that no amount of conflict resolution skills can resolve?” The journey in the minds of many might be likened to running with the bulls, not that the crashing hooves behind are following them ... more like they are wanting to lynch them.
Only a limited number of congregations will change
The church as a whole is rapidly coming up against a catharsis no one wants to acknowledge or touch with a ten foot pole. The majority of our congregations are not going to complete their transition into the Post-modern Age. For a limited number the crisis will be finding a pastoral leader who is capable of helping them reorganize. For a vast number choosing a transformational leader will only make their hospice experience more painful. What they are resigned to needing and wanting is a loving, caring, hand-holding chaplain. Part time positions are already being advertised as having great hunting or fishing (not people) available in the area.
If your calling as a pastor is not to chaplaincy work but to mission, with any change in ministry you consider this will need to be your most important discernment. It will also need to be the most important consideration by bishops in making recommendations for Call. Neither candidate nor bishop dare assume that through marriage either pastor or congregation will change. Missional pastors in hospice ministries will increasingly become a bishop’s worst counseling nightmare. Not attended to, that role of the bishop will continue to escalate.
Nothing from Christ or anywhere in scripture suggests that death is to be accepted as God’s intention or otherwise normal. We struggle with death, wrestle with it, but if we can find no viable way to deal with it, we end up in denial. That is where the church is with regard to itself.
In their relationship to two specific documents Christians are reticent to change, the Bible and the Constitution. Since the Bible is not our document I would not presume to change it either. As God’s Word it is timeless. However, I am grateful that the Holy Spirit works as hard as he does to help us discern how the constant the Bible represents must be interpreted to a changing world. The Constitution on the other hand is ours and it is not a timeless document. Truthfully it belongs to another time, another age. The problem here is convincing most of our members it needs to be discarded in favor of one that fits the new age.
Changing a changeable congregation
Over the last two decades a significant number of congregations have had progress in changing their organizational structures, and in most of them it has had huge impact. Often this has been in spite of the fact that where these changes were made there was still a segment of members who believed it should/would have been be better the old way. However, one has to look no further than the growth coming from outreach to see how reorganizing has advanced the mission of Christ.
Realizing this road is often not smooth and congregations have even been split over it, check out the common threads where these efforts have not torched and burned, moving everyone instead forward for Christ. At TransformingChurch.com we have raised the significance of these critical steps before, but since they cannot be reinforced enough, this gives us another opportunity to bring them to your attention. In summary they are:
1. build a spirit of trust
2. constantly discern the Spirit’s vision and cultivate leadership that will match it
3. approach everything new as an experiment having permission
4. start a committee-less approach to ministry
5. help disciples discern their gifts and employ them in ministry
6. vote less as a congregation.
Work on all of these at the same time, but treat their appearance here as a startup chronology. The goal will be to end up with a 1st Century organic style of organization, or, better yet, a complete makeover from being member-based to disciple-based.
As a missional pastor trying to discern a new ministry calling, I would address each of these in the interview process. Don’t put stock in seeing a difference and thinking you will be able to change them. Trust me, it won’t ever be as smooth as it would “seem” to appear coming out of the interview.
It’s possible that half the parishes (congregations) that will make up our church body 50-75 years from now don’t even exist at this time. Think of that as a reality check; if you are a missional pastor at heart, knowing your DNA doesn’t resonate with the current shortage of maintenance pastors for existing congregations, consider church planting. The most important prerequisite, though, is having unmistakable passion for it.
I am sure someone very soon will be putting together the tools to predict when present congregations unwilling to alter their course will die. Statistics like the ELCA losing 20 percent of its membership in the first 20 years of its existence are making us less reticent to talk about this. When these tools are applied to a congregation in the form of an intervention, pending the outcome of that, we will know whether the death prediction will hold or not. At the same time we will learn whether that particular congregation needs a missional or a maintenance pastor.
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