Challenges in the contemporary church, part 2

Last week I shared one of the biggest challenges that the Church faces in this season. Today I’m sharing one of the other hurdles I’ve noticed in coaching calls and informal conversations with pastors and lay leaders: the Church’s tendency to operate out of scarcity rather than abundance. This scarcity mindset takes many different forms. The pressure to grow (usually defined numerically), whether from within the congregation or from the judicatory or denomination, arises from comparison with the church down the road and anxiety about survival. This causes congregation members to become mired in nostalgia for an earlier era when Sunday School classrooms were bursting at the seams with children or to pitch ideas for programming that are ill-suited to the congregation’s demographics, person-power, or theological commitments. Ironically, this worry about not being or having enough creates insularity and suffocates the imagination and willingness to experiment that could potentially result in growth in terms of spiritual formation and impact in the larger community if not nickels and noses. Instead, congregations hold tight to ministries that need to be celebrated and ended well so that something that better fits who the church is now can bubble up. 

This scarcity mentality takes its toll on members, who become discouraged or exhausted from being tasked with more responsibilities as the overall membership ages and decreases. It is particularly hard on leaders, both laity and clergy, who carry the weight of the church on their shoulders. Certainly pastors too often become the hired hands who absorb all the tasks that others don’t want to do or don’t feel capable of doing instead of being set free to be spiritual guides and partners in ministry. When their to-do lists are an endless scroll, these clergy feel guilty about self-care and time away, and they spiral toward burnout. 

I believe we need an orientation re-set. We need to train ourselves to look for individual and collective gifts, defined very broadly. What talents are represented in our congregation? What relationships with the community do we have? What are people in the church knowledgeable or passionate about? What tangible assets do we possess? What infrastructure do we have in place for efficient use of all our blessings? What compelling stories do we tell about our experiences of faith? When we have a bigger sense of all that God has blessed us with, we can begin to dream of new possibilities. And when we dream, we can conduct holy experiments, calling our efforts just that. We can more intentionally build in times to reflect on what we’ve learned about ourselves, our neighbors, and God and whether we want to continue this trial with some tweaks or pursue another holy experiment. The learned helplessness begins to dissipate. We reconnect our programming with outreach and spiritual formation. We discover our potential and find our niche in our contexts. We help bring about the peace of God’s reign. (This e-book can help you assess, discern, and plan for experimentation.)

I believe we can solve the problems of not knowing and talking honestly with one another as I detailed last week and of being stuck in scarcity thinking. I think making progress on one of these issues can move us forward in the other. And I know that sometimes it takes someone outside of the system to help with either or both challenges. That is why I love the work that I do. If I can facilitate conversation that will help your congregation overcome these hurdles, please contact me.   

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash.