GUESTS ON SOMEBODY ELSE’S CRUISE

 

We ended the summer of 2024 with two weeks in Italy and Croatia.  It was a memorable trip in ways beyond what I can count here – including especially the moment when we missed the right exit off a traffic circle south of Florence and the Google woman took our rented Fiat on a goose chase up a hill into an ancient Tuscan village down a cobblestone alleyway so narrow that we had to fold down the rear view mirrors to fit through.  At the top of the alley we met two young Italian men, whose truck had broken down headed in the opposite direction – and now we were both stuck.  The Google woman sent them on the same route and they broke their clutch trying to get out.  A local Florentine man with infinite Italian patience figured how to get us out of the bind.  I fear, however the truck may have needed to be repaired onsite, and that the young men spent the night there.  I am told by ranking persons in our household that I shall never again be allowed to rent a car and road trip across Italy.

THE FOG IS LIFTING

I have written on this metaphor before, but it is a big enough deal that I am returning to it this month, as I zig zag back and forth working with churches and leaders across Britain.  I am on a Saturday evening train Birmingham to Cardiff as I type this, on my way to preach at Radyr Methodist Church in Wales tomorrow.

WHAT THE HARRIS CAMPAIGN CAN TEACH THE CHURCH

Never before have I drawn learnings from a political campaign for local churches, but, in 2024, why not?

PLEASE DO NOT PULL THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER SONIA NIXON!

 

 

One of the familiar refrains I hear as I coach pastors across North America and the UK is about how difficult church folks can be when asked to process change.  It is easy to denigrate the people who are backbones of our churches as selfish, as thinking more about what they like personally than what would be effective in our mission.

A STRATEGY FOR GATHERING YOUNG FAMILIES BACK INTO MAINLINE CHURCHES

For at least three generations now, the majority of mainline Protestant youth have left their churches by the time they reach adulthood.  In each generation, a notable minority of these young persons choose to reactivate their participation when they become parents, usually in a congregation that has a strong children’s ministry. This tide now comes back in with diminishing force. Across 75 years, the overall decline has greatly cooked down the numbers of active younger people in mainline churches. The decline is further exacerbated by the fact that the minority who do return often don’t return to their home congregations at all.  They congregate in a few places where minimum critical numbers of young families remain.  Thus, most mainline Protestant congregations today have no active children remaining, and little promise for finding any.

A NEW METHODISM

 

The 2020 United Methodist General Conference, delayed four years, finally happened.  From 2019 to today, the narrative of this denomination has been stunning in multiple ways. Historian Erik Larson could spin quite the page-turner if he ever decided to tackle this story.  (Which he won’t!)

Among the facts:

WHERE DID ALL THE TIME GO!?

As we get older, it is a common observation that time just flies, whether we are having fun or not!  I think at times I juggle time well - at other times, the juggling gets old: I just want to slow it down, take a nap and punt some things til a week from now. In my coaching work, the subject of time comes up a lot. There is never enough of it, it would seem.

THAT THING THAT ALMOST NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

There is an item of key interest for all church leaders in the western world that I hear almost no one talking about.

First, what has been observed and noted widely: the losses churches sustained during Covid.  That story is out.

EDGEWALKERS

Last year, my colleague Beth Estock pointed me to a Richard Rohr piece about Edge-walkers.  This prompted me to go searching the use of the term, and to discover a 2006 book entitled Edgewalkers by Judi Neal.  The reason for our fascination with the term: we both have become convinced that there is a new breed of leaders, who are especially helpful in this era, who walk with one foot in the established institutions but with another foot into the world beyond.  These characters become bridge builders, prophets, instruments of renewal and more.

HERE IS HOW A CHURCH IN THE UK TRIPLED IN THREE YEARS!

 

Radyr Methodist Church is in a suburb of Cardiff, Wales.  Like most churches in the United Kingdom, the church has declined, down to only 20 Sunday worshipers by the start of the Pandemic.  Enter Pastor Judith Holliman.  Judith began prayer walking the varied neighborhoods around the church, especially the new housing estates that were being built up.  As Judith led her people outward, from the church house into the community, the word began to spread that Radyr Methodist was a place of life.  The church’s Sunday attendance hit 30, then 40, now over 60 most weekends.  This is abnormal these days in this part of the world, so I have paid close attention to Pastor Judith and her flock. The following story is a snapshot of how they roll at Radyr.