THE FOUR HORSES OF THE CURRENT CHURCH APOCALYPSE

Typically, I work with leaders and churches who are motivated to strive toward new realities.  This creates something of an illusion for me in terms of how bad the crisis is in most churches.  However, in the last year, I started working more with judicatories, where churches are assigned or suggested to Epicenter Group.  In these experiences I come to see things more the way the average Methodist superintendent sees things: where the vast majority of churches are late life cycle with a closing window of opportunity for renewal.

THE (ALMOST) LOST ART OF HOLY CONFERENCING

Earlier this week, I was on a Zoom with a church council meeting from a different time zone - meaning that it started at 10 pm at night (from where I was).  In addition, I was visiting family with very sketchy wifi - so it is a miracle that I heard anything at all of the meeting. People froze and unfroze the whole time.  Further, it was a meeting that ran out of its intended 75 minute bounds, pushing to nearly 2 hours.  If all of that doesn’t sound bad enough, the major agenda item was a debate on what to do about the church’s mask policy as the pandemic slowly subsides locally.

TO ZOOM OR NOT TO ZOOM

In these waning pandemic days in America, many churches are keeping an online worship option going even as they reopen sanctuaries.  All good.

But Zoom worship is already drawing a median age similar to what we had in the building pre-Covid.  Most young adults are no more drawn to a Zoom church experience than they were to the services we had inside. In both cases, a particular paradigm of gathering easily gets conflated with what it means to be active in a church.

WHERE DID 25 YEARS GO?

Twenty-five years ago this spring, I entered into contract to lead a ministry consultation with St. Jude Episcopal Church in Valparaiso, Florida.  I was a 33-year old executive pastor of a nearby growing Florida congregation, interested in applying best practices (for that time and context) in a variety of churches.  More than one thousand such churches later (and eleven books later), certain themes have emerged in my work.  In the space below, I lift up a few of these themes and connect them to some of the resources I have developed along the way (often with help from partners):

WHAT I AM LEARNING AS I COACH MINISTRY PIONEERS

 

Sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed that I have the blessing to work as a coach with some of the best, the brightest and most forward thinking leaders in western Christianity.  Let’s face it – the church is in a heap of trouble these days – but I remain really positive and hopeful because the slice of the pie I work with are those persons who are leaning forward into the new cultural realities, often coloring outside the lines, and taking the Gospel with them on that journey.  No babies getting throw out with yesterday’s bathwater!

TIME TO BURST THE WHITE BUBBLE

Two years ago, I released a book on multi-cultural ministry.  (Multi: The Chemistry of Church Diversity, The Pilgrim Press) There has been such a surge of multi ministry in recent years - something that many have deeply desired is suddenly coming into reality in many churches, and in so many places - all at once - a Pentecost kind of phenomenon!   That is great news.

ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS

 

This time last year I bopped around the UK for a couple weeks: England, Scotland and Wales, working with pastors all along the way.  On the train I was reading (and digesting) Howard Thurman much of the time.  I ran across a passage that I emailed to one of my clients, after an especially authentic conversation in a coffee shop near a train station.