(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for The New Normal Church, Part 2: The Changing Means, originally shared on November 16, 2020. It was the sixty-fifth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
What are the most important means you and your church use to carry out ministry today? Will any of them emerge unchanged in the New Normal of the post-pandemic Church?
We are now at a point in the
pandemic where you hear the phrase “coronavirus fatigue” a lot. That is, we’re
tired of the masks and the social distancing, the fear of others and the weird
work and school adjustments, and we’re getting careless.
This is coming just as we are
getting into the flu season and the colder and wetter weather that will place a
damper on outdoor activities. And, the number of cases is going up almost
exponentially.
Folks, this is where character
counts. I know you are tired. We’re all tired. Now is the time to do the right
things like wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds and washing or
sanitizing our hands, even if we’re tired of them.
Be sick of Zoom meetings and
Zoom worship, of Amazon and of not doing your own shopping; be sick of the coronavirus
but do the right things so you don’t get sick from the coronavirus.
The pandemic seems to be
getting worse, but it doesn’t have to. And, eventually, it will be gone.
Then will come the
post-pandemic New Normal.
The Good News of Jesus Christ
and his death on the cross for our redemption remains the same from generation
to generation. The means we use to proclaim Christ are always changing. They
will be less important than the message.
What implications does this
have for the future of the Church? What is the “New Normal” likely to look like
when this pandemic is over, and how can we adapt for faithful ministry as the
Body of Christ, the Church, in this world, particularly in the LA area?
This is the second of three
videos on The New Normal Church.
I want to share a few thoughts
that have been rattling around inside me, as a life-long Lutheran Christian and
as a pastor for more than 40 years. I serve on a number of synod leadership
boards and committees, and I think about where we are going a lot.
Last time, I shared some ideas
on near term or, “short term”, but I like “near term”, as a phrase for “getting
near to birth” changes that will happen either because external circumstances
require them, or because we are already headed in that direction.
Next time, for Part Three, I’m
going to reflect on what I think are the implications of the needed changes for
future church development.
But, today, I’m going to
reflect on how the means that we use to conduct our ministry, like buildings, seminaries,
curriculum, and so on, will change in order to thrive in the post-pandemic “new
normal” for the church.
Of course, no one knows what
will happen after the pandemic but God. We may see an influx of people hungry
for community, both new and former members of the church. We may see formerly
faithful members not coming back, and the trends we saw before the pandemic
continue.
All we can do now, however, is
to get ready by preparing to be the church God has called and equipped us to
be.
Part 2: The
Changing Means (for Doing Ministry)
[means like
buildings, worship services, pastoral ministry, and curriculum, seminaries,
etc.)
What are the trends in the use of the means
we use to do ministry that will have already begun to change, but will take 5 or
10 years and beyond to fully form:
The increasing secularization of the Southern
California area is producing an increasing need for the living relationship
with the one true living God for which humanity was created.
In this cultural atmosphere, we find an increasing
relevancy of the experience of the Holy Spirit among the first Christians
described in scripture to our own circumstances. We in the 21st Century are a
Church that more and more resembles the 1st Century Church than the
20th Century Church. The Holy Spirit will nourish and shape the
Church like streams of living water.
We see this in recent history in the
observation that, “The Catholic Church opted for the poor. The poor opted for
Pentecostalism.” (attribution unknown)
Here are the adaptations of the means we
currently use that we will need to make in the LA area and beyond.
First, I think that we should expect that
there will be very few of our congregations maintaining their own buildings, as
we now know them. Buildings have become albatrosses around the necks of our
shrinking and aging congregations that can no longer financially support them.
This was happening before the coronavirus pandemic, and it will likely, though
not certainly, continue after it’s over. Churches will be smaller and more
nimble, more emotionally expressive of their faith and focused on the immediate
needs of their communities. I don’t think that Zoom, or its successors, will
take the place of buildings, but they will provide one continuing mechanism for
outreach. People who come to faith in Christ will continue to desire the
high-touch, the love, that we offer in living Christian communities, and face
to face ministry will likely take place in small groups bound together by the
love of God and one another.
Second, Ministry will be carried out by
everyone, not a professional clergy class, but by a called group (pastors) of
trainers. It will be missional, not invitational, and it will belong to
everyone. Our evangelism won’t be based on things like, come and hear our
pastor preach or our choir sing, or see our beautiful church or our wonderful
youth program. We will no longer say things like, the church isn’t a museum for
saints but a hospital for sinners. That’s discipleship. Our evangelism will be
more like the paramedics. We will go to where the hurting and broken people
are.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say, Go build a
church. That has been the way Christians in many times and in many places have
seen the goal of community building. Jesus gives instructions for the Church at
the end of the gospel of Matthew, in the words we call The Great Commission:
*Matthew 28:18-20
We’ve talked a lot
about this approach in the past, it will soon become a necessity.
In this regard, I recommend a little book called How to Knock Over a 7-Eleven and Other Ministry Training as scalable
model for ministry in the 21st Century. (One sentence summary: a new
ministry start begins by establishing needed local businesses as a service to
the local community before beginning the traditional worship and education ministries
of the church.) It’s the opposite of how we organize local ministry now.
Third, I think that very few ordained
pastors will be able to be supported solely by the giving of the congregations
they serve. Bi-vocational ministry will be the norm and we need to encourage our
seminaries to enable students to become workers and workers to become students.
Our pastors will be less concerned with maintaining their professional status
in the community and more resemble servant leaders more attuned to the
community’s sense of the call of the Holy Spirit, and less accountable to a few
big givers, leading families, or bullies.
Third, the synod, or regional expression of
the Church, will send a general profile to our seminaries clearly stating the
kind of pastors we will accept for placement in a call in our synod’s
conferences (local area expression of the church) in light of the realities of
the New Normal.
Fourth, synod should operate on the “what
gets measured, gets done” principle and begin posting synod congregations’
average weekly worship attendance, how much it has gone up or down, and the
numbers of adult and the numbers of child and infant baptisms, as four
additional measures of congregational vitality and growth. We already post similar
numbers regarding congregational giving. I would propose that congregational
growth, measured as people in these areas, is ultimately at least as important
to the future survival of the Church in the LA area as financial giving, and
should be posted concurrently.
Fifth, the synod and conferences will declare
to their congregations its policy of assigning resources in such a way that the
demographics of our synod as a whole will grow to resemble the demographics of
the communities that we serve as a whole. Each congregation will be encouraged to
do the same regarding the area that it serves.
Sixth, we will hire consultants/trainers who
have a proven track record of leading congregations like ours through
transformation and growth.
Seventh, the synod and conferences will conduct
regular workshops and goal setting exercises focused on congregational vitality
and growth led by pastors and consultants with proven track records in doing
those things. They will make attendance at and application of these workshops
required for the reception of synodical and conference resources.
Eighth, policies, programs, and funding (in
most cases) will be established based on this premises: God provides everything
needed to accomplish the work God has called us to do. Our congregation members
have all they need to fund a vibrant congregational ministry; they just chose
to spend it someplace else. Our congregations, as a whole, have all they need
to fund a vibrant synodical ministry; they just choose to spend it someplace
else.
Ninth, as has been pointed out by others,
many if not most of our churches are built on valuable Southern California real
estate. A growing number will knock down their buildings and build the tallest
buildings local codes will permit, building in church and school space, and hosting,
retail, office space or whatever the local community needs and will support,
and use the proceeds from them, not for operational expenses but to supplement
local giving for evangelism and church growth as good stewards of that real
estate.
[***What do you think? What do you
think will or should be the changes we will see in the means we use to carry
out ministry the New Normal after the pandemic is over? Do you think I’m right,
or do you have other ideas? Share your thoughts in the comment section below
and we’ll respond to every one.]
Next time, for Part Three, I’m
going to reflect on what I think are the implications of the needed changes for
future church development.
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