Resources for “Turning Toward Life”
The November 9 Alban Weekly article by Mary Louise Gifford (“Turning Toward Life“) is an excerpt from The Turnaround Church, recently published by the Alban Institute. Both this article and Gifford’s book bear witness to the hope and possibility that churches seemingly on the brink of closing can, indeed, change course and become vibrant, vital, Spirit-filled communities.
Gifford, herself a new pastor at such a church, points to factors that support the likelihood of a turnaround: a strong will to live, a sense that God is calling the church to life, a willingness to empower the pastor to facilitate change, a dedication to “dismantling old systems and initiating and implementing newer, more effective systems,” and the capacity to assume responsibility as a community for worship, stewardship, and leadership. These factors, combined with exposing past denials and opening up to truthful possibilities, enabled Gifford’s own church to “again sing God’s praises.”
What resources might assist your congregation in renewal or redevelopment? In addition to the outstanding items listed at the end of the article, there are resources from the “Congregational Renewal” and “Congregational Redevelopment” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide.
Let me especially call your attention to our online tutorial from George Bullard, “Spiritual Strategic Journey,” as well as to Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity for the Rest of Us and Frederic Roberts’s Be Not Afraid!: Building Your Church on Faith and Knowledge.
What stories or thoughts do you have about “turnaround” congregations? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
Our very small church with a building fund that will never accumulate enough funds to build a building or even purchase property in our great city has focused on leasing property in other churches who need the income. We have also joined the University District Ecumenical Campus Coalition which is now involved in a feasibility study the goal of which is for member congregations to give up their ancient properties and buildings and erect a single multiple worship facility on a city block with offices for all pastors and staff, extra offices for social service and christian ministry organizations, parking, retail and office space, public space, joint fellowship and educational space, and more. The member churches would put their own properties up for sale and they would be used to construct low-income and middle-income housing for the urban community that surrounds them. State law has even been changed already in this anticipation so that the properties can be directed for housing use. The congregations will also have joint ministry opportunities in the area working ecumenically, sharing volunteers, and more to accomplish the task of caring for our community. It is an awesome, God-honoring, novel idea.
This is a very insightful article. The phrase that sticks with me is: “People aren’t always afraid of change; they’re afraid of loss.” This is a better way to look at those who resist, not as “sticks in the mud” but as mourners who are in pain and fighting for a way of life that is dying. Very helpful re-orientation!
“Turning Toward Life”
As our churches struggle with revitalization, they experience a new kind of loss; thos that leave. Churches need younger people to perpetuate the congregation, but what is a church’s legacy when those who leave harbor feelings of loss, anger, displacement and self-worthlessness? The number of dechurched people are growing. How do we keep them in the family of God?
Rev. Greer is getting is right! Thanks for such a clear and helpful description of how to start on this holy, if uncharted, course so that others may follow.
This morning I read the excerpt and agree with your outline of the church in many places. As one who has brought two congregations together without a precipating crisis, I concur with what your suggest.
I esp. agree that leadrship and time are required for the majority of the congregation to grow in the same direction together.
I would be open to sharing my experience as I reflect on what we have done and how we have done it, through God’s grace and leading.
Peace-Virginia Miner
I am of the opinion that “redevelopment” is problematic and that it takes less energy to start a new church than to revitalize an old one. This article didn’t alter that opinion since there were so few specifics. What did they do, exactly? Did they get rid of the closets full of papers or not? Did they fix the building? How many members had to be lost in the process of the “turnaround?” What criteria did they use to indicate that there really was a turnaround? Where is the sign that this is now a “vibrant, Spirit-filled community?” Except in the mind of the pastor?
Have had like opportunity. It took several years to become the new congregation and find our new identity. We have whole new look and congregation. We do have some struggles. We are stuck on the small church culture, reaching and pastoring hundreds but small weekly attendance and low commitment. But, we disciple and teach and train and little by little some catch the vision of a Learning and Living God’s Way.
God bless all you faithful. RC
The sentence that leapt out at me in the Gifford article was “People do not necessarily resist change, they resist loss.” Our congregation is in the process of merger of three churches in the United Church of Christ in Bensenville, Illinois. We are at the point where we three pastors are leaving so that an interim can come and help them move past the loss of their beloved former churches and into the identity of the new church they are becoming. Helping congregations understand loss, and the resurrection of hope in its midst has been a continuing focus of this time of transition by our three pastors.
Seeing how the Holy Spirit empowers new ways and ideas to infiltrate our losses has prompted many folks to see the new way emerging. The beauty of this Spirit is heard in the new confidence and faith spoken by many people, “I don’t know exactly this will happen but we will get there.” In this time we are seeing that the loss we had feared is incrementally becoming the path to a new, and not-yet-known future. We are on the way to living into our new name—Faith Community United Church of Christ.
We are blessed at our church to have a cadre of caring congregants whose talents span the gamut from campus maintenance to financial mindfulness, welcoming new people, sustaining the regulars.
However, we are in a slow decline with decreasing membership and, in some cases, leadership in key positions (discipleship and education). It’s like we care more about the building than in building God’s Kin-dom outside the physical walls because it’s more straight forward and uncomplicated. Our unspoken theme is: “quality over quantity.” But that’s not what Jesus called us to do.
As a United Methodist, I look back 250+ years to the tenants by which John Wesley organized the polity of a movement designed to revitalize the Church of England. His strength came not from building, in fact at first he was kicked out of more churches than he was invited into. As such he built the movement around house churches, much like the small groups we see popping up more and more these days. Also, the “churches” that I see growing are ones that don’t even us the word “church,” but use the word “community” in their title. For UMC’s, and other mainline churches needed to “go back to the future” and rediscovered the essence of what formed them in the first place. Once that is started, the rest of the process, (new start, turn around, yoke, etc) will become self-evident. It starts with meaningful discussion and discernment.
In the Name of Love,
Tim Rochte
Friends:
It strikes me that the turnaround really wasn’t that much of a change on the inside of this congregation, but a reversal of external and internal factors. To say that another way, the implicit and invisible qualities of the congregation were “transformed” — you just have to wonder about that word these days, hmm? — into the actual bottom line. In his new HOW THE MIGHTY FALL, Jim Collns seems to be saying the same thing: It’s the intangibles (trust, love, wisdom, forgiveness, hope, humor, wisdom, courage) that really determine how an enterprise prospers.
In the case of Mary Louise Gifford, my guess is that THOSE elements of life together became the real assets for change. The question for all of us then becomes how to honor what’s unseen so that it becomes seen, what’s at the heart of motivation so that it crowds out what doesn’t actually motivate for change.
Congratulations and blessings to this doubtlessly remarkable pastor!
Bob Sitze