Hope, Gospel, Mission, and Relationships: A Report From the Field
The team of people who work within the Siburt Institute are constantly engaged in conversations with ministers and congregational leaders across the country. I’m just returning from visits with churches in the state of Colorado. This week I will be in elder Zoom meetings with multiple churches. Our staff that works with churches looking for ministers will have three to five conversations each week. Staff involved with our Empower and Equip initiative will be networking with dozens of congregations each week. Our consultants are actively engaged with perhaps ten to twelve congregations this month. Our researcher is actively interviewing church leaders across the country and tabulating data from several major survey projects.
What are we hearing? At first glance, you might say that we are hearing all sorts of things. Yet if we gain a little bit of distance from the research, the conversations and the networks that we are tapping into, I think that we can see some patterns emerging.
Some churches are in steep decline, and there are no obvious signs of new life. In these churches we generally observe significant aging, a lack of young adults or children, and leadership systems frozen in time. These churches may have financial resources, or they may not; however, the one thing that is almost always present is the lack of “the will to live.” In other words, these churches lack curiosity, exhibit no hope, and live excessively in nostalgia.
Some churches are in decline while also showing signs of life. Those signs of life might be some youth and young adults (and the willingness to foster their spiritual life), some urgency to attend to the decline, and the willingness to pray and discern God’s will for their future. Such churches have hard work to do, yet they are demonstrating the will to engage in that hard work.
Some churches came out of COVID with an altered vision for their future. These churches see opportunity for the kingdom of God and are willing to pursue it. They have let go of older patterns and practices that are no longer life-giving, and they are seeking new patterns and practices that form and deepen faith. These are churches where prayer is central to strategic planning, and where pursuing God’s work in the world is more important than personal preference. Importantly, they understand that the church’s mission means connecting and serving neighbors and the larger community. So outward-facing ministry and evangelism are normal and expected ways of being for these churches. These churches are growing. They are full of life and intergenerational vitality. The communities where these churches are found know these congregations as trusted community partners.
What do we make of this brief report from the field? What observations could I offer? Here are some theological commitments that I would offer, no matter whether your congregation falls in category one, two, or three. After all, the gospel is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Consider these truths:
God is at work in the world. What Scripture calls the kingdom or rule of God is the conviction that God continues God’s mission to reconcile and redeem humankind. Therefore, church leaders live with hope. We are not alone. God’s preferred future is not a pipe dream. However, it will require us to relinquish our hold on the future and trust in God’s future.
Since God is at work in the world, the gospel is the word for our work. That is to say, the church is a gospel people. The gospel, in short, is the declaration that God is showing up in the world. And when God shows up, new and transforming things happen. We should expect surprise and newness; that is what God does! As leaders we always stand ready to receive a new insight or find ourselves on a new trail as God invites us into what He has in store for our congregations.
For many of our churches, we need to reclaim mission. Many churches, especially those that are over 40 years of age, have become insular or internally focused. In these churches, Siburt often hears language like, “We wish we could get people to come to us.” Such language can be an indicator of a loss of mission. A church can become a club that is hoping to launch a new membership drive. Instead, churches need to recover God’s mission: to seek and save the lost! The local congregation is God’s agent to declare the news that God is showing up in the world. And to do this, churches will need to learn to love their neighbors and care for their communities. That will mean, much of the time, reducing the focus on a building and on “our Sunday school.” Rather, it will mean getting to know your neighbor and learning to love your co-worker.
Naming this work of love is grounded in another theological conviction. Here it is: relationships matter. The Bible’s claim that God is love resonates here. At the heart of God’s being is love. God in three persons, the holy Trinity, demonstrates what love looks like. The relationality of God’s being is a constant reminder to God’s people of the value of relationship. Evangelism, discipleship, ministry, community service, communion of the saints, leadership, and more are all bound up in the dynamics of relationality.
When Siburt people get together and share their experiences across the hundreds of churches that we encounter, we notice that the churches that have life – those in the second and third categories above – possess an awareness of these four factors: hope, gospel, mission, and relationality. My prayer for you and the congregation you serve is that God will raise up men and women who are trusting in God’s power, are compelled by the good news that God is showing up, see the life of the church as God’s mission in the world, and love deeply. God’s blessings as you partner with Him in kingdom work!
Carson
