What is Keeping Us Stuck?

What is beckoning us into new life, and what is keeping us stuck? What must we carry forward—and what must we finally let go? If God is indeed doing a new thing, do we perceive it? Or are we resisting it? Which systems need to be disrupted to make room for new forms of leadership and mission? And what might all these shifts demand of local congregations, clergy staffs, and the inherited structures we’ve long taken for granted?

Even though we are living today with inherited models of church, we still have a choice to be either afraid of these life-altering shifts or see them as openings onto what the Holy Spirit is making possible in a new day. 

In February, I had the opportunity to work with a group of YDS students through the School’s Transformational Leadership Program on the theme of the future of faith communities. As you might imagine, the conversations were provocative, threaded with healthy doses of (holy) discontent, ecclesial imagination, and theological humility. I walked away from the 12 hours we spent together feeling deeply hopeful, which was remarkable given there are no definitive answers to the layered questions we raised and explored together. 

The Future of the Future

In one session, we played a game devised by the Institute for the Future to expand imagination for what is possible in this moment. Called “Flip the Facts,” this exercise invites the players to name what is generally true about a topic—in our case, “the Christian church in America”—and then flip those facts to their opposite. For example, the generally true fact might be: people attend worship in a sanctuary at a weekend service. The flipped fact: people no longer gather together to attend worship in person; church is accessed completely online, asynchronously.  

In the game’s next phase the group assumes the flipped fact has actually come true and now defines the future. They then use the drivers of change they already know (including climate change and technological advances) and hypothesize how the (seemingly absurd) future came to be the norm.[1] The YDS class divided into small groups to come up with plausible explanations. One group described the following “flipped fact” scenario: in the face of climate concerns and rising costs, transportation has changed such that the general population rarely leaves home; pandemics are more frequent, so large gatherings are avoided; church buildings are more like museums where people pay to attend, and only the elite can afford it. Another group described a future in which spiritual leaders are not trusted; AI has become the all-powerful authority for theology. To this scenario they added small sects of dissenters who meet in homes and share in Christian practices together (thank goodness!). 

Into the Chaos of Creation

I share this small-group exercise not to take us down a dystopian path of despair but to stretch our thinking about how conditions and trends of today challenge us to envision new ways of being the church. The danger inherent in not stretching our imaginations is that our established ways of thinking about church can hinder us from being the church God is calling us to be. We are stymied if we simply close our eyes (and minds!) to the very real changes that are already affecting the church’s ability to live out its mission.

Before I name a few, I want to stress that even though we are living today with inherited models of church, we still have a choice to be either afraid of these life-altering shifts or see them as openings onto what the Holy Spirit is making possible in a new day. It is, after all, where God does God’s best work among us—in the chaos of creation, in the unknown places of our lives and world. 

Trend 1: The unbundling of spiritual formation—The church has traditionally put all its proverbial eggs in the basket of the weekend experience—that is, worship and small groups or Sunday school—as if it is the only place where people are formed spiritually. On the flip side, people have also relied on the church experience to provide the sum total of their spiritual growth. 

I’m overstating it on both sides, of course. But not by much. In so many of our Christian church cultures, we have long held to a spirituality of place, as in: “I go to church to experience God.” Christian formation has been bundled into the worship and programs the church provided. Increasingly, though, people are unbundling spiritual formation from solely what the church offers and seeking God and meaning outside the church—think book clubs, yoga classes, volunteering, hiking, walking, cycling groups, meditation, small group dinners, pilgrimages, festivals, podcasts, and online communities. 

This is not news. People have been gathering and seeking God outside the church for generations. What does feel new, and worthy of great attention from congregational leaders, is that the pattern pertains not just to folks who don’t attend church or who are not Christian but is just as likely to include people who love Jesus and are deeply committed to their faith formation. No doubt this trend might look like a direct threat to congregations. If people are seeking meaning and belonging outside the church, it could well threaten the long-term sustainability of congregations. But it’s only a threat if sustaining the church building and its habitual programs is the whole goal of the church, which, of course, it is not. 

People unbundling and owning their own spiritual formation is good news. And if the church embraces this new circumstance, all kinds of new ministries emerge to help people grow into beloved community.  

Trend 2: Phygital space is here to stay—The place where people go for content as well as connection has shifted from the physical to the phygital (physical + digital = phygital), but the church has by and large not made this shift. Today most Americans say they spend at least five hours a day looking at screens.[2] With younger generations, the numbers stretch to nine hours or more a day. Others report screen use of 13-16 hours a day or more. My point is not to shame or debate but simply to observe that the church cannot ignore this reality. The church has always been called to the places where people are—the public square, the borders, the barrios, the fields and coal mines in John Wesley’s day. The church today cannot abdicate its role in the formation of human beings to the (loud and prevalent) voices of the internet. It is more critical than ever that the church not turn timid but stand to its full height in the new phygital, public square. 

Trend 3: Neighborhood as the unit of change—We are all painfully aware that our country is experiencing what the previous Surgeon General called an epidemic of loneliness affecting one-third of adults and half of young people. There is a marked rise in diseases of despair—anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. Additionally, some estimates indicate as much as 90 percent of healthcare costs are spent on chronic disease and mental health. We are in a wellbeing crisis. Layer this emergency with the overwhelming evidence that zip code has a greater impact on health and life expectancy than even genetics. The message is clear. If we want to bring about human flourishing (and surely, as the church, we do), we must focus on neighborhoods and the interconnectedness of resources and assets that exist there, or potentially exist. 

This trend is particularly important to call out for the church’s ministry today, because it challenges the church to embody Jesus’ call to love our neighbor—not simply to serve neighbors locally but to be a neighbor, to deepen relationships and befriend our neighbors, valuing the giftedness each brings, as well as to discover and embrace partners in the work across disciplines and faith traditions. The neighborhood is the primary unit of change for creating an environment of wellbeing and flourishing. This notion should not be taken as a rejection of the church’s importance but rather an urgent plea to the church to step up, de-center itself, shake off its preoccupation with self-preservation, and instead recommit to its surrounding community and the individuals and families who they call neighbors. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

These trends are just a few of the catalysts of change the church is facing. Rather than a gloomy prophecy of the dissolution of church as we know it, what I hope you hear is that these shifts offer an opportunity for the church to embrace its core gospel mission and show up in new ways and in new spaces. Consider Checkpoint Church, which exists entirely online using Discord as well as YouTube, video games, and podcasts for interaction, care, and connection. Or New City Church in Minneapolis, which centers marginalized voices through covenant practices, advocacy, and worship. Or Galveston Central Church, which has been transformed from a dying, empty shell of a congregation to the largest provider of services to the unhoused community in Galveston County (Texas), all because its members trusted their neighbors’ wisdom and experience. God is doing a new thing. Do we not perceive it?! 

The Rev. Lisa Greenwood ’92 M.Div. is the president and CEO of Wesleyan Impact Partners and the Texas Methodist Foundation in Austin. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, she has served as a minister at several UMC congregations in the state. She has a B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin.