Church Leadership Coaching

Bridging the Gap between Knowing and Doing

by Larry  Peers

When congregations, with all good intentions, make plans for change but don't seem to get anywhere, they may be experiencing the very common phenomenon that some have called the "knowing and doing gap." You know what you need to do, but can't seem to do it. The situation is not hopeless, however. There are approaches that we, as leaders, can take to get beyond this tendency.

First, change that endures mines the best of what has been in the past, responds thoughtfully to the challenges of the present, and discerns wisely and prayerfully a future among possible scenarios. If we attempt to solve present problems myopically—that is, without this broader perspective of the interrelationship between the congregation's past, present, and future—we may be cutting ourselves off from the congregation's enduring strengths. If we focus only on solving present problems, we may not ask ourselves what is possible. Instead, we need to be able to evoke the possibilities within the congregation that are inherently self-motivating. The following practices, drawn from an "appreciative inquiry" approach to leading, may help.

Encourage Discovery

First, ask members to reflect upon and talk about the times when the congregation was at its best—at engaging members in the life and work of the congregation, at making a difference in the surrounding community or in the spiritual lives of its members, or whatever else your particular focus may be. For example, you might ask: When have you felt most engaged in the life and the work of this congregation? What did we as a congregation do to help bring that about?

From these lived examples you will be able to discover some common themes. You can then ask the congregation to consider the root causes of these common best experiences. What qualities and practices helped to bring these experiences about?

Imagine Possibilities

Next, focus on the question: What would be possible for us as a congregation if we did more of what we know actually works—if we did more of what we do when we are at our best? A distinction is important here: rather than envisioning possibilities out of a mythical "clear blue sky," we are imagining these possibilities from what we have already actually experienced, and we are considering what would occur if the congregation intentionally did more of what it knows it can do to bring about these best experiences among its members.

Design Futures

Once you have clarified some future possibilities that are built upon your understanding—grounded in actual experience—of the best of what can be, focus your efforts on asking: What shifts in our perspective and ways of being can help bring this about? What behaviors and actions would we see more of? What changes in our approaches would we need to take to support what is possible for us as a congregation?

It is at this stage that you would proactively anticipate obstacles to your congregation's future directions and plan for what you will need to do differently in order to overcome these obstacles.

Ensure Delivery

Once a possibility has been clarified, it's important to identify the specific, feasible steps needed to make it a reality, along with a time line for accomplishing them. At this stage it often helps to extend the discussion beyond the usual committee working on the project. Innovation often comes from inviting fresh eyes and voices into the process.

Ongoing Destiny

In their book, The Knowing-Doing Gap, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton identify some of the tendencies that often lead to this gap, including:

·         Because we’ve talked about it we feel we’ve done it.

·         Because we have made a plan we feel that is equivalent to doing the plan.

·         We fear moving forward because of the unknown.

·         We have set ourselves up for too much change too soon. ¹

To address these stumbling blocks, I have found it helpful for a congregation to develop a prototype of some new practices they will try over a period of three to nine months, with the explicit purpose of learning through doing. As a leader, you would need to intentionally build into this process opportunities for reflecting on the results of your new actions as a congregation, for harvesting your learning, and for making course corrections from what you have learned.

In the Protestant tradition there is the understanding that the church is always reforming. As leaders, we have the opportunity to guide that reformation in our local congregations, for the sake of our congregations and the church as a whole.

1. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, The Knowing and Doing Gap (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000)
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Adapted from "Ask Alban" in Congregations Spring 2009 (vol. 35,
no. 2), copyright © 2009 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.

The Beginning of the Great Disruption

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

March 8, 2009

Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it. Consider this faux article from June 2005 about America’s addiction to Chinese exports:

FENGHUA, China — Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of [garbage] Americans will buy. Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ ... One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless [garbage]? I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.”

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...

We can’t do this anymore.

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.

“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

Over a billion people today suffer from water scarcity; deforestation in the tropics destroys an area the size of Greece every year — more than 25 million acres; more than half of the world’s fisheries are over-fished or fished at their limit.

“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”

One of those who has been warning me of this for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment — when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once — “The Great Disruption.”

“We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder,” he wrote me. “No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply.” We must have growth, but we must grow in a different way. For starters, economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero, whereby buildings, cars, factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible. Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks.

Gilding says he’s actually an optimist. So am I. People are already using this economic slowdown to retool and reorient economies. Germany, Britain, China and the U.S. have all used stimulus bills to make huge new investments in clean power. South Korea’s new national paradigm for development is called: “Low carbon, green growth.” Who knew? People are realizing we need more than incremental changes — and we’re seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter, more efficient, more responsible ways.

In the meantime, says Gilding, take notes: “When we look back, 2008 will be a momentous year in human history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us, ‘What was it like? What were you doing when it started to fall apart? What did you think? What did you do?’ ” Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker

— the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.

In a Culture Drawn to ‘Big’, Should the Church Really Be Celebrating ‘Small’?

1st March, 2009

written by Judy Paulsen

from http://freshexpressions.ca

We live today in a culture of ‘Big’.  Big box stores, Multiplex Cinemas, massive subdivisions, and across North America in the last two decades, something else big-the megachurch.  Because these churches are big they can offer the very best music, audio-visual presentations, great sound systems and specialized teaching skills.  They are among the fastest growing churches today.  However, many of these churches stress that ‘the bigger we get, the smaller we need to become’.  Many of them have discovered that to disciple people effectively (or even get to know them) small groups are essential.  They’re absolutely right, of course.  And we wish them the absolute best in that endeavor.

But what does any of this mean to the thousands of small churches?  Are there things that happen in ’small’ that can’t happen (despite the very best intentions) in ‘big?

Story One

Last week three little girls, ages 5, 9 and 10 dropped by our church, while on their way home from school.  They asked if the littlest one, Milly, could use the washroom.  Afterwards, Amanda, 9, and the clear ringleader, asked if we had any papers that told when church happened.  She said she once went to a Catholic school and had decided it was time for her and her sister to come to church.  She wanted to know if I could show her around so she knew where to take her little sister when it came time for the kids’ program (which she had read about on the paper).  When I showed then the sanctuary, Milly exclaimed, “Look at the pretty pictures!”   Amanda knowingly replied, “Milly, those are stained glass windows”. 

Amanda informed me that she and Milly would only be here every second week because they were at her dad’s every other weekend.  She wanted to know if it was okay for their mom to drop them off since ‘She doesn’t really go to church.’  Kerry, age 10, announced that she might be able to bring her mom along this Sunday.  Then the three waved goodbye and continued on their way home.

I was left a little dumbstruck by the whole encounter, but I know one thing for sure: God is up to something in the lives of these 3 little girls: He is doing a new ’small’ thing.  And so I found myself asking a question about ’small’:  What if there hadn’t been a church in their neighbourhood?

Story Two

About ten months ago I sat and listened to three couples with toddlers talk about their lives, and explain why they found it so hard to honour a vow they made at their first child’s baptism, when they had promised that child would be “nurtured in the faith and life of the Christian community’.  They spoke of both partners commuting long hours to work in the city. They spoke of dropping their kids off early each day at daycare and the guilt they felt doing that.  And they spoke about how neither leaving their toddlers in the nursery or keeping them with them in worship worked.  It wasn’t that they didn’t want to nurture their kids spiritually.  They just couldn’t figure out a way in to do that.  Maybe when their kids were old enough for Sunday School.  Maybe someday.

That conversation gave rise to another ’small’.  It’s called ‘Messy Church’, and it happens once a month on Saturday mornings.  It’s a time for parents and little kids, mainly ages 2 to 6, to learn and worship together.  Messy Church has met eight times now.  Attendance has ranged between 21 and 38.  Almost all of the families who attend were very peripherally attached to the faith community.  A few families have now brought friends and their kids.  Several grandparents have started bringing their grand kids, whose parents don’t have a church connection.  Through songs, games, crafts, stories and DVD clips, we’re reaching children and adults we wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

And so this week I found myself asking another question about ’small’:  if we hadn’t known the initial couples well enough to realize they weren’t at church, how would we ever have connected with them and their kids in a more substantive way?

Story Three

Out of the blue a man called and asked to talk with a pastor.  The man told me his marriage was in serious trouble.  He and his wife were new in town and had chosen us because we had the same name as the church they were married in (Christ Church …. go figure!).  When I met with them two nights later it became clear that their marriage problems were very much related to deep pain in both of their pasts.  They were both the children of alcoholics and had witnessed and experienced serious dysfunction in their families.

Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself inviting them to consider taking part in a program we were starting the very next night called The Twelve Steps:  A Spiritual Journey.  Five weeks into the program (being attended by nine people), they tell me that for the first time they are talking together about the pain in their past, and about spiritual issues.  Last week the women’s sub-group of six all went to a movie together.  The husband has decided to take holiday time on several Tuesdays so that his afternoon shift won’t interfere with him doing the program.  Last Sunday they came to church for the first time.  The husband told one of the Twelve Step leaders that he felt the sermon was ‘just for him’.

And so yet again I found myself asking a question about ’small’.  If the only ‘way in’ to hear the gospel is through a large group worship event followed by the bold step of voluntarily joining a small group, how many people who seriously need to hear good news about the transforming power of God are missing out?

The Fresh Expressions movement, sweeping through much of England and now taking off in Canada, tells us ’small is beautiful’.  In its skateboard churches, bakery churches, café churches, and Goth Eucharists they are reaching small groups of people no traditional church (big or small) can reach.  I believe small neighbourhood churches can confidently say, along with Fresh Expressions, “Yes, small can be beautiful.”  So let’s celebrate ’small’, by keeping an eye on the big things God wants to do there.

The Messy Work of Renewal

by Daniel P. Smith , Mary K.  Sellon

If you’ve ever remodeled a house while attempting to live in it, you have a sense of the chaos and complexity of congregational renewal. It will take far longer, cost you more, and prove messier than you ever imagined at the start. People who have worked with both church starts and church renewal will tell you that starting a church is easy compared to renewing one. The difficulty lies in the work itself. Pogo’s line holds true here: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The church seeking renewal must look beyond simply improving its programs and its building, though both may ultimately be changed. Pastors and laity leading renewal in their declining congregations are asking people to make fundamental shifts in their perspectives, their attitudes, and their behaviors. The work demands a great deal from a people and a pastor.

Your congregation is what it is today not because of what a bad pastor did to it, or because the neighborhood has changed, or because our culture is going to hell in a handbasket. Although those occurrences and many others have had an impact, your congregation is what it is today because of how it responded, or failed to respond, to the realities it faced. What your congregation will be in the future is up to you and the other members and how you work together to create something new from the realities you face. What you do or don’t do now will make the difference. Your actions will either reinforce the patterns that have become established in your congregation, or start to counter and shift them. The leadership provided by your pastor can help or hinder, but it cannot make your congregation succeed or keep it from ultimately achieving the goals you set for yourselves.

Some wonder, "Is it even possible? Can people with little or no experience of their congregation’s being church in this way create this kind of community?" We’ve seen it happen enough times to know that the hope is true and that renewal is possible—not easy, but possible. The path to renewal looks different for each congregation, but some common elements can be observed. Here’s what we know.

Renewal has both outer and inner aspects. To move to a new place, a congregation must tend to both. Organizationally, there are three phases of work:

1.       Developing readiness: preparing the leaders to lead the congregation in a new direction

2.       Surfacing a compelling congregational vision that will guide decision making

3.       Developing and implementing strategies that move the congregation toward the envisioned future

These three fundamental tasks frame the work that ultimately realigns a congregation. Addressed sequentially, they break renewal up into understandable and manageable phases of work. The work of the first two phases culminates in pivotal decisions that prepare the congregation to tackle the final phase of work. Phase 1 results in leaders' declaring the congregation’s current trajectory unacceptable and committing to lead in a new direction. Phase 2 results in a vision of a better future, discerned by the congregation and formally adopted by the congregation's leaders.

While making such decisions might be a simple thing for an individual, it takes a fairly long time for a congregation to make informed and "owned" choices. Whatever the congregation decides must be desired, claimed, and lived into. It’s one thing to say you want something; it’s another to want it enough that you follow through and act on the intention. Phase 3 focuses on exactly that—creating the future that’s been envisioned.

Each of these three phases demands significant work on the part of the people involved. The real work of renewal, however, is inner work. It is here that the greatest challenge lies. To complete these organizational tasks, the people of the congregation must make inner shifts, making the transition from one way of thinking about the congregation to quite another. During renewal, people let go of what feels right and normal to create a new normal for themselves.

The congregation’s inner work of transition has multiple steps. It begins with the recognition that something is wrong—that congregational life, while adequate, is missing something. Because a congregation is an outpost of the Christian church, the next step is to become anchored in a biblical and historical understanding of the purpose of church. When that purpose seems clear, the next step is to name and let go of preconceived notions about the form ministry should take. This step leads to a period of genuinely not knowing what to do. Rather than jumping in and filling that void with a quick solution, the challenge is to open ourselves to God and wait. From that place of expectant waiting, God’s leading is sensed and a path forward is chosen. Finally, actions are aligned with intent, and a new way of being and doing church is created. The congregation moves through these steps of transition only as individuals in the congregation are able to move through these shifts.

This inner work is the real work of renewal, and it is a work of the people. Pastors and outside consultants have much to offer, but they can’t do the work for the people. It may help to think of renewal as physical therapy for the body of Christ. The body is renewed as the people engage in practices that develop and strengthen the muscles of Christian discipleship and community. It isn’t easy work, but it’s worth it.
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Adapted from Pathway to Renewal: Practical Steps for Congregations by Daniel P. Smith and Mary K. Sellon, copyright © 2008 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2008, the Alban Institute. All rights reserved. We encourage you to share articles from the Alban Weekly with your congregation. We gladly allow permission to reprint articles from the Alban Weekly for one-time use by congregations and their leaders when the material is offered free of charge. All we ask is that you write to us at weekly@alban.org and let us know how the Alban Weekly is making an impact in your congregation. If you would like to use any other Alban material, or if your intended use of the Alban Weekly does not fall within this scope, please submit our reprint permission request form.

Myths about Communicating Congregational Identity

by Lynne M. Baab

Adapted from Reaching Out in a Networked World: Expressing Your Congregation's Heart and Soul by Lynne M. Baab, copyright © 2008 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.

Conveying a congregation’s identity and values clearly and through a variety of means of communication will help the congregation connect to the community around it. At the same time, clear expressions of values and identity will also have a deep impact on the congregation itself. The people involved in a congregation are shaped by what they hear about that congregation. Their expectations for the life of faith and for their involvement in the community are influenced by the ways in which the congregation talks about itself and its values.

For decades congregational leaders have been making decisions—both consciously and unconsciously—about identity and values and how they are communicated. The nine myths below lay out some of the underlying issues that may influence these choices and their effectiveness.

Myth 1: We’ve got a mission statement, so we’ve figured out who we are.
Mission (or vision) statements can be helpful to congregations in expressing who they are and what they care about. Leaders and members are tempted to believe that once a mission statement is in place, the congregation can get on with doing ministry. A mission statement, however, is simply one small way among many that a congregation can communicate its heart and soul. In fact, everything about a congregation communicates. Its bulletin, newsletter, and website may include its mission statement, but the photos, layout, and additional text also contribute to the reader’s perception of who the congregation is. The actions of a congregation—its worship style, preaching, ministries, and mission activities—speak of its DNA, its story. Because of its power to influence, all of the congregation’s communication needs to be evaluated from time to time to see if it reflects the values and identity of the congregation.

Myth 2: Our identity is rooted in our faith.

Myth 3: If we focus too much on figuring out our own identity, we may become self-absorbed.
This is another statement with some truth to it, but not the whole truth. Congregational identity is only part of what congregational leaders should be attending to. While focusing on it all the time would definitely cause an imbalance, many congregations are already out of balance in that they focus too little on the way their actions, publications, and use of symbols communicate their priorities and the distinctiveness of who they are. “Who are we and what are we about?” is a key question that needs to be front and center for all congregations.

Myth 4: We don’t need to think any further about the implications of new communication technology because we already use it well.
A number of congregations have mastered necessary skills related to new forms of communication in admirable ways. Many congregations offer podcasted and streaming video sermons on websites, have wonderful teams of people who run the data projectors on Sunday morning, and embrace new communication technologies as they emerge. But that doesn’t mean they are communicating wisely. In some congregations, the message communicated about values differs from one mode of communication to the next because the various forms of communication haven’t been evaluated well. In other congregations, the message is so unified that the congregation’s diversity is not represented well. Focusing on the deeper questions, the issues that lie behind the use of new technologies, is important. Congregational leaders need to consider how everything the congregation does—communication technologies as well as things like programming and the use of physical space in the building—speaks about the congregation’s priorities.

Myth 5: We’re a traditional congregation, and we have chosen not to use most of the new communication technologies. We’ve figured out our identity; it’s the same as it’s always been, so why complicate things?
All congregations need to periodically rethink and explore who they are and what they value. Even if all the people attending a congregation stay the same over a decade, each of those people would undergo personal changes in that time, and those personal changes would change the priorities and emphases of that community of faith. And, of course, no congregation is composed of exactly the same members over a decade or more. The flow of people in and out of a congregation, and in and out of leadership roles, shapes the values of each congregation. And while I do think new communication technologies offer some wonderful opportunities for congregations, I would never suggest that congregations need to use all of them. I do argue, however, that everything congregations say and do contributes to their identity. Therefore paying some attention to the issue is wise, no matter what forms of communication are used.

Myth 6: We avoid the new technologies because we’re leery of the consumer culture, and we don’t want our congregation and even our faith to turn into yet one more consumer item.
I am concerned that communities of faith have become consumer items and that people looking for a congregation are engaged in a form of shopping. However, I see congregational identity as an issue that relates to much more than selling something. Very simply, everything we say and do communicates what we consider to be important, and what congregations communicate about faith values shapes how members act on their faith. Therefore, from time to time, congregations need to stop and evaluate what they are communicating. Congregational leaders will likely choose not to use certain forms of communication that don’t fit the ethos of that congregation.

Myth 7: Our congregational values are being communicated effectively through words.

Our pastor and leaders preach the sermons and put a lot of thought into the words used in our newsletter and on our website.
People are increasingly influenced by images as well as by words. According to communication research, the images projected on a screen during worship and the images used in newsletters and on websites often have as much or more impact than the words associated with them. Much of Jewish and Christian tradition is strongly word oriented, emphasizing the significance of words over images. With the move away from a word-based to an image-based culture, leaders of congregations need to do some careful thinking about the role of visual communication in our time.

Myth 8: We’ve got a great Web designer and newsletter editor, and our newsletter and website are terrific.
In many congregations, one person creates most of the publications. Often, congregational leaders supply the text, but the Web designer or newsletter editor decides on the layout, photos, and graphics. In this increasingly visual culture, forms of visual communication such as layout, photos, and graphics need to be evaluated to see if they communicate the desired message, particularly if one person is choosing most of them. I believe that all the new communication technologies have created the necessity for “critical friends,” people who understand the importance of the new forms of communication for congregations and, at the same time, are willing to look at those forms with a critical eye. These critical friends pay attention to the congregation’s websites, blogs, projection screens, and other forms of communication that have a large visual component to see if the visuals harmonize with the words used and whether the verbal and visual components together communicate important values about the congregation.

Myth 9: If your heart is in the right place, communication takes care of itself.

I agree that the single most important thing for congregations is to worship and follow God in a way that engages hearts and minds. Without faith as the center of its life, a congregation has nothing to offer its members or the world. Faith values cannot be communicated if no faith values are present. But I do not agree that the result of a vibrant faith is that all communication will automatically be okay. Just as individuals with good intentions can benefit from learning listening skills for their personal relationships and speaking skills for their oral communication, so congregations can benefit from considering the implications of the ways they communicate and what they are communicating. In this age of rapidly proliferating communication technologies, this task of evaluation is even more urgent.

Copyright © 2008, the Alban Institute. All rights reserved. We encourage you to share articles from the Alban Weekly with your congregation. We gladly allow permission to reprint articles from the Alban Weekly for one-time use by congregations and their leaders when the material is offered free of charge. All we ask is that you write to us at weekly@alban.org and let us know how the Alban Weekly is making an impact in your congregation. If you would like to use any other Alban material, or if your intended use of the Alban Weekly does not fall within this scope, please submit our reprint permission request form.

The Church in Exile: Being a Missionary to the Dominant Culture

by Lee Beach

from Congregations, Fall 2008 issue, pp. 6-10

   A colleague of mine at the seminary where I work recently presented a paper on the places in the world where the church had once been a strong and vibrant entity but, for various reasons, had become extinct within a few short generations. In each case, he pointed out that, at the height of the church’s cultural power, the idea that one day it would cease to exist in those countries would have been utterly unthinkable. Yet it happened. The possibility of such a thing happening in North America seems very remote, and yet the majority of us who participate in local church life understand that things have changed in terms of the church and its place in culture. At one time, not so long ago, the church stood at or near the center of cultural life. It played a vital role in helping to shape the contours of North American culture and was a significant part of the lives of most people within society. This is increasingly less true. Recent research done by the Barna Group indicates that just one quarter of American adults possess an active faith, with “active” defined as engaging in weekly prayer, church attendance, and Bible reading. In Canada a recent poll showed weekly church attendance at 17 percent. Similar polls show that younger generations are even less inclined to engage in traditional Christian rituals. While such data is limited in its overall analysis of religious life, few of us would question that trends in western culture are moving away from fidelity to traditional Christian beliefs and practices. This creates a new cultural reality for the church and continues to challenge church leaders as they seek to help the church find its way through the murky waters of contemporary culture.

   It many ways the biblical people of God are, by nature, exilic people. Has there ever been a time when the people who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have not been a threatened minority, struggling to preserve their particular identity and beliefs? From the nomadic journeys of the patriarchs, to slavery in Egypt, to the constant threats of enemies throughout the period of the monarchy, to the drastic events of being conquered by Babylon (597–587 B.C.), and their subsequent existence under Persian, Greek, and Roman rule, the people of Israel have never lived as a super power.

In the New Testament, Peter describes his audience as exiles (1:1, 2:11). Perhaps this should be the experience of Christians within any given culture. Exile is, in its very essence, living away from home. This is at the heart of the Christian faith as we live away from our ultimate eschatological home, called to live in and see the world in a different way from the dominant culture.

If the paradigm of exile can help the church understand itself more faithfully in this current age, are there any resources that ancient Israel can offer to the contemporary church from their exilic experience? As the people of Israel responded to Babylonian and Persian exile, there are at least three contours of exilic life that connect with the 21st-century exile of the church in North America.

Learning the Language of Exile

The first priority for exilic living is identifying where we are and how we got here. In order to orient the church to its changing place on the cultural landscape, it will take honest reflection on our experience. Further, that experience must be given a voice if it is to become formative and ultimately redemptive in the life of the church. For ancient Israel, it was through the language of prayer that they named their experience and began to shape it in hopeful directions. It is in the bold prayers of lament, penitence, and hope that the experience of exile was described and understood. Just as these acts of speech formed the core of a spirituality that sustained the ancient community, so too can they inform modern communities in exile. In particular, the book of Lamentations and the exilic Psalms (44, 74, 79, 89, and 137) provide a canonical foundation for giving expression to the experience of exile.

   While lament is not a practice widely utilized in many sectors of today’s church, it is the language that gives voice to a sense of loss and allows for the voice of protest to find its generative expression. In congregations throughout North America there is a sense of loss and sorrow that must be given voice. It comes out in church board meetings, informal conversations, and seminary classrooms. The sorrow is found in the cultural realities that remind us that the Christian faith holds less and less influence over the culture. Old certainties are not so certain, old institutions are eroding and carry less attraction to new generations; social fabrics seem to be fraying and are replaced with confusion, frustration, and sometimes anger. There is a lack of clarity about truth, authority, ethics, and what is “right.” The church itself struggles (sometimes unsuccessfully) to hold its membership, and finances are an ongoing struggle. These are sorrow-producing realities that are lamentable. To properly appropriate the resources of exilic spirituality, the congregation should find ways to lament these changes. There must be a refusal to decorate our marginalization with platitudes or empty complaint. In giving voice to our sadness the church will gain a voice that is honest and realistic, just as the voice of the poet was in Babylon.

He has cut down in fierce anger
All the might of Israel;
He has withdrawn his right hand
from them.

He has bent his bow like an enemy
With his right hand set like a foe;
He has killed all in whom we took pride
In the tent of daughter Zion.

The Lord has become like an enemy;
He has destroyed Israel.
(Lamentations 2:3-5)

   Helping give voice to the sorrow of loss is a crucial pastoral task in the post-Christendom church. Further, prayers of lament allow us to speak a word of protest toward our host culture by expressing our sorrow at its idolatry and our refusal to be co-opted by it. Just as the gods of Babylon may have seemed powerful to Israel (after all, they “won”) and the opulence of the city may have been alluring, the faithful used lament as a voice to speak ill against both. Thus lament was subversive speech, rejecting both the idols and their seductive powers. We need to speak in a similar voice, naming the prevailing “isms” of contemporary culture as idols and clearly stating our opposition to them. Lament enables such expression. This happens through leadership. Leadership must help congregations define reality: How is culture changing? What impact does that have on ministry? How can the church faithfully respond? This is a significant task in the church’s life today, as helping people understand the answers to these questions is crucial to giving voice to their sense of loss and orienting them to new cultural realities. Also, corporate prayer, sermons, and formal and informal discussion groups, where people are invited to share their concerns and frustrations with the situation that the church finds itself in, are other venues for exploring and employing lament in its various forms. Without an honest articulation of our reality and a frank naming of those things that have contributed to our marginalization, including our propensity to be co-opted by them, the church can never fully engage the new reality of a postmodern, post-Christian society because it will never truly be oriented to it.

   Prayers of penitence (or repentance) can also be easily brushed over in our corporate worship services. We either neglect the discipline or we are guilty of denying our complicity in things, instead blaming others for our demise and powerlessness. Yet lament must be accompanied by penitence if it is to become meaningful and ultimately give way to the renewal of hope.

   For ancient Israel, repentance began to break through as lament gave way to the trickle of confession in their prayer tradition. Psalm 79 demonstrates this emerging voice:

Help us, O God of our salvation,
For the glory of your name;
Deliver us, and forgive our sins,
For your name’s sake. (Psalm 79:9)

   How does the church go about the practice of corporate penitence? Further, what do we need to be repentant about? In 1971, as the Vietnam War dragged on, the editors of The Christian Century issued a call to American Christians to lament their attitudes toward the war. They challenged the church for being too tolerant of those in power and too forgetful of the victims of war.

   From here they listed several accusations against the governmental leaders and their handling of the Vietnam crises. Based on this lament they pressed further and called the church into a time of genuine repentance during holy week of that year. Following this, five statements were listed, calling for action and changed behavior on the part of the church in response to the war.

This example of a call to corporate repentance reminds us of the place for such activity. Are there places where the contemporary church has remained silent about (or even co-operated with) systems that injure others or advance agendas that ultimately lead to further human suffering? Maybe our collaboration needs to be assessed and confessed. While it can be controversial and painful, it is also a profound act of spirituality that sustains corporate life in the midst of exile. Having the courage to be honest about those things and calling for repentance through corporate prayer is a vital act of leadership for the church’s existence in a time of exile.

   This is true because lament and penitence create the possibility for hope. Though the people of ancient Israel lamented their lot, they still believed that God was present to bring deliverance:

Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself O Lord, that we may
be restored. (Lamentations 5:20-21)

   The prayer functions as both a plaintive cry regarding God’s seeming absence as well as an acknowledgment that God is still present to restore. The writer/pray-er of Psalm 44 bursts forth in hopeful prayer after a time of lament and repentance:

Rise up, come to our help.
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast
love. (v. 26)

   This is the fulcrum of hope for those in exile. God is never fully absent, thus restoration can still be part of the vocabulary of exilic prayer, and hope remains alive.

   Even in the midst of drastically changing times the church can face its exile when it is willing to honestly name its circumstances, confess its sin, and ask God to move in fresh ways. Leading the church in the language of lament, penitence, and hope is foundational to contemporary pastoral leadership.

Living Life in Exile

   When a people feel threatened and are displaced in some way, the community is always thrown into a situation where agreement on what to do next is not always clear. Ancient Israel found itself in such a situation. There was no agreement as to how to respond to exile. Some thought accommodation to Babylon was best, some resisted new cultural traditions and recommitted themselves to former ways. Others fled the mainstream to isolated communities where they could live their traditional lives unfettered by pagan influence. Still others took aggressive action against their oppressors. Finally there were those who sought to work with their occupiers to bring the benefits of the empire to Jerusalem.

While there was not a uniform response to exile among the people of ancient Israel, the prevailing canonical response clearly included a renewed call and commitment to holiness. Put another way, there was a call for the people of God to behave differently from their hosts, to present themselves as an alternative community. This is most distinctly present in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, where the people of Israel are commanded to exclude non-Israelites from the community because they may contaminate it. However, it is also seen in the call to conscientiously renew the practice of Sabbath keeping (Jer. 17:19-27; Isa. 56:2-6, Ezek. 44:24) as an act of faithfulness to Yahweh, which in Babylon would have been a confessional act that would have made Israel stand out from its environment. The book of Daniel explicitly presents a Hebrew hero who is able to thrive in the court of a foreign king by being faithful to the ways of the God of Israel. Daniel embodies the call to holiness that was understood as being essential to Israel thriving as a people living with minimal power and influence in a foreign culture. His story gives testimony to the exilic ideal of presenting an alternate, set-apart way of life that challenges the status quo on one hand and yet brings blessing to it on the other.

   The church is called to continue this calling and, in exile, it is even more important that the church show itself to be something other than a duplication of the ideals and ideas of the empire in which it resides. Instead, the life of the church must be marked by a distinct quality that allows it to be a continuation of Jesus’s own incarnational life.

   This compels church leaders to explore with their congregations what exactly makes the church distinct in North American culture in 2008. In what ways are we called to live that reflect the beauty of God’s holiness in, and against, the place that we live as exiles? It may be that the most significant thing we can do as church leaders is to lead our congregations through a prolonged, careful consideration of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and ask what it would mean for us as a Christian community to truly embody its principles in contemporary life.

Engaging in Mission While in Exile

   For ancient Israel the loss of land and political autonomy was a catastrophic and potentially terminal event. They were, after all, a people whose identity as God’s people was predicated, at least in part, upon their appropriation of the land promised to them by God himself. Such a disorienting turn of events could easily lead them to neglect their calling to be a witness to the life and ways of God to the rest of the world. However, the exilic prophets would give the people no such option. Isaiah reminds the people that they remain a “light to the Gentiles” (42:5-7). The story of Jonah reveals God’s intention that Israel be a witness to their subjugators so that they may come to repentance despite Israel’s resistance to such a notion.

As the church’s power and influence as a predominant shaper of cultural life ebbs away, it leads the church to struggle with its identity in a new societal arrangement. Yet, if the church is to find its way in its new exilic reality, mission must take a central place in its self-understanding. Further, it must understand that being involved in mission is not the same as it used to be.

   For many years churches have had the luxury of being able to engage their culture by simply being present. A church could open its doors and, by offering Sunday worship and some standard programs, it could develop a congregation. This may be an oversimplified description of reality, but not by much. Churches that grew faster and larger often did so by running innovative programs that were deemed to be “relevant” and thus reached more people because of their “cutting-edge” approach to church-based programming. This model is becoming less and less useful. As the gap between church and culture increases and the general population becomes increasingly unchurched, attractional or invitational models of mission can no longer be counted on to work. If the church is to live out its calling as a witness of the gospel it will become necessary for it to see itself as a missionary to its culture. This means discerning ways in which the church can go into its community and engage it with acts of servanthood and proclamation instead of running programs in the church building itself and hoping that people, in a culture that is increasingly distant from organized religion, will keep coming to them.

   For ancient Israel, setting up a temple in Babylon was not an option. Even if it had been, would it have been in any way realistic to expect the citizens of that city to ever set foot inside? Instead, Jonah is called to go and proclaim a message of mercy to the people of Nineveh. Daniel is called to a place of secular service where he is able to demonstrate the superiority of his God as compared to the gods of Babylon. The people are instructed to settle in Babylon and “seek the prosperity of the city.” (Jer. 29:7) This is the place of mission in an exilic setting. Church leaders have to figure out how to emulate this in the post-Christian culture of North America.

   This involves at least two key activities. The first involves the work of education. For many within the established church there is an inertia that causes them to think that not much has changed or, at worst, that those changes are superficial and have little impact on the life and ministry of the church. In Canada the cultural shifts that have taken place in the last 40 years are almost unfathomable. While the situation in the United States may not be as drastic, and in some places the concept of the church being in exile may even seem ludicrous, this is a temporary lag. As we have already noted, the work of researchers like George Barna demonstrates that cultural and ecclesiastical norms are in tremendous flux. Helping our people see the realities and their looming impact on ministry is a major responsibility for contemporary church leaders, just as warning Israel of pending judgment was for the prophets.

   The second vital activity for leadership is to increasingly look outward and identify the needs in the local community in which the congregation resides. As these needs are discerned, the temptation is often to create programs within the walls of the church that will meet those needs. Instead, the work of the church must become more outwardly focused, and there needs to be a growing understanding that its work is accomplished outside of traditional church programs and through mobilizing its membership to “go” (Matt. 28:18) and serve in creative ways outside the walls of the church. Thus the work of discerning community needs and helping church members see how their ministry energies can be best expended in helping to meet those needs is primary pastoral work for a church in exile.

   While exile presents immense challenges to a people, just as Israel found its way through exile so, too, will the church today. Not because we are so astute but because God is always faithful to his promises and is constantly working in new and inventive ways. The work of ministry in an exilic context is to discern what God is doing and how he may want us to collaborate. These are challenging times. The move into exile was a devastating event in Israelite life and faith, and it is disconcerting for many in the contemporary church. But, as Episcopal priest and theologian Ephraim Radner eloquently states, “Exile is also a movement by which our Lord delineated deliverance. As such, it can hardly be a cause for fear.”