Abstract
Change is a constant in congregational life. Driven by social forces and the constant exigencies of holding together a congregational community, it is an unavoidable leadership challenge every minister faces. In the face of this reality and before the accelerated changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Patrick Keifert, director of research of the Church Innovation Institute, and Wesley Granberg-Michelson, formerly the general secretary of the Reformed Church of America, wrote this book to establish practices to “establish the foundation for durable, missional change.”
After introducing the subject of change through an anecdote about a denominational official, the authors share five basic features of transformational change: “They must be clear and rooted in a missional thirst for God’s desired future”; “space for seeking such change must be opened creatively, free from the normal governing process”; “procedures for decision-making should be grounded more in spiritual discernment than in strategic planning and parliamentary-style processes”; “an open engagement in the biblical story, connecting it to the church’s current journey . . . should permeate all that is done”; and “the journey of faithful missional change can happen only in partnership with others” (pp. 23–24).
The subsequent chapters address each feature in more depth, beginning with a treatment on what may need to change, including admitting that change is a “life or death” issue for congregations that many church leaders do not know how to address. This section is followed by a discussion of what it means to be a missional church that features a core idea that “Christian innovation is a process starting in failure, growing out of a Christian imagination, and leading to a shared positive outcome” (p. 33).
The second chapter, “Making Space,” discusses the necessity to disrupt the “normal” way of doing things in congregational life and moving the organization into “liminal space,” in which questions and ambiguity exist, noting that “dwelling in this space is essential for institutional change” (p. 46). As the authors remind the reader, “it takes time, patience, courage, and discernment to discover the content of a next chapter, and that can’t happen if you are clinging to the old” (p. 47).
Chapter three, “Nurturing a Climate of Discernment,” hinges on understanding terms including “organizational culture,” as expressed through Robert’s Rules of Order, “discernment,” and “consensus.” Robert’s Rules are insufficient, for all that they are might be widely used since they concern themselves more with making a “winner take all” majority decision than truly discerning God’s leading. Per the writers, “we’ve never witnessed a process of deep transformation that has occurred when its form of governance has relied on the methodology of Robert’s Rules” (p. 65). “Consensus” is not “unanimity,” so much as a generally shared spirit that allows people to go along with each other, even when they do not have total agreement. Essentially, if proper spiritual discernment has taken place, the consensus is a vision for moving forward despite differences of opinion on less crucial issues, which builds the capacity for imagination.
“Dwelling on the Word,” as explored in chapter four, is an organic group process through which people are encouraged to study Scripture and have open conversations with “reasonably friendly-looking strangers” in a space conducive to imaginative listening. This process is accomplished by finding the stranger, “listening them into free speech,” and reporting to the larger group what was heard (p. 86). As the process of dwelling moves forward into action, chapter five discusses “Sharing the Journey” of congregational study. In one of their more quotable statements, the authors remind the reader that church leaders are “constantly comparing the local church against some other church that exists mostly in their imaginations” (p. 99). For the purpose of congregational change, it is important to be fully aware of where the congregation is, knowledge that includes gathering congregational stories, doing qualitative and quantitative community research, choosing a steering team, and dealing with the pain inherent in a “journey” process. All of this work must occur within the context of a shared commitment to be on pilgrimage together.
The final chapter concludes the book by focusing on six practices for missional change: dwelling in the word, hospitality, acknowledging the reign of God, spiritual discernment, focusing on mission, and readiness. This discussion is followed by a series of questions for a group that might be using this book as a resource for church change. While this point is strongly implied throughout the book, important to note is that the authors’ view of “mission” is strongly tied to the view that God is already at work in the world and in the community of a congregation; therefore, the proposed journey is one that puts congregations more in touch with God’s work and how they might join it.
This book appears to be a solid starting place for leading a church on a journey toward being more mission-focused. One caveat to using this material is that it is so firmly grounded in the authors’ vision of “mission,” which might be summarized by the classic Emerging Church statement: “Go and see what God is already doing and find a way to join it.” Those readers looking for a step-by-step process on bringing about change might be disappointed to find the nuts and bolts of the institutional process are sublimated to a deeper discussion of embarking on this congregational voyage, but it is a much deeper exploration of the “why” of change than such direct approaches often provide. Also important to note is that this book came about before the deep changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it would be interesting to explore how this perspective has changed, along with the recent realities of congregational life that those changes have introduced.