Artificial intelligence is here, and someday the robots might come for us just as Sam Waterston warned. In the meantime, we need to figure out what AI can do and shouldn’t do for us.

This is true in the church world as well, so on a lark, I randomly chose an AI generator from a web search. This particular site produces mission and vision statements for a range of industries. All I had to type in was “church,” then choose a tone (inspirational), then select “generate.” Here’s what came back:

Vision:
To create a welcoming and inclusive community where individuals can find hope, inspiration, and spiritual growth, empowering them to make a positive impact in the world.

Mission:
Our mission is to spread love, compassion, and faith by providing a place of worship, guidance, and support for all individuals seeking spiritual fulfillment. Through inspirational teachings, uplifting music, and meaningful connections, we aim to inspire and empower our congregation to live a life of purpose, kindness, and service to others. Together, we strive to create a world filled with love, peace, and harmony, guided by the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It’s truth-telling time. How different do these statements sound from your church’s mission and vision statements? Probably not much. Most guiding statements tend to be aspirational and vague. And that’s why I’m becoming more convinced that they are not the most helpful touchstones for congregations. Leaders expend vast amounts of energy and time (and sometimes big money on a consultant) coming up with a vision and mission…and then the robots instantly manufacture something almost as good. This is one way AI is useful: it’s telling us we’re not putting our resources into efforts with the biggest impact.

Here’s what I’d like to see churches work toward instead:

A helpful story of our congregation. A church can have many narratives about how it arrived at the present moment, and they all might ring true to varying degrees. Not all of them will be useful in terms of seeing the congregation as part of Christ’s body and God’s ongoing work in the world, though. Often we need to be more thoughtful about how we understand and share about our church.

Core values. These can be lived or aspirational, as long as there is clarity about which is which. Brene Brown’s values exercise is a useful one for both individuals and organizations. Naming a church’s story can also illuminate what it is about. What are our non-negotiable commitments that without them, we wouldn’t be us? What ways of being are we trying to incarnate with God’s help?

Seasonal plans based on these values. Covid obliterated what little confidence I had left in 5-10 year strategic planning. Churches need to be more nimble and responsive. (Exceptions include such initiatives as capital campaigns. These too, though, must be deeply rooted in values.) What is God inviting our congregation’s focus to be for the next 6-18 months?

Another kind of AI: appreciative inquiry. Congregations and their surrounding communities are full of individual and collective blessings from God, some tapped and others untapped, that could be put to very positive use in the name of living out values and focus. These gifts change as people come and go and as circumstances change, so they need to be inventoried on an ongoing basis.

Means to assess whether the congregation is being faithful to its core values. This is everything from whole-ministry assessments to individual event debriefs to mutual ministry reviews with staff. How are we stewarding our gifts well in service to the nudges from God we’ve discerned? What adjustments do we need to make?

A congregational covenant. We are people of relationship, because our Trinitarian God embodies connection and also seeks kinship with us. How we interact with one another needs to reflect this, but as mere mortals we benefit from reminders of what healthy bonds look like. We can name and agree to intentional behaviors and attitudes, then establish regular opportunities to recommit to them.

All of these tools are more practical and customized than mission and vision statements, and we shouldn’t trust them to artificial intelligence. Consider how you might stock your congregation’s toolkit with them.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash.

Note: the blog is moving to Substack! I will cross-post articles here and there in September, then post only on Substack from October onward. You can find me here on Substack.

Mystery/thriller writer Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series used to be a guilty pleasure of mine. There was a point in the last decade in which I was gobbling up two or three books per week. Then the 2016 election happened, and I took a long, hard look at my reading list. Coben is a great author, but I needed a lot less machismo and a lot more diversity.

I didn’t pick up any more of his books until I needed a quick read last week. I tore through The Boy From the Woods, the first in Coben’s new series. I was cruising along until a character (who bears a lot of similarities to our most recent former president) spouts off a PR plan in response to the release of a video in which he is sexually harassing a woman who might or might not legally be an adult. The character tells his people to put out all of the following messages and more: it’s a training tape about proper workplace behavior, it was a run-through of the woman’s (nonexistent) Me Too screenplay, she was asking for the harassment, the tape was faked.

Again, Coben is a great writer, but I remembered then why I took him off my reading list for my own mental health. The calculating nature of this character was too much for me. How do we work for change in the world when so many people will do anything to preserve their own power?

At the same time I was reading parts of Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity for my DMin ethics class. (Talk about whiplash.) I grabbed onto one of her concepts in chapter 14: everywhere in nature there are fractals, which are patterns that reiterate infinitely, forming versions of themselves at different sizes. What this means is if we are able to live in our integrity, faithfully doing the internal and external work to which we have been called, that work scales up so that we are shaping the people around us and the institutions in which we participate. It might not be very visible - we must have eyes to see the fractals in nature, much less in human interactions - but it is happening as surely as hydrogen atoms bonding together in rings of six when water molecules collide at low temperatures, creating snowflakes made up of variations on a hexagon shape.

So take heart. Root yourself in your values. Use your gifts. Stay true to your call. You are changing the world from the ground up. If enough of us do this, the lie-perpetuators and power-hoarders don’t stand a chance.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

I am currently working with a congregation that is just beyond the redevelopment stage. The leaders are building and revamping organizational pieces that will allow the church to move from all of the responsibility falling to the pastor and to SuperVolunteers toward a more equitable and sustainable distribution of efforts. Because it can be hard to zoom out when you’re in the thick of the details, I created the graphic above to help the leaders see the importance of each aspect of the systemic work they’re doing:

• This congregation identified its values and vision as part of a discernment process a couple of years ago. Being clear about commitments and direction provides a strong foundation for all a congregation does and a touchstone for focusing efforts.

• Core documents such as by-laws make the values and vision functional: here is how we go about our church life because we have named these commitments toward this hope for our future.

• The by-laws set the leadership structure that carries out the various processes and procedures laid out in the by-laws.

• The leadership structure decides how to make faithful use of the many tangible and intangible gifts to which the congregation has access.

• The leadership’s use of gifts supports the day-to-day operations of the church.

• Smooth operations make it possible for the congregation to live into God’s invitations to ministry.

So, then, we can be much more effective if we’re clear about what our biggest commitments are and stay grounded in them at all times. By-laws are not just an irrelevant document that we maintain for legal reasons. Leadership must assess regularly and most effectively deploy its resources, which are much more than money and facilities. Ministry and operations are designed to support and speak to, not compete with, each other.

What questions or thoughts does this graphic prompt for you? How are the various levels in this image in conversation with one another in your context? Where is more communication needed? And how do you start that ball rolling?

Even before the pandemic, I, like many of you, had begun thinking about how the Church needs to shift in order to be Christ’s body in the world. The twenty-first century has offered Jesus followers new awareness around individual and collective power (both having and lacking it), big questions to ask and challenges to overcome, and an increased number of tools for connecting with and on behalf of others. Covid-19 stripped us down to the studs, allowing us to see what is essential in a faith community. And now we as the body of Christ are moving through lingering exhaustion, fighting an illness that keeps popping back up (though thankfully with more ways to mitigate it now), and wondering which way to go next.

I don’t think any of us has answers about specific models of church. I know I don’t. But I think the characteristics of a flourishing church in 2023 are coming into focus. This month I will be sharing my thoughts on them via an alphabet of the evolving Church.

This week: letters U-Z. (See A-E here, F-J here, K-O here, and P-T here.)

Unity. I don’t mean politeness or agreement about things that, in the long run, don’t really matter. I’m talking about the kind of unity that is rooted in shared purpose. I’m talking about hanging in there with one another, even when there are hard conversations to be had and conflict to work through, because we are following God’s two greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-31) - not our own disparate agendas - to the best of our understanding and ability.

Values. Over the past few years I have really come to appreciate the exercise of identifying our core values, the foundational commitments that we are living into (individually and/or collectively) when we are intentional and authentic. When the pandemic hit, these values - if we were clear on them - became the touchstones. Nothing looked or operated the same with Church, but if we were operating out of our values, we were doing faithful ministry. In this time of ongoing change, values will continue to tether us to our purpose and allow the Church to have far-reaching impact.

Wonder. The life of faith is one of wonder, not just in the sense of wonder-ing or questioning, but also of awe. Isn’t it remarkable what God can do in, around, and through us? Small things, immeasurable things, and everything in between. Isn’t it unfathomable how deeply God loves us? Enough to send Jesus into the world in as vulnerable state as I could imagine - a newborn, birthed by a young mother, delivered far from home, hunted by a jealous king. What might be possible for us as Church if we fully inhabited that wonder?

(E)Xperiments. Now is not the time to spring back into all the church programs you did in The Before. It is also probably not the time to latch onto big, long-term commitments as a congregation. Instead, try something new, preferably small and time-bound, that seems like it aligns with your mission and for which you have some energy and willing participants. Then debrief and learn from it, applying what you now know either to try it again or to attempt something else that might be an even better fit with a more fruitful outcome. There is no fail here. It’s all fodder for discernment.

Yearning. Church shouldn’t be rote. It shouldn’t be mere obligation. It should be a community that speaks to our deepest longings, whether that’s to connect with our Creator, be seen and valued, to find true companions for the spiritual journey, and/or to band together with people as committed to making change in the world as we are. How are we as Church nurturing and speaking to that yearning in all that we do?

Zeroed-in focus. I think Covid broke congregations of the desire to be all things to all people, or at least I hope it did. Our church doesn’t have to offer a thing just because the congregation down the street does. (There are different churches, not to mention denominations, for a reason.) I’d love to see congregations take a good look at what they have, what they do well, and who is around them, then figure out what they want to do and how they want to show up for others. God can work with that!

I hope this alphabet series has offered some food for thought in a time of continued upheaval. I have great hope in the Church, and it’s time for the Church to reorient from being an unquestioned part of many people’s lives to living and speaking faithfully closer to the margins. That’s where Jesus operated, and it’s where we can both make big change and be changed ourselves.

Coaching is not just for individuals! Did you know that I also coach church staffs, teams of lay leaders, and entire congregations? Anytime there is a gap between where you (as an individual or as a collective) are and where you want to be, there is fertile soil for coaching. A coach approach to meeting benchmarks and overcoming challenges can provide structure, tools, and encouragement to groups as they strategize in ways that make sense in their context and utilize their specific gifts. Coaching also builds ownership of new insights and plans among coachees, because it does not result in a solution handed down by an outside “expert.” In coaching the people doing the work in a particular space are understood as the true experts, and they are the ones who map the way forward.

And guess what? This time of year tends to be one of the best seasons for coaching. Summer vacations are tapering off, so it’s easier for groups seeking coaching to meet consistently. Fall programming is mostly settled. There’s some breathing room in the liturgical calendar before Advent, when the focus (rightfully) shifts to the journey to Bethlehem.

Coaching doesn’t have to break your church’s budget, either. Now that we are all very familiar with video conferencing, you only need to plan for an hourly coaching rate. No longer do you have to worry about travel and other expenses that can add up quickly.

If you sense that your congregation (or some segment of it) needs the kind of nudge that coaching could provide, here are some areas in which I specialize:

Congregational self-study during pastoral transitions. In the time between settled pastors, it’s important to do this good work to undergird the search for a great-fit minister. Who is our church apart from the personality and passions of our former leader?

Figuring out church after(ish) Covid-19. In pre-post-pandemic, many questions remain in order not just to do church but to be church. What is our role in the world after a big shift in people’s priorities and ways of life? How do we rebuild relationships and establish new ones both within our congregation and in the larger community based on what we’ve learned about ourselves and our neighbors over the past couple of years?

Setting new touchstones and metrics. The pandemic shook many markers loose. What is it that is consistently grounding for and true about our congregation? What are helpful benchmarks that let us know our impact in partnership with God?

Visioning and discerning next steps. We might only see half-steps forward right now, but we can figure out how to recognize them. How do we listen for invitations from God? How do we engage in a continuous cycle of experimentation, assessment, and learning in a way that brings excitement and delight instead of a sense of failure and shame?

Pastor searches. Teams of laypeople (appropriately) have a lot of questions about how to find someone for a role they themselves have never held. What do we need a pastor to do? Where do we look for people who can do these things? How do we invite candidates to consider our ministry opportunity out of a spirit of welcome and generosity?

I would love the chance to talk with you about any of these congregational coaching possibilities, as well as potential coaching topics that are not mentioned above. Please schedule a free exploratory call here. If you don’t see a time that works for you, contact me so that we can figure out a window that will.

Back in January I had the opportunity to interview several pastors for one of my Doctor of Ministry papers. The topic was technology shifts during the pandemic and the resulting impact on congregations and their leaders. One conversation in particular fascinated me. This interviewee’s church had long established play as one of its values. The pastor helped congregants draw on this value in new ways during Covid, thus allowing individual members to retain their connections with one another and helping the church as a whole weather the challenges of lockdown. In the latest edition of Fellowship Magazine, I write about the many ways that play makes congregations more connected and adaptable. Click here to read the article, which can be found on page 31.

Photo by Nik Korba on Unsplash.

Many of you have so many demands on your time that it is hard to know where to put your focus and energy. Often you are choosing between opportunities that are in themselves good or that bring about good, which makes the decision so much harder. That is the case for Rev. Suzanne Miller, Executive Director of Pastors for North Carolina Children (check out her organization and her good work!), who is constantly presented with invitations to work with individuals, churches, judicatories, organizations, and legislators on issues that make a difference to children and families. In a recent coaching call we worked on a flow to help her decide when to say yes and when to say no. She generously offered to share here the template she designed as a result of our session. Click here to download it.

Recently I published an article on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog about “Becoming a hybrid congregation.” It is essentially a part three in the “Is your congregation’s future hybrid?” series. (You can find parts one and two on my blog.) While the pieces on my blog are more about discerning and planning, the CBF post is about big picture thinking about whether and how being a hybrid church aligns with your congregation’s identity. You can find the CBF article here.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash.

The title of this posts reflects a growing reality among mainline Protestant churches in North America. So what do we do, especially given that this trend is likely to continue? I’m over at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship blog today with my thoughts.

Photo by Nolan Kent on Unsplash.

Raise your hand if you’ve been taught that your church should develop a 3, 5, or even 10-year plan. (I’ll wait.) Hey, me too!

When seminary and denominational leaders started to look toward the corporate world for answers to membership decline, many adopted the strategic plan model. It seemed like a good way to regrip the control that seemed to be slipping through our fingers. We even put religious language to it, though sometimes it took on a subconscious prosperity gospel message: “If we are faithful in these steps, God will reward us with…” Unfortunately, strategic plans have often proven to be a set-up for discouragement (though they are sometimes necessary for resource-driven projects like a capital campaign). After all, when we are dealing with people rather than products, we cannot predict that these efforts in Q1 will result in those “profits” in Q4. Discouragement can lead to panic, and panic can lead to doubling down on an inward focus that belies the church’s call to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

The pandemic has shown us that the control we seek though a 10-year trajectory is largely illusory. In fact, those who are often locked out of leadership such as people of color, women, and the LGTBQ+ community have been telling us this for decades. The ability to plan far into the future is a function of privilege. Strategizing is possible only when we think we have certain things that we can count on. This stability, though, can be out of reach for groups that don’t get to make the rules. And when the world shut down, those of us with privilege got a taste of the chaos that these communities experience on a daily basis.

So in solidarity with these groups and with acceptance of the unpredictability of these times, let’s kick the strategic plan to the curb where we can and take a different approach. Let’s name our values, both those we live and those we yet aspire to embody. (You can do this by examining patterns in your history and in your current ministries. What do we do? Where do our resources go? How do these realities align with who we say we are?) Let’s discern our overall purpose, that big-picture invitation from God that gives us energy and direction. And let’s use those values and purpose to dream big but plan in stages, taking time to assess at the end of each:

• What were our expectations? What did we learn about our expectations and about ourselves as the people who hold them?

• What do we need to celebrate?

• What do we need to shift?

• What do we need to communicate, and to whom?

• What elements can we build upon?

• How did our efforts help us to live toward our understanding of who we are and what God is calling us to be and do?

• Where did we see the Holy Spirit at work?

• What relationships were formed or strengthened?

• What did we learn about our congregation, community, and/or corporate calling?

This way we are engaged in ongoing discernment - which is really a way of building our reliance on God - not simply enacting a one-and-done plan that gets shelved when the first benchmark isn’t met. We also celebrate regularly (which opens up our brains for greater creativity) and grow our ability to roll with what is going on in our world and in our congregational lives. Because, after all, a church must be looking for where God is at work and nimble to be poised for long-term spiritual growth, which is the kind of growth that really matters.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.