Urgency for Listening
Why now is the time to discern your church's next steps
On days when ministry is tough, I remind myself of my why. I cultivate innovation and fresh expressions of church in western North Carolina because I want future generations to be able to experience the love of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, that I have encountered in the United Methodist tradition. I want there to be a loving and thriving United Methodist Church for my daughters and their friends to be a part of when they are my age. I imagine most of you readers have a similar hope for your churches and traditions.
In this line of work, I spend an inordinate amount of time studying the current state of the church and where the church is heading. One of my favorite sources is a statistician named Ryan Burge. His newsletter, Graphs about Religion, is excellent and this week he shared this graphic:
We are witnessing a dramatic shift in religion in the United States. People of every generation are leaving organized religion and young people are leaving at an astounding rate. All this calls for a sense of urgency for all who are in ministry.
Rev. Dr. Cynthia Weems, Assistant to the Bishop for Congregational Mission in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, said recently on a podcast,
“Time is not on our side. When I came into ministry it was very important to be patient with people and patient with churches. I think the United Methodist Church has been way too patient with its churches. I think there’s urgency. If our ministries aren’t as vital as they need to be there is urgency. If people in our communities don’t know Jesus, there’s urgency in that. Let’s not wait a few years and talk that to death, let’s actually do something. There’s urgency with our property. There’s urgency with our membership. There’s urgency for a bold vision for the future.”
She continued,
“The churches that are still here 20 years from now. All of them as part of their story, will say ‘[20 years ago] we made a terrifying decision—to sell something, buy something, merge, change our name, partner with a nonprofit, partner with a developer. We did something really big and we were scared to death and look, we’re here. And we’re here in large part because we made that really terrifying decision in 2023.’ Churches that escape really big decisions probably don’t have a 20-year future… So, what’s the big decision going to be?”
I think Rev. Dr. Weems is right and I firmly believe that the best way to discern your church’s big decision is to listen to God, listen to your congregation, and listen to your neighbors. It’s why I created the Spiritual Listening Plan. There’s no time to waste. As Jesus said, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”