In this episode of the Pivot podcast, co-hosts Dee Stokes and Dwight Zscheile answer YOUR frequently asked questions about challenges faith communities are facing. 

Questions that listeners asked include:

• Q1: "Our congregation shrank in numbers the past three years. How do we balance reimagining our model when buildings and grounds maintenance uses a lot of time, energy and money? How do we shift the culture within the church? And what if laypeople often want clergy to be involved in everything?"
• Q2: "I'm having a really hard time finding volunteers to support the church's existing ministries. Why is it so hard to recruit and retain volunteers?"
• Q3: "Why won't the members or congregants invite others to church?"

You're in the right place if you're a pastor, lay leader, or simply curious about how faith communities adapt in changing times. Let's embark on this journey together!

Dee Stokes: Hello, everyone. I'm Dr. Dee Stokes.

Dwight Zscheile: And I'm Dr. Dwight Zscheile. Welcome to the Pivot podcast. If you're new here, this is the podcast where we talk about how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world.

Dee Stokes: Today's episode will be a question and answer session, a little bit different than what we've done before. We will give insight into questions frequently asked of us and our team at Luther Seminary's Faith+ Lead that have come from participants in faith lead webinars and workshops, and from our engagement with leaders in a variety of contexts around the church. I want to make a disclaimer that we are not the experts and we are not trying to fix the church. We want to encourage and build up leaders and influencers in the body of Christ. So let's jump in.

Dwight Zscheile: All right. So here's question number one. Our congregation shrank in numbers the past three years. How do we balance reimagining our model when buildings and grounds maintenance uses a lot of time, energy and money? How do we shift the culture within the church? And what if laypeople often want clergy to be involved in everything? What do you think, Dr. Dee?

Dee Stokes: This is a great question. I think we need to focus on discipleship. I think we need to focus on who is there and not fret over who is not there. I think with Covid, we learned how to reach folks outside of the building. And I believe we still need to focus on that. How can we reach people who are actually will never set foot in the church? And then this thought about I have kind of an example, I think this thought about clergy doing everything. I remember when I was a senior pastor, one of my lay folks told me he was going to do this to me one time, that on my day off, that he was going to call me and hang up to remind me that I should not be answering the phone on my day off. And he did that to me one time. And of course, what did I do? I answered the phone and he hung up on me just to remind me. So it's got to be an effort to where lay lay people and clergy work together to not burn out your pastor. What are your thoughts?

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah, well, you know, this is a great it's really a set of questions, multiple questions in many ways. And I want to just peel back a couple of layers. You know, if you're in a situation where you're experiencing some kind of institutional decline, maybe you have an old building that needs a lot of attention, and you're finding yourself with fewer people, fewer resources to sustain the old model of church that you've inherited. It can be really exhausting to be in that situation. I just want to name that. This is not a it's not an easy situation to be in. And one of the temptations is simply to work harder. And for you, particularly as a leader, maybe, or your leadership team, to simply work harder, expend more energy to try to reverse some of those declines and that will not actually yield the results. So one of the most provocative things I've ever read was Clay Christensen's work on disruptive innovation. And this book called The Innovator's Dilemma. It's a famous book, but he points out that when there are kind of established firms, organizations that perhaps came out of a different era, and they have a structure and a system that worked really well for a particular set of people. When there are when the things change in the environment and when there are other alternatives out in the world, in the environment, if you will, for people to meet those same needs, the temptation is often to sort of just try to manage the existing thing better and better. But he makes a provocative comment, he says. If you do that, if you focus simply on good management, it guarantees actually that the organization will fail. And what he means by that is that if you're focused only internally on trying to sustain an old model without at the same time beginning to experiment on the edges, to connect with people who aren't part of your church or release, you know, members of the church for experiments and new practices. If you're only trying to manage the inherited thing, it actually guarantees you won't be able to move into a different future. So. So I think this is a you know, this is a real dilemma. He calls it the innovator's dilemma. Like genuinely because it's a dilemma. It's not easy. So part of it is what can we do the least on in terms of managing the old thing while we begin on the edges to create some practices and habits and spaces where people can try on new ways of being church that deepen our discipleship. As you're saying, Dr.Dee, and that also begin to connect us with our neighbors who aren't part of the church. And over time that that activity on the edge, if you will, will gather more energy and vitality and people will be able to see, have a better perspective on the inherited thing that may be decaying or disintegrating in some way.

Dee Stokes: Good thoughts, good thoughts. I'm going to move on to our second question here. It's kind of long, but the the leader says or writes, in my experience as a pastor for 38 years, I have found many parishioners uncomfortable talking about God or their faith. We could just stop there. But I'm going to continue the question. I have been asking Bible study members to share highs, lows and God sightings and there usually isn't much said about God sighting other than sunsets and birds. The challenge, I think, in my context, is to get people to talk about their faith, or even ask people what they think about God. How do we get people to do that?

Dwight Zscheile: Well, that's a great question. And it's something that we hear so often from church leaders, particularly in communities where the expectation, you know, within the kind of culture of the congregation, if you will, for for years has been that the ministers, the professional people do the God talk and the laypeople are kind of off the hook for that. And so to invite them into having conversations about God or to name God in their lives or, or some of those things does disrupt what they're used to. And anytime we're disrupting expectations, we can expect resistance. So a couple key things I think we've learned about how to do that, how to address that. And one is to start with very small practices that are very concrete and actionable that you can find a group of people more or less willing to try and model for their peers. So in in congregation like this one, I suspect there are some people who are more comfortable talking about God, and they being empowered and unleashed to do that can actually model what it's like for their neighbors, for their peers in the congregation, in ways that can be, that can spread over time. But often, you know, we don't do that. Often they're just kind of hidden and invisible. But what do you think, Dr. Dee?

Dee Stokes: So I experimented with this once with my congregation. I did five months on the words of Jesus, the post-resurrection words of Jesus, the healing words of Jesus. And I challenged them to actually come to church and tell me a Jesus story. Let's start there. Right? Not not just seeing God activity in the world, but do we even know Jesus stories? Can we? You don't have to tell me chapter and verse, all of that, but can you just share a Jesus story? And of course, I got frustrated after about a month of doing it and no one could share a Jesus story until I had a retired, I believe he was a general or something in the armed forces, stand up. He had he had had a stroke and he walked with a cane and he said, wait a minute, Dr Dee, I got a story. And he told an unbelievable story and everybody was, was, was impacted by it. And so I think one we we need to learn Jesus stories. Then when we learn Jesus stories, we can apply those Jesus stories to our own lives. I want to hit on something you said earlier too. This is a cultural issue. It is very much so a cultural issue. I grew up in a culture and in a family that talked about God all the time. So talking about God at home, talking about Jesus, Holy Spirit at home makes it a lot easier to talk about him outside. Not just in church, but everywhere. And so I do believe it is it is a cultural issue. And if we could break some of those cultural barriers and help folks see God activity in their own lives, and be comfortable talking about how God has done so much for us, how he's rescued us, how he's saved us, how he's delivered us, how he's brought us through. That's the kind of talk I grew up with. And so it's a lot easier when you do grow up with that kind of talk.

Dwight Zscheile: Wonderful. So let's take question three here, which is: Can you speak to the tension of leading between the age of association and the age of authenticity? I sense expected responsibilities from my congregation, even from my denomination, to foster the church as we've known it. And yet that takes time and energy away from paying attention to the spirit, being innovative, et cetera.

Dee Stokes: That's a really good question as well. And one of the things that I think about when I think about authenticity is we live in a time where young people in particular want authenticity. They want to go to a church where there's truth and love. How do we get in between, right, where people will tell you the truth and also love you? They want those kinds of things. They want interactions with people who will be honest with them and who will tell them what they need to know in love. But truthfully. And so navigating this is not easy for leaders, but teaching folks how to navigate spiritual conversations and how to hear from the spirit is can be difficult, but really is needed in this day and age. What are your thoughts?

Dwight Zscheile: You know, I'm really stuck on one word in this question, which is "expected." Expected, right. And, you know, one of the fun exercises that we've done with groups of, of leaders, particularly pastors over the years, is to take some sheets and newsprint. And we say, all right, what does your church expect of you as a pastor? And gosh, that list is always super long. It's really long. And, you know, walking on water is usually not maybe not quite there, but just about. Right? And then and we kind of just pause and we look at that. And usually in the room there's a sense of heaviness. Right. Like this is a lot of stuff like nobody can do all this. But then we take another sheet of newsprint. And we say, what does your congregation expect of its regular members, right? Its laypeople. And that is inevitably a much shorter list. And it's often a list that focuses on supporting the institutional church. Rather than living out the faith in daily life, you know, being full disciples, all those things. Right. And and so then we we kind of engage a conversation around that and say, well, look at this disconnect. Right? It's too much to do all this ministry and to to sort of meet all these expectations, particularly those that come from a different era. So the age of association, of voluntary association membership and organizations and all of that is harder and harder to sustain in this age of authenticity that we now find ourselves in. And so to expect leaders, pastors to have to meet all those expectations of the age of association and at the same time find ways to connect with people, as you're saying. Dr. Dee. In the age of authenticity, where people do want genuine conversations, open spaces of inquiry to bring their questions, they don't want simply, a performative model of ministry where everything's just being told to them, but they want to be able to show up and and roll up their sleeves and kind of show up as they are. No one person can do all of that. So one of the the tools we've actually developed, and we'll include it in today's show notes, is an expectations analysis tool where as you as a leader can go through and just, you know, answer things like, what does the congregation expect of you and what do you expect of yourself as a leader? And what does the denomination expect of you, for instance, or your regional church system expect of you or your your higher ups right in the system? And then to go back and reflect on that and say, you know, which of these things are really the things that will help this Christian community move into a faithful future? And let's underline or circle those. And then what are the things that we can actually spend less time on? Disappoint expectations. And again, as Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky say, you know, you have to disappoint expectations if you're going to lead adaptive change, but you have to do that at a rate that people can stand or tolerate. So it's not like you could take that long list of everything people expect you to do and say, I'm not doing any of this. They'd fire you. But how might you help the community renegotiate the shared expectations, both that they have for you as a leader, you have for them. They have for each other. You have for yourself. And that's takes us really into the question of, you know, what is God calling you personally to do as a leader? And what is God calling your congregation or your community to do? And without practices of discernment and really listening to God around that, it's very hard to renegotiate the expectations.

Dee Stokes: Yeah. Very true, very true. I love this next question. It's about worship. And what do these pivots mean for worship? We spend a lot of time planning and holding worship. Should that be the focus of change and innovation? What are your thoughts on that?

Dwight Zscheile: That's a good question. I would say yes and no. And the no would be any time we're doing any kind of innovation or trying new things, what we don't want to do is experiment in the heart of the community's life, where the stakes are the highest, because if we if our experiments fail, which they're likely to do, we'll spend down a lot of goodwill and they'll be very disruptive. So I think it's best actually to focus experimentation, innovation, all of that on the edges of the community's life. But at the same time, worship being so central is also a place that we do need to think about. How is this worship experience forming disciples? How are people truly experiencing the power and presence of God? Are we speaking language that people can make sense of, or that our neighbors if, gosh, if they were to show up or if someone were to invite them that they could make sense of? Is this worship contextualized or incarnate, if you will, for the moment that we're in, in the neighborhood that we're in and the people that God has called us to, and that may require some experimentation, some adaptation, but, you know, it's a lot easier to do that in small baby steps and even on the side than to do it by kind of blowing up what you traditionally do in worship. What do you think, Dr. Dee?

Dee Stokes: Yeah. So I don't know what this listener was referring to as worship. Right? So I'm going to look at the totality of worship, not just the 15 minutes we spend singing happy song, happy song, sad song, sad song. Right. But the whole entire worship experience, from when you come in the door to the songs you sing, to the scriptures you read, to the meditations or what have you, whether you're liturgical or otherwise. And I saw somewhere the other day where someone made a comment that pastors more and more, particularly in smaller settings, are actually doing all of worship. They're doing all of it, not just a certain part, not just the preaching or not or what have you. And their comment was they felt like the focal point was actually on the pastor in worship and not on God. So that's an issue, right? That's an issue that our focal point should always, it should always be his presence that we see. Um, whether we're we shouldn't worry so much about the songs and, and who's leading and what they're saying. But it's, it's his presence that we should seek. I've been reminded lately a lot by the Lord of the priests in the Old Testament who spoke against this, but some of the the prophets who spoke against it, but the priests were actually the ones who were who were doing what they should not have been doing. And the rituals were supposed to lead to God and showcase God and God be the focal point. But then it started being them, the priests as the focal point. And and God thought that was detestable. And so the very things that we do that are supposed to lead us to God, if they don't lead us to God and they point back to us, then it's not true worship. So how do we get into the vein of truly worshiping God and not worrying about who's in front of us, but really worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

Dwight Zscheile: That's so. That's so true. So true. And, you know, one step we might take for leaders is to really listen to what people are experiencing. You know, so often when we're responsible for leading worship, you know, we assume people are experiencing it in a particular way, maybe how we're experiencing it. And but we don't always listen. So whether that be, you know, just doing some interviews, a survey, some group conversations really to try to hear how God is actually working in people's experience of worship. And then as we think then about experimenting or changing things to to be responsive to how the spirit is actually working in people's lives.

Dee Stokes: Absolutely.

Dwight Zscheile: All right. So here's another question. People in my ministry context seem tired and worn out or overscheduled already. They don't seem to have much energy for trying new things. What do I do about that?

Dee Stokes: Get some new people. Yeah, we're all tired. Let's just put it out there. Right? Let's just tell the truth. We're all tired. Um, but we have to keep pressing forward. Um, but I would say, I'm joking saying get new people, but maybe there are some new people in your ministry context, or even outside of your ministry context. We've been talking a lot. Even just in this episode about not being so insular, right? Be more incarnational. So are there people I would ask you this question, are there people outside of your ministry context who are willing to help you and who really believe in your vision and your mission? Could there be some folks in town? Could there be a non-traditional, if you will, people who would love to help you in your ministry, whether your ministry is a traditional church or a nonprofit or whatever it might be? Could there be people in town? Maybe the mayor wants to help you. Maybe the local coffee shop owner would help. Um, I think you should seek other people who would want to be involved with what you're doing.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah. So I love that idea, that kind of outside in approach. And, you know, another thought that comes to my mind is just I would I think that sense of tiredness is something for the church to pause on and not try to rush past too quickly and to say, okay, what is it in our society? That makes us so overscheduled and tired for many of us. What is going on spiritually there? What is our culture expect of us? And you know, my our colleague here, Andy Root, has written a lot on this idea that the church has, you know, embraced elements of contemporary Western society, late modern society that are really about just accelerating the pace of everything, and that we feel like we have an identity or security if we're if we're filling our lives with more and more things and the church can do the same thing and kind of be on that hamster wheel. And, and so I'm always curious. God, what are you saying to us through our tiredness? What do we need to simplify? What do we need to stop doing? What are the ministries or the activities that have no spirit led energy in them anymore that we can let die? Think about John 15 where Jesus talks about the vine and the branches and the pruning. He says every branch that bears fruit is pruned, not just those that are not bearing fruit. So? So what? Let's listen spiritually and attentively to people around that. And then I'm always curious, where is the life giving energy showing up in people's lives? And if they don't have any answer to that, if they just feel like they're running from from thing to thing and they're stressed all the time, and then the last thing you want as a church is to say our primary ask of you is to make you busier, is to get you, you know, more tired trying to serve this voluntary association organization because it needs, you know, your energy to keep it going. And the shift really is how do we actually join in where the life giving energy is in people's daily lives and in the neighborhood, and actually figure out how to help them be faithful ambassadors of Jesus in those spaces. That's a very different approach.

Dee Stokes: It is going back to John 15. You know, we're Jesus prunes us so that we can produce more fruit. Amen. And so I heard someone say the other the other week that, God, we've given you our programs and God is looking at us saying, I don't know what to do with that anymore. You know, what are we going to do with that? And maybe more programs is not the answer. Maybe less is more. And we must consider that. The other thing we must consider is that we must we must move from sabbath to work instead of from work to sabbath. I tell people to watch their language on Monday mornings when they say they hate Mondays and they love thank God it's Friday, right? That's our saying in America, thank God it's Friday. But instead we rest so that we can get back to the Lord's work because we are supposed to be working as unto the Lord. We don't work for the church, we don't work for an institution, we actually work for God. And so that's a that could be a change in mentality for people that they need and work from, go from Sabbath to work. So I rest so that I'm excited about Monday mornings and I can get back to doing what I'm supposed to do. When I step out of bed in the morning, I'm stepping into purpose and destiny. I'm not just begrudging the work, but I'm working as unto the Lord. And so I'm excited about that work. Somebody say Amen,

Dwight Zscheile: Amen, Amen. You know, that brings to mind just a thought that was shared with me by Rabbi friend Haim Herring. That really has stuck with me. He said, you know, the slogan over the gates of Auschwitz "Arbeit macht frei," you know, work makes you, brings freedom or makes you free, he said. That is an absolute like perversion of God's vision, which is that actually Shabbat makes you free. Sabbath. It's Sabbath that makes us free, not work.

Dee Stokes: Yes. Amen. Amen. Next question is I'm having a really hard time finding volunteers to support the church's existing ministries. Why is it so hard to recruit and retain volunteers?

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah. Well, you know, this is again gets to that pivot that we're talking about in this series around, you know, with the voluntary association model of engaging and belonging and connecting, breaking down. It's harder and harder for people to find meaning in that and to give themselves to it in ways that generationally they might have 20, 30, 40 or 100 years ago. And so, again, I think this is an opportunity for us to listen what is going on in people's lives such that they are not interested, and where do they find meaning? And what of those existing ministries might we need to put on sabbatical? Maybe stop doing for a while, pause, pare, prune whatever we might want to talk about around that, and then to really help discern: God, what are you calling us to shape our life around? Because, you know, there are a lot of committees and churches that were carryovers from that voluntary association world where belonging and joining a committee and maybe even being chair of a committee was a really meaningful thing and, and honoring thing. And younger generations in particular have less energy for that, less interest in that, don't find the same meaning in it. So I think rather than saying, how do we just prop up what we've inherited, it's what, God, what are you calling us to do in this moment as we are trying to cultivate disciples, not just voluntary association members?

Dee Stokes: I think a congregational survey or a conversation with potential volunteers would be helpful in this way. Why would people want to volunteer at church? Just simply why? And why do you volunteer at other things? Why do you go volunteer at the Y? Why do you volunteer at the local soup kitchen? Why do you volunteer at wherever you volunteer? Have we equated volunteering at these other places with volunteering in the church? Are they the same or are they different? I think asking people that is important because the church has some sometimes been sort of like a country club where people come and visit with my friends, but that's not necessarily what the church is about. And so why do people volunteer for other things and not volunteer for the church? I think is a question that we actually should ask our people. Do a survey, do a poll in your city even, and find out why people volunteer for certain things more than they volunteer for other things.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah, I love that idea. You know, one of the themes of this episode is turning out to be the importance of really listening to people where they're at and hearing from them, rather than assuming we just need to keep doing this thing that we've always done. But like, let's, let's really listen and find out where people are discovering meaning and purpose and connection and how does that relate to their Christian faith? You know, I think one of the shifts that in the church, that Saint Matthew's Episcopal Church that I served that we talked about in a previous episode is we realized so many of our people were having huge impact elsewhere in other organizations. So we said, let's try to to make our ask of them at church less about supporting the institutional church and more about equipping them to show up in those other spaces and be volunteers there, right, in ways that were really serving the neighbor and and about kingdom work out in the, in the community. All right. So I've got one last final question here. Why won't the members or congregants invite others to church?

Dee Stokes: Well, going back to what you just said about surveying your people, right? Um. I have a question on top of that. Right. Why would we invite someone to the church that we don't feel comfortable going to ourselves or don't feel like we've gotten anything out of the church? Why would we invite people if we're not happy with what's going on in the church? So I think that could be a starting point just to ask people. I say they're not delighted with the church, if you will. And that's probably why they don't invite people to come to the church. There's some aspect of it that they're not happy with, I think, um, but you invite people to go to the ball game, or you invite people to go to the concert or what have you. So, um, again, we've got to listen to people and understand why. So I don't know why people don't invite people to church, but what do you think?

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah, well, love that again let's listen to find out. I think partly for some people it's, you know, for church, for them, if it is primarily like this just social cultural organization, there's less at stake in that. So inviting them to church isn't like, you know, you're inviting them into, into a life transforming encounter with God. It's more like, well, you know, we're a bunch of nice people and, you know, we know each other and but, you know, you you might have somewhere else you find that. So again, it gets us back to. Are we about discipleship as our primary purpose and our identity, or is it about voluntary association membership? And, you know, I think it's got to be about actually living deeper, more deeply into the life of God in this power of the spirit following Jesus. And that is something that when people experience that, they want others to have a taste of it.

Dee Stokes: I think also, one other thing is along those lines is I think people ask, if you invite me to church, their first reaction might be, well, are they going to want me to volunteer? Right? They're going to want to put me into a position. And then there's a money aspect. Are they going to want me to give money? And and again, if there's not if you don't have any stake in it, if you don't. Then you're not going to want to be involved in it. If it's not something that you really want to be involved in. And times have shifted and changed, and people look at the church a lot differently, unfortunately. But we need to get people back. We need to rally the troops. We definitely need to do that. God's church will never die. We know that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Dwight Zscheile: Amen, Amen, Amen.

Dee Stokes: So I want to encourage you before we end this episode. I found this quote the other day from Walter Brueggemann, and I really appreciate it. So let me encourage you, pastors and leaders in ministry that Brueggemann quote says this. I quote, "The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial and express hope in a society that lives in despair." Let us be that church. We thank you for tuning in, and in our next episode, we continue to explore the key pivots in the church that the church needs to make today. So thank you again and we will see you next week.

F+L voiceover: The Pivot podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith lead. Faith lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at FaithLead. Org.