FaithX Blog Archives

Apr 27 2016

Our love/hate relationship with the Church – Reflections on a poem by Carlo Carretto

A Letter to the Church

How baffling you are, oh Church,

and yet how I love you!

How you have made me suffer,

and yet how much I owe you!

I would like to see you destroyed,

and yet I need your presence.

You have given me so much scandal

and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is.

I have seen nothing in the world
more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false,

and yet I have touched nothing
more pure, more generous, more beautiful.

How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face,

and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.

No, I cannot free myself from you,

because I am you,

though not completely.

And besides, where would I go?
Would I establish another?

I would not be able to establish it without the same faults,
for they are the same faults I carry in me.

And if I did establish another,

it would be my Church,

not the Church of Christ.

And I am old enough to know

that I am no better than anyone else.

– by Carlo Carretto, from The God Who Comes

In my book Paradoxy I used the phrase “a mistake made holy” to describe the paradox that is Church:

On the one hand,
there is no evidence in scripture that Jesus (or Paul, for that matter)
intended to start a new religion called Christianity.

Yet on the other hand,
it is clear that God’s Holy Spirit
has become inextricably bound up in the Church.

On the one hand,
it is clearly fallen.

Yet on the other hand,
it is clearly the body of Christ.

This poem by Carlo Carretto draws our attention
not only to the paradox that is Church,

but also to the profound paradox
of our painfully ambivalent relationship with it…

That it is impossible to truly and deeply love the Church
without sometimes hating it as well.

Apr 22 2016

Stealing from Startups: A Church Goes Lean (the presentation that launched FaithX)

By Ken Howard and Jon Howard

Lean before Lean Was Cool

Several of you have been asking more about the genesis of The FaithX Project: What led to this idea of Minimum Viable Belief and pushed me in the direction launching this new endeavor?

In late 2013, my son Jonathan, then CEO of a medical tourism startup, was remotely attending a Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco, when somebody tweeted a question, “Has anyone applied Lean principles to churches?” To which Jonathan answered, “I don’t know if he’s read the book, but this is what my dad has been doing at his church for the last 18 years.”

Eric Ries, author of The Lead Startup and founder of the Lean Startup Conference, re-tweeted my son’s tweet to his gazillion Twitter followers, and before you knew it, I was invited to speak at the 2014 Lean for Social Good summit in Washington, DC, , sponsored by LeanImpact.org. I delivered the following presentation, which won the conference’s “People’s Choice Award” and planted the seed that grew into the FaithX Project.

The Promised Paper

I this presentation I refer to a forthcoming paper on the same subject.
Click on the title below to read this paper:

What a Church Stole from Startups
And What Startups Could Steal from Churches
by Kenneth W. Howard and Jonathan K. Howard.

Apr 18 2016

What’s at Stake? The Religion Singularity and the FaithX Project

By the Rev. Ken Howard

With a little under two weeks left in our Kickstarter crowd funding campaign, it is important to be clear about what’s at stake in the FaithX Project.

After more than five years of analyzing worldwide demographic trends affecting Christianity, I believe I can say with a high degree of confidence that Christianity is has entered a singularity of change and uncertainty unlike anything it has experienced since its inception. The institutional religion we have come to know as Christianity is dis-integrating at a rate that it will become unsustainable in its current form beyond the current century. The faith-based communities and organizations that make up institutional Christianity will have to adapt or die.

It’s a difficult message to digest. With new and breakaway denominations and faith communities coming into existence at a faster rate than ever before, and the number of new believers growing, it is tempting to think that all is well and all will continue to be well. But the Church is no less likely than other organizations to fall prey to the very human logical fallacy of thinking that just because it has been around in more-or-less its current form 2,000 years, it always will be. And the hard truth is that the total population of Christians is only growing at about half the rate of denominations and faith communities, driving the size of those institutions inexorably downward. [click here to read the research paper on Academia.edu]

To paraphrase Jesus, Those faith communities and organizations that rigidly hold onto their old ways of being will perish. Only those willing to let old ways die and experiment faithfully with new ways of being, will survive…and thrive.

To survive and thrive in the face of the singularity of uncertainty and change that is the twenty-first century, faith-based communities and organizations will have to become more lean, creative, and experimental. The FaithX Project is about providing the leaders of such communities with the tools they need – research-based principles and experimental practices – to discover the future that God holds in store for them: to face the singularity with courage and navigate it with agility.

We plan to disseminate these principle and practices widely through three channels:

A Research-Based Book with practical, real-world examples, designed to equip new, experienced or aspiring leaders to prepare faith-based communities and organizations to survive and thrive amid escalating uncertainty and change.
A Global, Online Community of practice, in which leaders on the front lines of faith-community development can come together to share lessons learned from successes and failures, develop best practices, explore new applications and seek advice and support from other practitioners.
A Supported Consultancy to provide local faith-based communities and organizations with needed coaching and training at a cost they can afford.

Each of these three parts requires adequate resources of time and funding to do well. Which is why we are doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund it and why we hope you will prayerfully consider becoming a FaithX Project Backer (just click here).

I’m excited about this project. I’m excited about the potential it holds for the future of faith-based communities and organizations. I’m especially excited about the possibilities inherent in bringing together experience and insights from practitioner across multiple disciplines, and in creating resources with the active input of those we hope will benefit from them. I hope you share my excitement. And I hope you will help me bring it to fruition, not just as backers, but also as partners, practitioners, and fellow explorers of the undiscovered future that lies before us all.

Faithfully,

Ken Howard
Founder

Apr 01 2016

Adapt or Die

By Ken Howard

At a recent conference I was asked to speculate about what our parishes would look like a decade from now. My answer was brief: “One thing I can say with certainty is this: The only way our churches will look like they do now is if they have been stuffed and mounted and displayed in a museum of natural church history.”

The context in which our congregations exist is shifting so dramatically that mere tweaking of method and message can no longer return us to health, let alone vitality. We are facing radical change – radical as in going to the root – requiring of us both radical recognition and radical response.

As congregational leaders, we must confront the fact that our churches are dying. While we may wish they were timeless and eternal, at the core our churches are living human organisms, and dying is what all living organisms eventually do. But first they are born, live, adapt, create new life, and pass on their DNA to the next generation. We cannot insulate our churches from death without isolating them from the very process that would empower the next generation, not just to survive but also to thrive.

To guide our churches into a vital future, vestries and other church leaders must help our congregations to embrace their organic nature – to see death not as the ultimate failure but as the door to greater life. We need to help our congregations learn how to die in a way that plants the seeds of their resurrection. But how? How can we as congregational leaders learn this radical response and walk this counterintuitive, paradoxical path? How do we help our congregations live into a more incarnational Christianity that values organism over organization?

Changing the Paradigm

If we as leaders are to help our congregations change their ways of doing Church, we first have to recognize that our old and familiar paradigm of Church is fading away, and that a new and unfamiliar paradigm of Church is emerging. And because the new paradigm is not yet fully present, we have to help our congregations learn to explore its pathways and boundaries.

Leading congregations in a time of paradigm shift is no easy task. Be wary of any who call themselves experts in times like these; when a paradigm shifts, everyone goes to zero. There are no experts, only fellow learners. While I do not claim to be an expert in the emerging paradigm of Church, I do have some experience in helping my own congregation – as well as a few other congregations and dioceses – to explore it. And I am willing to share some of what my congregation and I have learned since it was born in 1995.

My congregation began its journey into the emerging paradigm with an exploration of the Apostle Paul’s image of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12):

There are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (NRSV)

We began to ask ourselves what our congregation would be like if we took this passage seriously. If in this passage Paul is expressing his deeply organic understanding of the nature of Christian community, then how is God calling our own Christian community to live? As we engaged this question with imagination and prayer, our image of Church began to shift. We began to think of Christian community less as an organizational structure in which people occupy various fixed and static roles, and more as a living organism that grows, adapts to its environment, reproduces, thinks, and moves – one which has a vision and a calling implanted in its DNA by the Spirit of God.

As our paradigm of Church began to shift, our behaviors as leaders and as a congregation began to shift as well. We began asking ourselves additional “so what” questions. If we were to answer the call to become an organic, incarnational Christian community, how would we need to change:

The way we think of congregational unity?
The way we develop and articulate our congregational vision?
The way we think about the lifecycle of our congregation?
The way we organize to get things done?
The way we develop our leaders, followers, and various working groups.

What this Means

Wrestling with questions like these have led to profound shifts in how we think, what we do, and how we do it – shifts which are summarized in the following outline.

Unity: Moving from boundary-set unity to centered-set unityWhen we think of church as an organization, unity is achieved by clearly defining boundaries. Leadership asks, “What characteristics (e.g., doctrines, practices, etc.) separate THOSE WHO ARE A PART OF US from THOSE WHO ARE APART FROM US?”
When we think of church as an organism, unity is achieved by clearly defining focus. Leadership asks, “WHO is the center of our community?” (The answer was/is “Jesus”) and “HOW do we clarify our focus (on Jesus) and invite others to share with us in it?”

The implication of this shift is that we avoid making others into copies of ourselves and instead allow all of us together to be transformed into God’s image.
Vision: Moving from vision-setting to vision-birthing
When we think of church as an organization, leadership creates and propagates an organizational vision. Leadership asks, “What is God calling this congregation to be and to do?”

When we think of church as an organism, leadership facilitates the emergence of a shared vision from the congregation. Leadership asks, “How can we help our congregation discern what God is calling us to be and to do?” Leadership does this by paying attention to the gifts and callings of those participating in the life of the community and those God is calling into it.

The implication of this shift is that we remind ourselves to remain attentive to the Spirit’s movement in our congregation and in the world around us.
Moving from organizational permanence to congregational vitality

When we think of church as an organization, leadership assumes current structures and processes are there for a good reason. Leadership asks, “HOW can we do WHAT we’re already doing more effectively?”When we think of church as an organism, leadership assumes nothing. Leadership first asks, “WHY do we exist?” then, “HOW do we organize and behave to fulfill that calling?“ then, “WHAT specific activities is God calling us to carry out?” Leadership also asks, “What does the congregation do that is so unique and valuable that it would be missed if the congregation ceased to exist?” and, “If our church were to die today, what would the community around us write as our epitaph?” Leadership pays attention to what feeds and energizes the congregation (and the leadership) and finds ways to do those more of those kinds of things, while letting those things that do not promote congregational vitality die.

The implication of this shift is that we continuously rediscover and reconnect with our spiritual DNA, and allow ourselves to be watered and pruned by God’s Spirit.
Moving from hierarchical structure to organic networksWhen we think of church as an organization, leadership (and followership) is organized and structured via power, position, and turf. Leadership asks, “What COMMITTEES should a healthy church have?” and “Who can we get to lead and staff them?”
When we think of church as an organism, all congregational structures and processes are functional and provisional. Work is accomplished through small-group, co-led teams, which can expand and contract, as needed. Leadership asks, “What needs to be done?” then, “Who is called to be on a TEAM to do it?” then, “Which of its members are called to lead the team?”

The implication of this shift is that we assure that our structures and processes are nimble and flexible, capable of growing and adapting to our context.
Moving from individual perfection to interconnected completenessWhen we think of church as an organization, leadership strives to help every individual person and part of the organization become as self-sufficiently effective as possible. Leadership asks, “What does this person/committee need to be the best, most well-rounded person/committee possible?”
When we think of church as an organism, leadership strives to help every person and part of the organization become more complete through interconnectedness with others. Leadership asks, “What connections can we forge between persons/teams that make them more complete in their interconnectedness?

The implication of this shift is that we allow each person to give their best gifts and strengthen our organic interdependence as the body of Christ.

An Invitation to Exploration

What I have offered above is not intended to be a quick fix or a step-by-step guide. It cannot be that because the new paradigm is still emerging. Think of it rather as an example of the kinds of questions your vestry will have to ask yourselves and your congregations if you commit yourselves to this journey.

One thing I can promise is this: Embracing the organic and incarnational nature of Christian community can both make your congregations more vital in the present and enable them to face the “changes and chances” of the future with adaptability and resilience. And it will make your job as leaders more exciting and creative, and perhaps even fun.

Resources

Molting Out of Our Old Shells, a video interview with missioner and church planter Tom Brackett

St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Germantown, Maryland

The FaithX blog

Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community Beyond Us and Them by Ken Howard(Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2010)

Dec 21 2015

Experts Need Not Apply

by the Rev. Ken Howard

In my discussions with congregational and diocesan leaders around the Church of late, I have noticed a shift in the conversation.

More and more leaders are beginning to face the facts about their congregations. More are beginning to acknowledge that, at best, they are on a plateau and that, at worst, they are on a slow but slippery downward slope: not just in membership numbers, but congregational vitality and engagement. Another positive shift is that fewer are clinging to the old canard that there are “other ways to grow than in actual number,” recognizing that readiness to grow is a powerful indicator that talk of willingness to change is more than lip service. These are healthy signs. Getting over our resistance to facing the reality of our condition is half the battle for the future of the Church. As Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

But apparently, Jesus forgot to add, “but first it will really piss you off…” Indeed, while I hear more acceptance of the need for growth and change, I’m not sure those same leaders have come to terms with what actual growth and change will cost them. Because the next thing I hear is often a request for expert advice: solutions, techniques, fixes, specific changes that can be made to worship services, welcome programs, websites, or whatever. Implement once, take the heat, and be done with it…problem solved. And while I can understand this desire (even cosmetic changes to church traditions can inadvertently wound sacred cows and wind up their protectors), this “call in the experts impulse” is ultimately self-defeating. Because what we are facing is a problem that experts can’t solve.

Why?

We are in the midst of a massive paradigm shift in what it means to be and to do Church. And as saying goes, “When a paradigm shifts, everyone goes to zero.” When journeying through a paradigm shift there are no experts, only fellow learners. Since no one knows where the paths we are on will ultimately take us, all of us are pioneers. When we find ourselves in such a situation, we don’t need expert advice. Rather, what we need is to learn how to be ecclesiastical entrepreneurs.

What is an ecclesiastical entrepreneur?

To be effective ecclesiastical entrepreneur we have to learn how to learn and we may have to hone some qualities that we may not have had to exercise much in the past. We need to learn to discern what God is up to in the world around us: to sniff out how the Holy Spirit is already at work in the communities in which our congregations live and move and have their being. We need to set aside our assumptions about how things are supposed to work and what we are supposed to do, and instead ask ourselves a lot more questions about why we exist and for what purpose God has planted us in our specific time and place.

Discernment in a time of great change requires of us higher tolerance for ambiguity. Because we are still looking and listening through the filters of our old paradigm, we need to accept that God may call us to act before we are certain of what God wants, and that if we wait for certainty before we act, the Holy Spirit may move on without us long before we are ready. We need to be willing to dream big, start small, fail often, learn fast (especially from our failures), and repeat as necessary.

Since what we are going through is, in effect, the death of one way of being Church and birthing of a new way, perhaps it would not be too far off base to compare what is going on in the Church to the old Kubler-Ross stages of dying. If so, we are making good progress. We have made it through anger and denial, and have entered into bargaining. Our journey through our paradigm shift has come more than halfway. All we have to do is make it through depression (some may already be there) to true acceptance, and we’ll have made it to the other side. And that will be a good place to be, because we know that if we allow God to walk with us through death, the result will be resurrection.