The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Advent During Covid: Thinking Ahead

By Mary Frances, FaithX Senior Consultant

Ever since the first Christmas in my first call, I have had the urge to downsize Christmas.  The hustle, the bustle, the ever earlier decorating and store sales always feel like too much distraction from the reason for the season.  And yet, the Church has, for centuries, had a built-in time of prayer and contemplation to counter the commercialization of Christmas.  Advent, started in the middle ages and associated with the second coming of Christ, was more like Lent for Christmas.  Fasting, prayer, and silence were hallmarks of this pre-Christmas season.  The emphasis of Advent has shifted to a time of preparation for Christmas, a time of holy waiting for the Christ child.  We wait to celebrate the birth of Christ; we also wait for all that is yet to come.  When we jump past Advent to rush into Christmas, we skip over the invitation to look deep into the darkness of our world, of our lives, before we embrace the light. 

It’s okay to admit it, there is a lot of darkness right now.  Nothing is alright and nothing is easy.  Sending our kids to school is fraught with danger, going to work can put you on the front lines as an essential worker, and to think of going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house for the holidays is just about out of the question.  Fights over mask wearing, racial tensions, protests, violence and counter violence.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died.  We are not alright.  So maybe what we really need right now as we look to the holidays is less Christmas and more Advent. We need to take time out to acknowledge the darkness that surrounds us, we need to look deep into the darkness and own our part in it.  We need to grieve – the loss of loved ones, the changes in our world, the chaos and the confusion.  Not for the first time in our history but definitely for this time in our history, we need space, we need silence, we need time to mourn before we take time to celebrate.  What if we didn’t push it all aside for the sake of Christmas but instead we embraced it and reflected on it because of Christmas, because of the reason for the season, because God so loved the world…that he sent his son….for us.

What does it look like to truly practice Advent?  Certainly, Advent will look different for each community but here are a few ideas to get you started:

[Read more…]

Engaging in Life and Ministry “Beyond Covid”

by Steve Matthews

What now? How long? What’s next?  As a country we are in our 8th month of this pandemic. We continue to protest/ explore/ address/ ignore our racial inequities.  The west coast burns, and we round the alphabet on hurricane names in the gulf and Atlantic. Next month we will have a critical election for federal, state, and local leadership… and then there is the Supreme Court. There’s probably more, but suffice it to say, we have our hands more than full.

What does it mean to “be” church in the middle of all of this?  It’s no wonder people yearn to get back into their church buildings and to return to “normal.”  For many of us, these buildings represent a sense of belonging, beauty, safety, hope.  These are places where we have experienced community and God’s love fleshed out.  This is where many of us feel inspired and strengthened for the journey. 

But here we are, and how are we as people of faith called to show up in this “now?” How do we look at our world in ways that help us move beyond reaction?  

[Read more…]

Public Health Expert on Tap: What’s Ahead for Congregations

by Mary Frances

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed last week and came upon a congregation having a midweek service. The camera angle was from the back of the congregation and the quality wasn’t great but I could still see what was going on. People looked kind of spread out around the space. A few were moving around. I didn’t see anyone wearing a mask but some with their backs to the camera might have been. A worship leader was standing in front of a microphone at the top of the center aisle. She spoke about a song she wanted them to sing during Sunday worship and was going to teach it to them right then, let them practice it. I was so surprised! I felt like I could have been watching a super spreader event in action, somehow complicit by just watching. I quickly moved on.

[Read more…]

Holy Attention: Seeing your neighborhood with new eyes

By Steve Matthews

“If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors’ prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities – and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.
(pg. 59, “Racism and the Economy”)” 
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

What do you know about your neighbors?  What about the neighbors around your church building?  Is your knowledge based on your intuition, some good research (hopefully utilizing some of the excellent data available to you through FaithX)?  Is your knowledge more anecdotal, based on passing observations or the stories of others?  Each of these lenses offers some perspective on the neighborhoods around your churches, but they are only part of the picture.  

Another valuable way of learning more about our neighbors and neighborhoods is the scientific practice of direct observation.  What can we learn by simply noticing?  There are many ways to notice.  When I walk in my neck of the woods, I can marvel at (or criticize) landscaping or in- process home renovations. Sometimes I notice people and offer a greeting.  Most of the time though, I am simply on my way somewhere and not really paying much attention.

In my work with local clergy, I often invite them to take an hour long walk with me through the neighborhoods surrounding their churches.  Sometimes, people know their neighborhoods really well. Sometimes they are completely surprised by what they find.  For example, one priest discovered a path from the neighborhood through the woods toward the church.  We followed it and while there was some litter, it mostly seemed to be a place of exploration used by neighborhood kids (whom she had never met).  One priest discovered a silk screen artist just around the corner from the church.  He said, “I wish I had known he was here, because I just ordered t-shirts for the church carnival online.”  Our neighbors and neighborhoods are filled with pleasant surprises and treasures, if we only have eyes and hearts to see.

[Read more…]

Webinar Reminder

Leave No One Behind: How to Lead a Hybrid Congregation (9/16 – 1:00pm ET)

Webinar Description:

In times like these, it’s true that you can’t go home again, at least not if you’re a congregation and not if you expect it to be the same as when you left it. The impact of COVID-19 has changed all of our congregations for good. Our online worship services have brought new people to worship, young and old, some of which you will never see again if you try to bring your congregational life to its pre-COVID state.

Participants in the webinar will explore ways to restart in-person worship, fellowship, formation, and other ministries, without abandoning the gains (and the people) of our online church presence.

[Read more…]