The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Are You Leading a Zombie Congregation?

Take this 10-Question Quiz and Find Out

By Ken Howard

We thought that since Ken is away on vacation, this might be a good time to bring back his much requested blog post, “Are You Leading a Zombie Congregation,” originally published in the Episcopal Church Foundation’s Vital Parishes newsletter.

In case you haven’t noticed, zombies are becoming more popular these days. Gone are the old-time zombie movies with their slack-jawed, shuffling zombies. Nowadays the undead are appearing in zombie action movies, zombie romantic comedies, and zombie Bollywood flicks.

Zombies have even made their way into business literature. Companies and non-profit organizations that are operating but not growing have come to be called Zombies, because they are in a state of limbo – not dead, yet not exactly alive either – and because they maintain their undead existence by draining resources away from healthy organizations.

So what about zombie churches? Could there be congregations in which the individual members were alive, but the congregation as a whole was undead, having lost both the desire and the capacity to grow? It’s not just possible but true. By the standard just articulated, a significant portion of our churches (perhaps even a plurality) could be classified as zombies. In fact, churches may be more at risk of becoming zombies than other kinds of organizations, because they can blind themselves to their condition by convincing themselves that their lack of change and adaptation to new contexts is due to the strength of their traditions, or by saying to themselves, “If we could just bring back [insert favorite “Make Church Great Again” memory here], everything will be fine. Worse, they often maintain their undead existence for decades by consuming their own endowments and/or denominational resources that might otherwise go to healthier congregations.

Are you leading a zombie church? Take this ten-question quiz and find out…

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Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome – Part 7

This is the final post of a multipart series on Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome.
Click here for last week’s post.

Recovering from Ecclesiastical Autoimmunity Syndrome
By Ken Howard

For the last several weeks we have reviewed the causes and symptoms of Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome. Now we turn toward how to treat it. What follows are a collection of ideas about attitudes and practices that might help stop the downward spiral of E.A.S. and start the upward journey toward congregational and organizational health and vitality.

  1. Admit That We Have the Disease. Think of it as joining Autoimmunes Anonymous and beginning something like a 12-Step process of recovery (step one: admitting A.E.S. has taken control of your corporate life). Ecclesiastical Autoimmune Syndrome is not only an allergy to change, but also an addiction “to the way things are.” But it is worse than most other addictions, because we are born with it. Our addiction to homeostasis is part of our (sinful) human nature. Like any other addiction, the first step is admitting we have the disease. It’s also perhaps the hardest step, because since we have never not been infected, we don’t really know what “healthy” is, often mistaking the behavioral symptoms of E.A.S. as an heroic defense of “tradition.” Faith-based communities and organizations often have to get very close to death before the reality of the disease breaks through our denial, and sometimes not even then. So start by recognizing that your congregation or organization has E.A.S. and realize that you will always be in recovery. 

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