The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Adapting to Change without Forsaking Tradition

By Ken Howard

A common quandary I hear expressed by leaders of faith-based communities and organizations is…

How can I help my community adapt
to a rapidly changing world
without forsaking our traditions?

And my answer to this quandary is:

It depends…

Specifically, it depends on what you think traditions are good for.

If we think of our traditions as holy and unchanging, then there is nothing we can do to help our congregations adapt to the changes in the world around them. Eventually, they will wither and die and fossilize.

But only God is holy and unchanging. Which means that our traditions are cannot be. A better way to think of our traditions is as ways of doing and being Church that have been tested by time and found to be fruitful. They are only useful to the degree that they help help our faith communities focus on our relationship with God, understand and follow God’s call for us, and live in unity as the body of Christ. Indeed, the only reason they seem unchanging to us is that in ages past change in the world around the Church was glacially slow, which allowed the Church the luxury of changing its traditions over multiple lifetimes.

Unfortunately, we no longer have the freedom to change at a snail’s pace. The pace of change in the world around us is increasing exponentially by the day. Churches used to have generations to absorb and respond to racial, ethnics, or lifestyle changes in the composition of the neighborhoods we serve. But these days changes that were once measured in generations are now measured in years. Blink and your neighborhood has flipped. And the Church is changing just as fast. The Religion SIngularity, our research paper published last summer provides definitive evidence that many of our current institutional forms – both at the local and denominational level – will become unsustainable long before the end of the current century, and suggests that we have perhaps a 10-year window to begin exploring new ways of being Church.

All of which means if we are to maintain our ability to translate the Good News into the world around us, we need find a way to test and adapt our traditions much more quickly, while not losing sight of their ultimate purpose and meaning.

And that’s what Vision-Guided Experimentation (VGE) comes in. VGE is a collection of principles and practices that help faith-based communities and organizations become much more agile and experimental: testing and adapting traditions – or creating new ones – rapidly while remaining focused on their meaning and the vision they represent. Because change for change’s sake is no better that tradition for tradition’s sake.

In our last few posts we learned how to get very clear on our vision and ultimate meaning of our traditions – tracing our way up from the WHAT of our traditions to the ultimate WHY they represent – using the principle we call Minimum Viable Belief (MVB).

Once clear on our overarching vision or MVB, the question then becomes how to move rapidly through the process of testing and adaptation. This is what we will cover in the next several posts, as we discuss two closely-related practices we call Minimum Viable Program and Rapid Iteration Prototyping.

 

The Religion Singularity: What Can You Do About It? How Can You Prepare?

This is the second post in five-part series.
Click here for Part 1.

The impact on denominations: Death by black hole – oblivion – fragmenting and shrinking at such a rate that they are unlikely to be sustainable by any means.

The impact on worship center – a choice:  Black hole or wormhole – fragmenting and shrinking at an even higher rate, they can do nothing and face the same oblivion as denominations, or they can transform themselves into experimental faith communities and take a wormhole ride into a different way of being.

The Religion Singularity and Its Impact

Religion Singularity Small
Source: “Status of Global Mission 2014,” Bulletin of Missionary Research (Jan, 2010): 1.

Impact – Declining Denominations & Worship Centers

 

Decline in Denoms and Worship Ctrs

What Can Denominations and Worship Centers Do To Prepare?

There is nothing denominations can do to save themselves. If they try to save their lives, they will not only lose their own lives, but in trying to generate the resources to save themselves they risk dooming to death their associated worship centers by robbing them of the resources and the freedom they need to transform themselves. The most generative act denominations can do is to prepare for their own deaths by shifting resources and creative autonomy to their worship centers, so that the best of their DNA will survive in their descendants.

Worship centers can transform themselves into experimental faith communities. Compared to denominations, worship centers, by their nature, may be more flexible in the face of the changes they both face. Because the bulk of their ministries and programs are carried out by unpaid volunteers within a flatter organizational structure, worship centers are by nature much less dependent on a large base of supporting members than are denominational structures, which tend to be more hierarchical with a much greater percentage of paid staff. Consequently, it will likely be easier for individual worship centers, even as they grow smaller, to become more flexible, adaptive, and creative in the face of these changes (though it is by no means certain how many of them will).

So here’s the question. What are the qualities worship centers must acquire to ride the Religion Singularity wormhole successfully?

Agility. To survive and thrive in an unpredictable environment, an organization must possess agility:   the power to move quickly and nimbly around obstacles and toward opportunities. But it also means the capability to make vital decisions swiftly and effectively, deftly discriminating between paths containing varying degrees of danger and opportunity.

Vision. All the agility in the world will literally get you nowhere if you don’t know where you are going, which in a chaotic environment is literally impossible. Yet even when you can’t know precisely the place you want to end up, you can still know what you want to be like when you get there, and you can evaluate the possible paths before you based on whether they move you closer to or farther from that vision. This is why a transcendent vision is essential for faith-based communities and organizations operating in an uncertain environment.

Lean. To put it bluntly, “fat and agile” is an oxymoron. More mass means more inertia. More inertia means less agility. Becoming lean means shedding excess mass by eliminating all forms of waste. Traditionalism, dogmatism, clericalism, and any other “-ism” in which a created form is worshipped nearly as much as the Creator, all enable waste. Bad stewardship of congregation members’ time, talents, and treasure also increases waste. Becoming lean means reducing inertia by jettisoning every unproductive organizational process and structure, and leverage all of the capabilities of congregation members to the fullest. And as with agility itself, being lean also requires a clear and transcendent vision, in order to distinguish between those aspects of organizational structure and process that support the vision – and so must be kept – and those that do not – and must be eliminated.

Contextual Attentiveness. In order to identify and steer clear of obstacles and move toward opportunities, faith-based communities and organizations must be actively and continuously monitoring their environments.

Common Cause Community. In order to minimize competition and maximize collaboration between themselves and other organizations, faith-based communities and organizations must be able to make common cause with organizations that have similar visions and are heading in similar directions. In set theory this is known as centered-set community, in which membership is determine by shared vision and goals. It is the opposite of boundaried-set community, in which membership is defined based on boundary characteristic: all the ways in which the organization is different from all other organizations. Faith-based communities and organizations in turbulent environments must share the attitude of Jesus that “whoever is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:40, Luke 9:50)

Rapid Hypothesis Testing.  To thrive in such an environment, faith-based communities and organizations must be able to rapidly make and test strategic hypotheses, quickly discarding strategies that fail the test and continuing with strategies pass it, repeating this process as often as needed.

Actionable Metrics. To effectively test hypotheses, an organization must know how to develop evaluative measures that provides it with the necessary feedback to know how well its chosen strategies is working, and how to adjust course.

Which brings us full circle, back to Agility. To survive and thrive in escalating uncertainty and accelerating change, faith-based communities and organizations must be able to do all of these things quickly, adroitly, and as often as needed.

Coming Soon: From Qualities to Practices

Click here to read the full paper: “Singularity: The Death of Religion and the Resurrection of Faith” (on Academia.edu).

Adapt or Die

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

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