4 Opportunities for the Church in the Current Political Tension by Carey Nieuwhof, Leading Ideas
Pastor Carey Nieuwhof believes the church is uniquely positioned to respond to the political tension and division that characterize our age. He discusses four ways Christians can bring hope to the increasingly fragile culture around us.
You don’t need to be anything more than a casual observer of American (and Western) culture to know that something significant is happening. The current political division is as bad as it’s been in a long time. No church can pretend we’re not living in an age of heightened tension. So how do we respond to the situation we’re in? While some in our culture believe the church is part of the problem, I believe it’s key to the solution. Jesus is the love we keep missing as human beings. So how does the church better function as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem? Here are four ways Christians and the church can bring hope to the increasingly fragile culture around us.
There’s a generation of people looking for love in a world of hate. Looking for truth in an age of relativity. Looking for something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart.
1. Be a Confessor in a Culture of Blame
It’s so easy to point the finger at someone else. Too often Christians focus on what we can’t change and ignore what we can. All of this is what confession is designed to root out. Imagine what would happen if Christians owned the racism, sexism, and other isms that live in our hearts. Imagine what might happen if we confessed that we have not adequately loved people who are different than us. Maybe true prayers of confession are rare in church because they’re rare in leaders. It’s so easy to believe you’re right and everyone else is wrong. But you are not always right. And you don’t hold a monopoly on truth. Your perspective and mine are flawed. None of us loves perfectly or deeply enough. When you confess that you’re part of the problem, the solution becomes clearer. You will never address the wrong you don’t confess.
2. Foster Conversation in a Culture that Shouts
Thanks to social media, everybody has a platform. A ridiculous number of people use theirs to shout rather than to listen. This translates into real life too. Conversations seem to be devolving into an exchange of monologues between two people who don’t seem terribly interested in each other. People appear to be talking at each other as much as they’re talking with each other. I’ll share my opinions and then you can share your opinions. That’s not conversation.
You know what’s missing in the current culture? Listening. Thoughtfulness. Humility. Kindness. Openness.
Genuine, authentic conversation features all those elements and more. When was the last time you had a genuine conversation with someone who doesn’t share your values? By that, I mean an exchange where you listened as much as you spoke and tried to understand more than you tried to be understood. That’s what conversation is. And conversation is an endangered species in our current culture. Love listens; so should Christians.
3. Broker Meaning in the Age of Information
Information used to be rare. You had to ask. Find an expert. Pull an encyclopedia off the shelf. The last decade has fundamentally changed that in two ways. You can find almost any information you want for free, and online platforms have turned almost everyone into content producers. Now we have more information than we know how to process.
Consequently, we have a new crisis. The current crisis isn’t a crisis of information, it’s a crisis of meaning. We have a million springs of endless information and we have no idea what it all means. The challenge for church leaders is not just to produce more content but to provide meaning. I believe the future belongs to leaders who broker meaning in the sea of endless content. The key to providing meaning isn’t more, it’s better. More without meaning will make you less relevant. Better is not nearly as easy as more. Better requires thought, reflection, digestion and ultimately resonance, which tells you your content is connecting.
This provides a huge opportunity for church leaders. Who better to provide meaning than the leaders called to share timeless truth in an era starved for meaning? There’s a generation of people looking for love in a world of hate. Looking for truth in an age of relativity. Looking for something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart.
4. Be the Counter Culture
If there were ever a time for the countercultural message of Christianity to offer a real alternative, this is it. When the church simply reflects the social or moral values of an increasingly post-Christian culture, we echo the current emptiness; we don’t echo God. This is where the message of authentic Christianity and the church have so much to offer.
Christianity is a fusion of grace and truth because Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. The challenge, of course, is that most of us instinctively lean toward either grace or truth. It seems easier, but it’s incomplete and wrong. Neither reflects the heart of God. Christ is truth and grace majestically woven together. Fusing grace and truth is an exceptionally difficult venture and is usually only successful when you spend significant amounts of time in prayer. But when you see grace and truth fused, it takes your breath away. In Christ, people experience the fusion of grace and truth every heart most deeply longs for.
What Are You Doing to Diffuse the Tension?
Your most significant contribution to diffusing the tension will not be in what you think but in what you do. How diverse is your dinner table? Do you only ever have people over to your house who look like you and share your values? Or are you engaging people who are different? This is about race but also goes far beyond race to the myriad of other barriers we erect in our lives. When was the last time you listened as much as you spoke? When was the last time you confessed your sin to God rather than asking God to change someone else? How long has it been since you helped someone who is different than you?
This article is adapted from a post that appeared on Carey Nieuwhof’s blog, careynieuwhof.com. Used by permission.
Related Resources:
You don’t need to be anything more than a casual observer of American (and Western) culture to know that something significant is happening. The current political division is as bad as it’s been in a long time. No church can pretend we’re not living in an age of heightened tension. So how do we respond to the situation we’re in? While some in our culture believe the church is part of the problem, I believe it’s key to the solution. Jesus is the love we keep missing as human beings. So how does the church better function as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem? Here are four ways Christians and the church can bring hope to the increasingly fragile culture around us.
There’s a generation of people looking for love in a world of hate. Looking for truth in an age of relativity. Looking for something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart.
1. Be a Confessor in a Culture of Blame
It’s so easy to point the finger at someone else. Too often Christians focus on what we can’t change and ignore what we can. All of this is what confession is designed to root out. Imagine what would happen if Christians owned the racism, sexism, and other isms that live in our hearts. Imagine what might happen if we confessed that we have not adequately loved people who are different than us. Maybe true prayers of confession are rare in church because they’re rare in leaders. It’s so easy to believe you’re right and everyone else is wrong. But you are not always right. And you don’t hold a monopoly on truth. Your perspective and mine are flawed. None of us loves perfectly or deeply enough. When you confess that you’re part of the problem, the solution becomes clearer. You will never address the wrong you don’t confess.
2. Foster Conversation in a Culture that Shouts
Thanks to social media, everybody has a platform. A ridiculous number of people use theirs to shout rather than to listen. This translates into real life too. Conversations seem to be devolving into an exchange of monologues between two people who don’t seem terribly interested in each other. People appear to be talking at each other as much as they’re talking with each other. I’ll share my opinions and then you can share your opinions. That’s not conversation.
You know what’s missing in the current culture? Listening. Thoughtfulness. Humility. Kindness. Openness.
Genuine, authentic conversation features all those elements and more. When was the last time you had a genuine conversation with someone who doesn’t share your values? By that, I mean an exchange where you listened as much as you spoke and tried to understand more than you tried to be understood. That’s what conversation is. And conversation is an endangered species in our current culture. Love listens; so should Christians.
3. Broker Meaning in the Age of Information
Information used to be rare. You had to ask. Find an expert. Pull an encyclopedia off the shelf. The last decade has fundamentally changed that in two ways. You can find almost any information you want for free, and online platforms have turned almost everyone into content producers. Now we have more information than we know how to process.
Consequently, we have a new crisis. The current crisis isn’t a crisis of information, it’s a crisis of meaning. We have a million springs of endless information and we have no idea what it all means. The challenge for church leaders is not just to produce more content but to provide meaning. I believe the future belongs to leaders who broker meaning in the sea of endless content. The key to providing meaning isn’t more, it’s better. More without meaning will make you less relevant. Better is not nearly as easy as more. Better requires thought, reflection, digestion and ultimately resonance, which tells you your content is connecting.
This provides a huge opportunity for church leaders. Who better to provide meaning than the leaders called to share timeless truth in an era starved for meaning? There’s a generation of people looking for love in a world of hate. Looking for truth in an age of relativity. Looking for something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart.
4. Be the Counter Culture
If there were ever a time for the countercultural message of Christianity to offer a real alternative, this is it. When the church simply reflects the social or moral values of an increasingly post-Christian culture, we echo the current emptiness; we don’t echo God. This is where the message of authentic Christianity and the church have so much to offer.
Christianity is a fusion of grace and truth because Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. The challenge, of course, is that most of us instinctively lean toward either grace or truth. It seems easier, but it’s incomplete and wrong. Neither reflects the heart of God. Christ is truth and grace majestically woven together. Fusing grace and truth is an exceptionally difficult venture and is usually only successful when you spend significant amounts of time in prayer. But when you see grace and truth fused, it takes your breath away. In Christ, people experience the fusion of grace and truth every heart most deeply longs for.
What Are You Doing to Diffuse the Tension?
Your most significant contribution to diffusing the tension will not be in what you think but in what you do. How diverse is your dinner table? Do you only ever have people over to your house who look like you and share your values? Or are you engaging people who are different? This is about race but also goes far beyond race to the myriad of other barriers we erect in our lives. When was the last time you listened as much as you spoke? When was the last time you confessed your sin to God rather than asking God to change someone else? How long has it been since you helped someone who is different than you?
This article is adapted from a post that appeared on Carey Nieuwhof’s blog, careynieuwhof.com. Used by permission.
Related Resources:
- Free Video Study: Moving Faith Communities to Fruitful Conversations about Race featuring Wesley Seminary faculty Dr. F. Douglass Powe and Michael McCurry
- Next Sunday is Not a Presidential Primary by Lovett H. Weems, Jr.
- Starbucks, Communion, and Race Conversations by Doug Powe
- Ten Ways to Build the Beloved Community by Tony Hunt
5 Steps to Church Vitality and Turnaround by Tony HuntBaltimore Pastor C. Anthony Hunt outlines a five-part process helpful to churches or non-profits looking to renew their vitality. He shares how this process helped his church reorganize for mission and develop new worship and service initiatives to reach new people.
Working as a consultant with new church starts, I became familiar with a visioning process that draws on the agrarian image of sowing and reaping in 2 Corinthians 9:6-8. This five-part process (identified by the acronym SOWwithPH: See it. Own it. Work it. Pray it. Help it.) helps church leaders and stakeholders engage in ministry discernment and implementation. Originally designed to help new church pastors and leaders, I have also found the process helpful to those leading churches and religious non-profit organizations through processes of turnaround and revitalization.
To actualize, sustain and grow a vision, it is critical to discern what help you need at various stages in a church’s lifecycle.
1. See ItVision is critical to any church’s or ministry’s vitality and growth. From a Christian perspective, vision is the picture of God’s preferred future. The late Bishop Rueben P. Job defined vision as “a gift from God. It is the reward of disciplined, faithful, and patient listening to God. Vision allows us to see beyond the visible, beyond the barriers and obstacles to our mission. Vision ‘catches us up,’ captivates and compels us to act.” Dr. Lovett Weems intimates that vision shapes our orientation towards reality as well as our sense of being in the world. It is the gift of eyes of faith to see the invisible, to know the unknowable, to think the unthinkable, to experience the “not yet.” It is our vision that draws us forward.
2. Own It
“Owning it” speaks to the way that vision is shared across the organization. It also speaks to awareness of the current realities of the church or organization in light of its hopes for the future. Leaders and stakeholders can use tools — such as ministry charting, community or church diagnostics, demographic data such as U.S. Census and Mission Insight data, asset mapping, community assessments, and ministry-by-walking-around — to help in the process of ministry ownership.
3. Work It
This speaks to ways that ministry is activated and implemented. “Working it” is effectively ministry in action. This should be aligned with the stated mission, vision, and purpose of the church or ministry and should include strategies for marketing, community engagement, outreach and evangelism, use of social media and technology, and creative programming including worship, Christian Education and small groups.
4. Pray It
“Praying it” involves the use of spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation in the process of ongoing ministry discernment and implementation. Intentionally encouraging leaders and stakeholders to practice inward, outward, and corporate spiritual disciplines and then celebrating the visible impact on the lives of people moves the church towards greater vitality. At Epworth Chapel, we have found Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline, to be a helpful spiritual resource in our ongoing turnaround efforts.
5. Help It
To actualize, sustain, and grow a vision, it is critical to discern what help you need at various stages in a church’s lifecycle. What denominational support, consultants, coaches, technical assistance, and resources are needed to continue to move the vision forward?
Epworth Chapel: A Case in Point
After I was appointed pastor of Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church in Baltimore in 2011, our Church Council engaged this visioning process to discern God’s vision and plan for the church. Information gleaned from Mission Insight data pertaining to the current and projected demographic makeup within our zip code was particularly helpful in clarifying our mission, vision, and purpose and in embracing our stated mission — “to make disciples of Jesus Christ and make a difference for the transformation for our community and the world.”
We developed a strategic plan, “Epworth 2020,” that included an organizational restructuring plan which led to the formation of five program teams based on Acts 2:41–47: the Worship and Faith Celebration Team; the Discipleship and Faith Development Team; the Fellowship and Faith Connecting Team; the Mission, Outreach, and Faith in Action Team; and the Evangelism and Faith Sharing Team.
To help to move this mission and vision forward, Epworth Chapel holds an annual churchwide leadership retreat, facilitated by denominational consultants, that has been designed to build leadership capacity around issues like community change, multicultural competence, and stewardship development.
Some of the outcomes of these efforts have included the development of Friday Night Fire, an alternative worship experience designed to attract young adults; the SOUL Café, a weekly community meal where on average 200 persons are served each Sunday; It Takes a Village, an ongoing partnership with our local elementary school; and the development of several new Bible studies and small groups.
Engaging in a process like SOWwithPH can be helpful to churches that seek to clearly discern and implement its mission, vision, and purpose over the life-cycle of its ministry.
Related Resources:
- Discover God’s Future for Your Church Video Tool Kit
- The Power of Core Values by Tony Hunt
- A Simple Planning Process by Lovett H. Weems, Jr.
The Right Question:
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
In all groups, people make mistakes. Eric Ries asks groups to adopt two simple rules: (1) be tolerant of all mistakes the first time; (2) never allow the same mistake to be made twice. He suggests that if you are in such a group, a good personal question for you whenever something goes wrong might be:
- How could I prevent myself from being in this situation ever again?
Free Video Study: "Moving Faith Communities to Fruitful Conversations about Race"Moving Faith Communities is a dialogue about race in America that may be used to help your church bring people together to talk about moving forward bravely and boldly in the name of Christ. The resource is divided into four 15-minute videos which may be used in one or more sessions. Moving Faith Communities is sponsored by the Institute for Community Engagement at Wesley Theological Seminary.
Watch now.
Adult Education Study: A Life Worthy of The GospelHow do Christians think and act faithfully in a complex and often ambiguous world? A Life Worthy of the Gospel is an eloquent, challenging, and inspiring six-session introduction to Christian ethics that avoids pat answers and simplistic lists of dos and don'ts. This study is a mid-level course that is densely packed with rich content and is ideal for your congregation's small groups, adult Bible studies, and Sunday School classes.
Learn more now.
Quotable Leadership:
Whenever we encounter something in a congregation that makes no sense to us, it's easy to conclude that it makes no sense at all. (James R. Nieman)
Reach New Disciples this Advent and ChristmasThe liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas are nearly upon us, and Leading Ideas offers many ideas to help your congregation reach more people and unchurched people, provide opportunities for newcomers, attract children and families, offer inspiring giving for ministries, and much more.
Explore Advent and Christmas archives now.
Apply Today for Doctor of Ministry in Church Leadership at WesleyWesley Theological Seminary and the Lewis Center together offer a Doctor of Ministry in Church Leadership Excellence. With this track, clergy will receive the enhanced knowledge, skills, and motivation to increase congregational and denominational service, vitality, and growth. The next cohort begins in May 2018 in Washington, DC.
Learn more and apply today.
Editor: Dr. Ann A. Michel
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