What's Next?

Right now several Presbyterians (and undoubtedly some others) from across the country are meeting at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago for something called the Next Church Conference.  "Next Church" first met in Indianapolis, Indiana a few years ago.  I attended that initial gathering.  The purpose of these gatherings is to discuss, share, dream, pray, discern about where God might be leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the future... to help discern what's next.  This is from the group's website:

"NEXT Church is a network of leaders across the Presbyterian Church (USA) who believe the church of the future will be more relational, more diverse, more collaborative, more hopeful and more agile. We provide hopeful space for robust conversations about the theology, culture, and the practice of ministry, to serve as a catalyst for new mission callings, and to support strong leadership in a time of adaptive change. We are fostering a conversation about how to follow Christ in our particular day and age. We are a movement seeking to change the culture of connection in the PC(USA) so that we continue to share faithfully the good news of the gospel in ways that bear fruit in a fractured world."

As I've been following the Twitter comments from folks at this year's gathering (#nextchurch2015), people are sharing some of the insights, thoughts, and questions that are arising.  This comment I found particularly insightful:  "Why does your church exist?  Hint: 'Because we have an historic building' is not the answer."  When he was Stated Clerk of the General Assembly years ago, Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick asked the question a little differently:  "If your church were to close tomorrow, what would your community miss, if anything?"

In 2010, I took a three-month sabbatical from the congregation and presbytery I was serving at the time.  I tried to find, and then write about, different ways in which people were trying to be the Church in our culture.  I don't know that the paper I wrote from that study came up with anything particularly groundbreaking or unique, but I did identify several different models that people have been exploring about how to be the church in this very new and very different time.

I entitled the paper, "A New Church - A New Day: Models for Being the Church in New and Challenging Times."  This was my thesis statement:

"We need a new Reformation.  By that, I mean something different than transformational thinking, emergent worship, or missional focus.  For more and more congregations, the day is rapidly drawing to a close when each can have its own building, run its own programs, support its own mission causes, and call and hire its own staff.  Resources are too limited.  Our continued insistence on doing things by ourselves results in fewer members, an inability to support staff or buildings, and closing church doors.  It has seemed to me that, just as the Scriptures affirm that the Spirit hovered over the waters of creation, giving birth to new life on the earth (Genesis 1:2), so the Spirit seems to be hovering over the Church, in the process of giving birth to a new way of life in the community of Christ's Body."

Over the next few issues of Presbytery Matters, I thought it might be helpful and timely for me to share some of the different models I identified.  A few of these we already are doing, but there may well be something in these that will ignite a spark within you as you consider your congregation and where God might be leading your church.

In the meantime, I do think that the questions above are worth pondering a bit, don't you?

·      Why does your church exist?

·      If your church were to close tomorrow, what would your community miss, if anything?

These questions, of course, are just as applicable to presbyteries... and synods... and denominations as well.

May our explorations and discernment bear fruit, by God's grace.