Listening to clergy, church staff, lay leaders, they describe being caught in the classic double bind. On the one hand, they want their churches to flourish in this emerging new environment. The pandemic is largely over, presenting wonderful opportunities for adaptation and forward movement. In this regard, church leaders are ready to roll.
On the other hand, church leaders are exhausted, along with their people. After adapting and managing during the never-ending pandemic, people are generally tired and tired of it. Their energy is down in relation to work (quiet quitting), community engagement (volunteerism down), and alas, church as well. Many church leaders say it’s like pulling teeth when it comes to ramping up for nearly anything in church.
Mark Tidsworth
So, church leaders find themselves in a double bind. They are trying to add energy to the system, generating enthusiasm for being and doing church. At the same time, they are tired and worn-down like everyone else.
If we stay here too long, we will start to feel crazy. Instead, here are four insights serving as handles for climbing out of this church leadership double bind.
There already is a Savior for God’s church, and it’s not you.
No matter how much you care about God’s church, God cares more. I’m glad you want your church to flourish, moving forward in mission and ministry. You should want this. At the same time, it’s not your responsibility to make sure this happens. You are not the savior, there’s already a Savior at work here. Yours is to trust the Savior.
There is energy available for God’s church and its leaders, but it’s not yours to generate.
Your church does need energy in order to function, no doubt. Without animating passion and energy, your church is going nowhere fast. Your calling though is not to create the spiritual power for energizing your church. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,” says Psalm 46:4. You are not called to create streams of living water. Someone already did that. That energy stream was created long ago, flowing down through history, energizing God’s church for 2000-plus years. God’s already on it, church leaders.
“When God’s not in it and no one has the energy for it, let it go.”
Your calling is to trust the current of God’s energy flowing through this world.
Here is your calling: to take your feet off that river bottom, trusting yourself to the current, allowing the current to take you onward. God provides the energy God’s church needs to fulfill God’s purposes. When we believe this, we relax into the current, trusting we will be taken somewhere really good, swimming with the current of God’s intentions. On the other hand, when we believe we have to make it happen or work up the energy else this church will fall apart, we are actively distrusting God.
When God’s not in it and no one has the energy for it, let it go.
Churches and their leaders in our Reshaping Church Initiative are currently engaging a process for reshaping their menu of activities and structures. Most churches continue to function with the same structures that were in place before the pandemic. In this new land, the former things are far less relevant or helpful. In the present, when no one is willing to lead it or serve in it, let it go. Streamline and live free.
Given this, may we give ourselves to the current of God’s energy flowing through our world. May we be filled with God’s Holy Spirit, animating ourselves and our churches with the enlivening gospel of Jesus Christ this very day and each day to come.
Mark Tidsworth is founder and team leader for Pinnacle Leadership Associates. He has served as a pastor, new church developer, interim pastor, renewal pastor, therapist, nonprofit director, business owner, leadership coach, congregational consultant, leadership trainer and author. Ordained in the Baptist tradition, Mark is an ecumenical Christian minister based in Chapin, S.C.
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