Closing churches and the rise of the religiously unaffiliated seems like pretty strong evidence that Christianity is going through some pretty dark times.
But Kennon Callahan doesn’t buy into that conclusion.
“This is a new time,” said Callahan, author of Twelve Keys to an Effective Church. “God blesses us with living in one of the most amazing frontier times in the history of the Christian movement.”
But whether an individual or group of believers sees the cup as half empty or half full depends on how creatively they can re-imagine the idea of church. They need also to astutely decipher what motivates and inspires Americans today, not what energized them in in previous eras, Callahan said.
Kennon Callahan
“What draws in our time is movement, not institution,” he said. “Institution has had its day.”
Callahan, an expert and consultant on church vitality, was the featured speaker during a recent FaithSoaring Churches conference call.
One of the reasons churches are declining, Callahan told listeners, is that they have failed to recognize the “motivation gap” between themselves and those who do or may darken their doors.
Institutions generally act out of the motivations of challenge, reasonability and commitment, he said.
But a great many Americans — and certainly Millennials — are inspired by hope and compassion, among others.
“One of the reasons some churches are weak, declining and dying is they create a motivational gap,” Callahan said.
Armed with such knowledge, congregations can shift their perspectives on important issues. One is about inactive members.
“Inactive members are not inactive,” he said. “They are teaching us that their motivations do not resonate with the motive appeals we are sending out to them. They are on a different motivational wavelength.”
Whether it’s compassion, community, hope, peace, reasonability and other motivations, churches must strive to identity those qualities in their congregation and work to ministries and programs around them.
“Build a motivational match with the people with whom you would like to grow,” he said.
Congregations that create flourishing people will in turn flourish, according to Callahan.
“One of the ways people flourish in this life is to build on their strengths.”
The church has had to contend with similar cultural shifts before. Its first struggle was when the world moved from nomadic to agrarian cultures, and then again from agrarian to industrial.
Now, the church is experiencing the shift from industrial to technological.
A result is a move away from institutions to grassroots gatherings and movements, Callahan said.
“One of the ways people flourish in this life is to build on their strengths.”
It means people are increasingly less interested in sitting on committees because committees and similar work imply long-term commitment to an institution.
“When you ask them to join a committee, they say ‘not now, I just don’t have time,’” he said. What they’re really saying is they don’t have time for monthly meetings 12 months of the year.
Instead, offer short-term service and ministry opportunities. Ministers’ calendars should begin with the short-term projects that are going to be offered in a coming year, Callahan said.
Churches must adapt to these realities because hoping to ride it out is a waste of time.
“Wishful thinking is not a strategy,” he said.