Zach Hoag Is Uncategorized
Small to medium sized traditional churches with long memories + a changing culture that increasingly finds our traditions irrelevant to daily life= decreasing attendance and tithing = high levels of anxiety.
Is it too much of a generalization to say that this is the context in which most pastors in the Northeast United States minister? It is certainly my context, although hope is present as well. Not long ago, it was time to lead our congregation through change, and we let them know that the future was unknown: “We are going to try some things and fail, and try some other things and succeed. We are going to share our building with community groups. We are going to stop these old programs to free up time and resources for new ministries, that may fail or succeed, we don’t know. We are going to give a large piece of land to the community for gardening.” For a two hundred year old church, of course this raised the level of anxiety.
I’m becoming convinced that congregational anxiety will not diminish by simply telling people to stop worrying, by preaching against worry, or by talking about faith and trust. I cannot talk myself out of a worried state, although I often try (you’d think I would learn). I cannot talk my family members out of their worry, either. Words are not magic.
Instead, I wonder if we should embrace our anxiety and bring it with us into the future. Maybe we should accept it, explore it, actually move into it. Where is the anxiety coming from? I’m worried that the end of this program will mean _________________. I’m worried that we will try ______________ and then _______________ will happen. And if it does, then ________________. If we allow others to use our building, I’m afraid ______________________. And then _________________ will happen. Let all the downward spirals spin until we’ve hit bottom. And there is the root.
Then we move forward anyway. The feelings probably will not go away, no matter how much we want them to, so we take them with us. We practice new things. We give and we share and we reach out into the community, aware of our anxiety but not allowing it to paralyze us. In my context, I have found this is the only way congregational anxiety diminishes… through action. I can’t ask people to stop feeling afraid, but I can ask them to practice a new kind of ministry anyway… in spite of the anxiety. Practice and reflect, practice and reflect, is our new rhythm. So far, it seems that hope and confidence are being born out of practice; and anxiety is lessening. We have learned that we can survive failure (at least in small doses). And we have learned how to celebrate success! It turns out we needed to learn how to do that, so we had ice cream in our plush-carpeted sanctuary one Sunday, which in itself probably raised some anxiety levels… but no one spilled sticky stuff on the floor, thank goodness.
What are your experiences with leading change in traditional churches? How have you tried to manage anxiety? What do you think of the “practice and reflect” rhythm of ministry in congregations?
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