Category: Church Decline

Posted in Boundaries, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, Entering and Engaging the Congregation, Finishing and Exiting, Leadership Development, Self-Care, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

15 min 06 s

Rev. Heidi Johnston

As an Interim Minister, have you ever wondered about the rest of the story? You know – feedback about the impact of your ministry on the congregation after you left? In this episode, settled ELCA pastor, Rev. Heidi Johnston, expresses her gratitude to the Intentional Interim Minister who preceded her, including specifics of how the IM set her up for success.

Particular things IM did to set me up for success –

The IM expressed clear boundaries about the number of hours/week she would work & equipped laity to negotiate the use of pastoral time and energy – focusing and prioritizing;

IM didn’t work beyond her stated limit of working hours when temped to do so – and helped the congregation understand why and adapt;

Two, she led leadership through honest sometimes hard conversations about their current reality – and its implications for calling next pastor;

IM presented new limitations as opportunities, not losses, which led to a new joy in opportunities for more hands-on ministry for lay people.

Three – The transition conversations nudged people beyond all the ways the past was more abundant – celebrate the wonderful things of the past, and also name past hurts and conflicts – helped me not to get blindsided by issues the congregation may be sweeping under the rug.

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Posted in Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Leadership Development, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care, Staff, Worship Tagged with

15 min 50s

It’s not about “saving” the congregation, per se, but about buying the time for serious thinking about what the cong. wants for its future.

Discerning what form of ministry is faithful to the basic values & resources that you have now?

Guidance for how lay leaders can work productively with a very part-time pastor;

A targeted approach that equips and empowers the laity can do themselves:

Specific recommendations for how the laity can create and lead worship, for congregational care, etc.

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

12 min 19s

The four paths are: revitalization, transformation, legacy building and ministry completion (that’s one option), and road closed ahead.

Description of each path and what is involved;

Why 1 path is much harder (a mirage really) than it may seem and why;

Why another path is the one congregations in denial often fall into (and I wish didn’t exist!);

The process of shaping and narrowing down options and focusing on transformation, and legacy building and ministry completion, and discerning which is right for that congregation.

Metaphor of the church as a ship coming into harbor and completing it voyage.

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

13 min 42s

The power of metaphors for helping church navigate their lifecycle;

Imagining the wider church as a forest, and individual congregations as trees helps churches see how they fit into something larger than themselves;

Reframing this last phase of ministry not simply as decline, which is often interpreted as failure, but as a natural part of a process that’s tied to a larger system of the wider church;

Questions to aid the struggle of balancing autonomy at the congregational level with covenant at the wider church level;

How resurrection language can help; A resurrected church, like the resurrected Jesus, has some features of what it was before, but it’s not the same thing – some new “benefits” too;

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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Pastoral Care Tagged with

15 min 25s

How a physician or a statistician might look at someone and assess what their health was and their life expectancy – parallels with a congregation;

Examples for churches: Acute, life-threatening illnesses,

Chronic illnesses;

Toxic behavior by members;

Parallels for churches of what we’d look for in people such as diet, exercise, social connection, sleep or rest, family history, mental health;

Like people, some of the things that influence life expectancy can be changed, some cannot & which is which;

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