The Church As an Ecosystem: A Model to Help Churches See How They Fit into Something Larger than Themselves – and Why This Matters for Legacy – Transcript
Jim Latimer
I am your host Reverend Jim Latimer. And today we have the pleasure of having with us Charlie Kuchenbrod. Charlie, is a Church Legacy Specialist, and serves as a resource to all United Church of Christ churches that are transitioning to the legacy stage of their life cycle. Prior to this, he served various roles for a couple of decades with the Southern New England Conference of the UCC, in roles of stewardship, and investment management, and all – several major leadership positions there. Before that he had lots of practical business experience in the corporate world. And so, Charlie is savvy around the practical business aspects of organizations in general and congregations in particular, and is able to guide them in ways of faithful resource management. And for someone with an MBA rather than an MDiv (Master of Divinity) I’m impressed by his well thought out theology that undergirds his ideas and his consulting. This helps faithful people find the living God in this confusing and sometimes painful legacy process, and helps them lean into the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And so, Charlie, in this next podcast segment, you had spoken to me about the church as an ecosystem, and that metaphor really got my attention. If you could say more about that, that would, I think, be very helpful.
Charlie Kuchenbrod
Thank you, Jim. Yes, I’ve been imagining the wider church as a forest, and individual congregations as trees. And thinking about the ecosystem model as a way for churches to see how they fit into something larger than themselves. Because in a healthy forest, there are trees at all stages of life. There are seedlings, and there are mature trees that do eventually die. And when a tree in a forest dies, falls down, it opens up light. It clears space. It provides nutrients for the next generation of trees in the forest. So, a healthy forest needs some trees to be dying to create new life. And it doesn’t seem to me to be too much of a theological stretch to see churches completing their ministries fitting into that metaphor. First of all, it reframes the conclusion of ministry as this is what happens in our maturity. It’s a natural part of the lifecycle. When an organism matures, it’s no longer going to grow. It begins to show some signs of age. But there are also different benefits and rewards to each phase of life, including entering into maturity. So, it allows us to reframe this last phase of ministry not simply as decline, which we interpret as failure, but as a natural part of a process that’s tied to a larger system of the wider church. And if we see ourselves that way, it’s easier to let go. It’s easier to say, this is a natural process. And even though it saddens us that this particular expression of God’s ministry of Jesus’s ministry is coming to an end, it’s not ending the overall ministry. The churches that Paul founded, the churches that Paul wrote letters to none of them continue to exist today.
Jim Latimer
That’s a good point.
Charlie Kuchenbrod
But the wider church continues. And part of the challenge, and why I think the ecosystem model can be helpful in other ways, is within the United Church of Christ at least, we’re always struggling to balance autonomy at the congregational level with covenant with the wider church. And sometimes that gets out of balance with local congregations focused more on autonomy and less on covenant. And that’s just I think, representative of the world that we live in, in the United States in this day and age. There’s a lot of focus on individualism and autonomy, and perhaps somewhat less focus on community and covenantal relationships. So, we can ask ourselves, what do we need to relinquish? What do we need to let go of? And who benefits from this? And, again, if we’re focused on autonomy, we’re focused too much on only what is beneficial for us, the members of the congregation. If we’re looking covenantally and more of our participation in an ecosystem, it’s what will benefit the entire body of Christ. And we have churches, collectively, we have a lot of our assets and resources locked up in illiquid assets, which are buildings and property.
So, part of this process is, when a church completes its ministry, most often it sells its property, and that releases the asset to be used in new ways. It’s the equivalent of the tree dying and providing nutrients for the next generation of trees. It allows us to imagine new ways or to take our resources, our people and our financial resources to another congregation to collaborate with them to strengthen that congregation’s effectiveness as an outpost for creating disciples of Jesus. And so, it’s an opportunity for the system, the ecosystem, to continue to prosper.
And you mentioned my business background. From a business perspective, I can say we have too many too small churches. And it is difficult to do effective mission and ministry that way. Because it requires a lot of our time and effort to go into institutional maintenance, if you recall. And as congregations shrink in membership and participation, the institutional maintenance work does not go away. And it consumes a greater and greater portion of our resources, our people time and effort, leaving less time for mission and ministry in many cases. So, if we can step back and look at the bigger picture from a forest perspective, from an ecosystem perspective, what’s going to be most effective for aligning ourselves with God’s purposes in the world, which is to create a more compassionate, just and peaceful world?
I think it’s important to see that as one of our objectives. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to bring in resurrection language to this process. Resurrection is not resuscitation, right? When we talk about the resurrected Jesus being present in our lives today, we don’t mean that there’s a person that in the same sense that there was somebody 2,000 years ago in the Holy Land that we could take a picture of. And the resurrected Jesus is radically different. And so, for churches to go through an experience, you don’t get to resurrection without Good Friday. So, there is in this letting go, the death, if you will, of a local church location. But it’s not without hope for the future. Because I if we see this as participating in the wider body of Christ, and continuing to support that, it is a radical transformation that still allows for hope to grow in the world.
Jim Latimer
Wow! Well, Charlie, I really appreciate the way you carefully and thoughtfully parse these out with your words, and then the great work that you’re doing, and the difference between resuscitation and resurrection. It’s timely that we’re having this now just after Easter Sunday. You have to go through Good Friday to be resurrected. And a resurrected Jesus, like a resurrected congregation, has some features of what it was before, but it’s not the same thing. It’s a different thing. And in all kinds of ways you can combine with transformation, you can combine with other churches, that free yourself of the burden of having assets locked up and not being used. That’s so difficult for congregations to do. And I think you’ve said, as I’ve read a lot of your blogs, just have compassion with people that are making an idol of their building or something. They’re not doing it on purpose. It’s out of love and stability and all the good things that they want. And then have to make some hard decisions.
Wow, I love the ecosystem metaphor! That’s really helpful about where the congregation being one tree and the body of Christ being a forest and seeing its role in the forest – the whole lifecycle. We have no trouble seeing trees and lifecycles, right? And if we can see our congregations that way, that’d be really helpful, both from the emotional standpoint, and it’s also good theology. Well, enough talk from me. Charlie, that was really helpful. Thank you so much. Many will benefit from this.
Charlie Kuchenbrod
Thank you, Jim. You’re welcome.