The Role of the Church in Creating Solutions to Gun Violence

The Role of the Church in Creating Solutions to Gun Violence

by | Jun 29, 2022

Gun violence has increasingly impacted once safe spaces such as homes, churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, medical clinics, and stores. What is the answer? Historically, religious leaders have often served as the conscience of the nation in other wrenching national issues. Can we have an impact in this conversation as well? I do believe the church can play an important role in creating solutions to gun violence. But not without rethinking how we talk about it. I’ll make two suggestions about what needs rethinking.

 

Rethinking Either/Or

Gun violence is on the rise in the US. However, even when we all experience the anger and outrage that a gut-wrenching, senseless tragedy such as a mass shooting elicits, we can’t seem to agree on what should be done to prevent it from happening again. Then we get stuck in an endless cycle of do-nothing.

We need to step out of the trap that there is just one solution to gun violence. Researchers noted in a report published by the American Psychological Association, that “Reducing the incidence of gun violence will require interventions through multiple systems, including legal, public health, public safety, community, and health.” But first, in order for the solutions to be activated, the church needs to exercise its authority in a positive way.

 

Rethinking Gun Violence Conversations

Churches best operate in the realm of ethics, not politics. We are about morals, not power. Yet, the issue of gun violence has been firmly stuck in the political process—with one side claiming second amendment rights, and the other side claiming the need for regulation. All of this bolstered by significant lobbying. Although a recent bipartisan bill has made significant headway, for which we are grateful, generally an either/or approach creates a no-win situation.

In order for churches to shape conversations about gun violence, without being beholden to political parties, let’s reframe the conversation from one of politics into one of ethics. As people who care deeply about moral issues, gun violence must first be dealt with as an ethical question before it can be shepherded effectively through a political process. Churches, take thou authority to restore ethics into conversations about gun violence.

By rethinking gun policies as an ethical issue, and not a political issue, we open the door to a whole new realm of resolution. Expanding this conversation into the sacred space of the church allows not only for new perspectives to emerge, but for new action shaped by love to take place.

 

Join the conversation

Creating solutions to gun violence requires a multi-faceted approach. It requires broad thinking that involves community stakeholders and resources. It also requires an ethical approach over a political approach. The church can have a positive influence in this conversation. Tune in to Leadership Mojo to join the conversation about what your church can do.

Next week in this space, I will address the pervasive culture of hate and violence, which has even impacted the church. Learning how to bring respect back will empower your church in having ethics-based conversations about gun violence.

 

Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

The Deflection of Responsibility

The Deflection of Responsibility

by | Jun 22, 2022

Why haven’t we solved the issue of mass shootings and gun violence? We have been living with escalating gun violence at least since Columbine, if not earlier. Yet, it’s not an intractable problem. Other countries like Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom—once faced with mass shootings—have greatly reduced gun violence.  Why not us? The answer comes down to a deflection of responsibility.

 

The Myth Behind the “They” Mentality

When it comes to gun violence, many individuals see themselves as helpless bystanders who can’t make any meaningful difference on their own. Instead, “they” have to come up with a solution. “They” need to change the policies. Or “they” need to adopt stricter regulations for background checks. Or “they” need to determine how to make sure schools are secure. Or “they” need to deal with mental health issues.

What happens when “they” don’t or won’t act?

 

The Deflection of Responsibility

In my leadership development program, Creating a Culture of Renewal®, we have an answer for that. We teach that renewal begins within. When a leader takes responsibility for beginning the process of change, that change ripples out to positively impact people and situations all around them. We call this tapping into your agency.

This is the same agency that our baptismal vows call us to:  to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. Let’s tell the truth: gun violence is evil. It’s evil to shoot people. It’s evil to turn once safe spaces like schools, churches, homes, and medical clinics into suspect environments. It’s evil to let this violence fester and not take action. Especially when we are called to be a witness for the gospel of good, a witness for peace, and a witness for love.

So what would it look like for you and your church to begin to assume responsibility for gun violence? To understand that the responsibility for peace and safety begins within? What might you do differently?

 

Next Steps

I encourage you to join me in my commitment to take an active stance. I have four recommendations for how you can make a difference.

  • Reach out to your elected officials. I did. I told them my colleagues and I were tired of burying community members due to senseless violence. I got a call back and an offer to meet with my Senator and her staffers. I’m going to gather some colleagues to meet with them. If you’re not sure who to contact, the League of Women Voters website allows you to enter your address and get contact information for all of the elected officials in your local and state government.  You may also visit the United States Senate website, which allows you to choose your state and find contact information for the senators representing your state in Washington, DC.
  • Download and read this Gun Violence Cheat Sheet from Rev. Lindsey Long Joyce. It’s a great resource that considers the different views that congregations can have when it comes to common sense gun safety. Similarly, Discipleship Ministries published an outline on how to have a  Courageous Conversation on Gun Control. It’s a helpful starting point that can be adapted to fit your needs.
  • If you are able, donate your time or money to organizations whose purpose is to help end gun violence, such as March for Our Lives and Everytown for Gun Safety.
  • If you are a member of the NRA, call them and petition for common sense gun policies.

    While you may have given up on national leadership to make a change, remember that we are the ones that have voted these folks in. Eventually, politicians will have to follow us if we lead. If we don’t change, nothing will change.

    However you choose to participate, know that we do have a choice in what happens and that what you say and do matters. Comment below and share with me how you are or can take an active stand against gun violence.

     

    Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

    The Role of the Church in Gun Violence

    The Role of the Church in Gun Violence

    by | Jun 14, 2022

    In 1999, I was co-pastoring a church in Parker, Colorado when the Columbine shooting happened in the community next door. At that time, school shootings were relatively infrequent. It was wholly unbelievable that it had happened in our community. Even more unthinkable was that it would be the beginning of a decades-long battle, where these kinds of events became increasingly frequent.

    The church was flooded with broken-hearted people who wanted to know why such a tragic event had taken place. We led a series of healing services in an attempt to deal with this devastating reality.

    Pictures of the victims were in every newspaper and on every broadcast. I aimed to remember the name and story of each student and teacher who had been killed. I never thought I’d see the day where non-stop shootings made it impossible to remember all who have been lost. And now, here we are.

    After the recent mass shooting at a Tulsa, OK medical clinic I texted my clergy colleague, James, who pastors in that community and asked what I could do to help. James replied with such a clear and powerful response that I promised to take action. I invite you to do so as well. But first, let me give you some background.

     

    The Intensifying Problem of Gun Violence

    In the last 3 months alone, there have been mass shootings at a Taiwanese church (Laguna Woods, California), a grocery store in a primarily black neighborhood (Buffalo, New York), an elementary school (Uvalde, Texas), and a medical center (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Sadly, this list is not comprehensive. These are just the stories that have made the national news.

    Gun violence is at a higher rate than ever, even with stay-at-home orders being imposed for the greater part of 2020. According to the Pew Research Center, “The 2020 total [number of gun murders] represented a 34% increase from the year before, a 49% increase over five years and a 75% increase over 10 years.”

    Yet, our methods of coping have not kept pace with the rise in gun violence. The pandemic badly disrupted our normal means of belonging, further worsening the situation. The government is often at a standstill on this matter. Churches struggling with dwindling attendance often feel overwhelmed with the idea of taking on potentially divisive issues. Thus we are left in a reactive mode when it comes to gun violence.

     

    The Myth Behind Mass Shootings

    With this background in mind, let me next dispel a common myth. That is, that there is only one kind of mass shooting and one kind of answer. But we can already see that schools, stores, medical clinics, and churches represent a range of public spaces. Add to that nightclubs, festivals, synagogues, mosques, homes, and places of work, and the list of where gun violence takes place goes on and on.

    When it comes to fixing the problem—answers range there as well. Should we find help for the single, young, disturbed white male with poor mental health? Should we be concerned about the radical White supremacists that have infiltrated every corner of the internet and are spreading prejudice and intolerance to anyone who will listen? Should we get better gun policies?  Should we promote better school safety? Your answer may depend on your political leanings, or simply on your knowledge of the situation. Yet as much as we know, we seem to have taken action on precious little.

     

    The Church’s Role in Gun Violence

    James reminded me that the church does have a positive role to play in gun violence. One that goes beyond comforting victims and actually gets to root causes. “Prayers are appreciated, but the best thing we can do is to put pressure on politicians to get real about addressing the root problems. Mental health, common sense gun policies, the pervasive culture of hate and violence, and the deflection of responsibility. As a clergy leader, I am preaching, leading, and encouraging members of my community to take action.”

    I love this list because it’s not either/or. It’s not us vs. them. And, it’s not beyond our reach. After all, our baptismal vows call us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, and to be a witness for the gospel of good.

     

    Next Steps

    As part of my commitment to take action, I’ll be addressing each of these components in turn through the lens of the church. As we continue to heal ourselves, our congregations, and our communities, I’d like to offer some suggestions for next steps you can take today or in the coming week:

    • Create space for conversation in your ministry setting. Gun violence impacts everybody, and everybody is concerned, no matter what their answers are for how to deal with it.
    • Plan to preach a series on these topics.
    • Tune into my upcoming Leadership Mojo broadcasts on Facebook Live, where I’ll discuss these topics with some special guests.
    • Join me for the next three blogs in this series for a more in-depth look into the four components that need to be addressed to impact gun violence.

    I want to leave you with the following thought, which was published in a recent editorial featured in Intermountain Jewish News:

    “There is no single answer to mass shootings. But there are answers. There is an all hands on deck approach. There is: both/and. Yes to better gun laws (as we have urged repeatedly). And, yes to additional mental health services (as we have also urged repeatedly). And, yes to federal standards of safety for schools (and, yes to Democrats and Republicans working together on this). And, yes to a painful process of national introspection on the decline in our personal mores and on the social media obsession that leaves so many isolated. And, yes to anti-bullying efforts… We owe it to [our children] ‘to do something.’ But, in our simplistic world ‘to do something’ has come to mean, ‘to find the solution.’ Which has also come to mean: to reject an opponent’s solution. Which means: do nothing.”

    Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

    How Do We Do More with Less? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    How Do We Do More with Less? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    by | Jun 8, 2022

    Over the past month, I’ve written a series of blogs addressing the three post-pandemic questions every church leader wants answered. The first two questions I explored were “When do things go back to normal?” and “How do we get people (back) to church?” This week I am diving into the third persistent question: “How do we do more with less?” By answering this question, you will be encouraged to see things in a new light and take your next steps. Although the pandemic took much from us, it also has given us potent opportunities to forge a new path and embrace the next normal.

     

    The Problem

    The question of how to do more with less worried churches even before the pandemic. Your church may have already been struggling or fighting against declining numbers. As you know, the shutdowns exacerbated this trend. Whether it be less money, less togetherness, or less resources, nearly every church leader I spoke with revealed that they were having to make do with less and the answer was nowhere in sight.

     

    Avoid the Pitfall of Hopelessness

    If you can relate to being stretched thin in ministry, you might be tempted to feel hopeless. However, take heart. While much was lost in the pandemic, much was also gained. Amidst all the losses, congregations were actually gaining in their ability to adapt to unexpected situations, incorporate new technology, and find creative ways of connecting and being together. In some ways, we grasped Christian hope more tightly than before.

    For the last two years, the Creating a Culture of Renewal® community of church leaders has generously shared with me how they were both struggling and thriving in the midst of the pandemic. They struggled because they’d never been through a pandemic, but they also thrived because of the resources and support we offer. Their experiences gave me fresh insight, which I share in my new book, Forging a New Path: Moving the Church Forward in a Post-Pandemic World.

    While researching the book, I found that we are not the first Christians to wrestle with the question of how to do more with less. Those that went through the bubonic plague evolved technologically to cover the gaps left by the plague.

     

    Tech Helps You Do More with Less

    Just as we use Zoom and other online technologies to maximize our effort at connecting, so medieval society developed their own tech advances.

    From the refinement of the printing press, to the mass production of books, to the rapid spread of information, to the active collaboration of a wide range of voices in science and the arts – all of this got its start during the bubonic plague.

    After the bubonic plague was finally over (it last for three centuries), medieval society did not look back and say, “Thank goodness we can be done with books now and advances in the arts and sciences.” Rather, people who had a book in their hand for the first time looked forward to the future. They felt excitement and wonder as affordable books came into being.

    Just as we have integrated technology into the life of the church – for meetings, Bible study, worship, and even communion – now is not the time to abandon those options. Technology has helped us do more with less. Even folks who don’t like to drive at night have an opportunity to be involved. Families with a sick child can attend worship and comfort their child at the same time. Adopting new technology has forever changed our expectations about what’s possible. As this pandemic ends, I doubt we will say, “Thank goodness! Now we don’t have to meet online anymore. We’ll happily drive two hours for a one-hour meeting.”

    Like books expanded the reach of knowledge post-plague, online offerings erase distance, connect communities, and give instant access to new people and places post pandemic. Digital technology is the new reformation. The question is, now that you’re there, how will you stay and continue to adapt?

     

    Online Is Here to Stay

    Once people have online options, they treasure them. Online worship means your people can participate while traveling, indisposed, sick, or pressed for time. Don’t give any of that up, even though face-to-face worship is once again available. In this way, you can continue to maintain and even expand your reach and mission. Online options also help you extend your shelf life. Unlike starting an additional worship service, which depends on a certain number of people in attendance to be considered viable, online worship lives in a different time frame. It can be experienced hours or months later and still be fresh.

    As with any new technology, people and institutions adopt them at different rates. As Rev. Sarah Payne, a Creating a Culture of Renewal® participant, pointed out: “You can’t master technology because it’s always changing.”

    However, staying on the journey of adopting technology is essential. Your congregation is important to your community. Your message is more relevant than ever before. Embracing technology, without breaking the bank or overloading your people, is important. With the whole world moving online, your church needn’t be left behind.

     

    Your Next Steps for Doing More with Less

    Consider these words from Upper Room’s master innovator Terrell L McTyer, “The cousin of relevance is audience.” Keep your audience in mind as you choose which technologies to incorporate.

    1. Select ones that will be relevant and accessible for your particular congregation and community.
    2. When it comes to smaller or older congregations, avoid the mistake of doing too much too fast. Smaller and older churches tend to be late adopters. They won’t be the first on the technology bandwagon, but they needn’t be the last. If you do too much too fast, you’ll hit a wall of resistance. Instead, start with what is most needed and go from there.
    3. To draw young people to your congregation, focus on building your social media. Check out Facebook reels, YouTube, and TikTok videos to see what kind of content and format grabs the attention of young people.
    4. Understand the theology of technology. Technology has expanded our sense of incarnation. In much the same way that God stretched from the invisible to the visible through Christ, we are extending beyond the tangible into the intangible through digital connections.

    If you’re still questioning how your congregation can do more with less, or how to incorporate technology into your setting, join me for my July workshop, How to Do More with Less, so that you can spend time in community finding the answers that work for you.

     

    Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah’s new book, Forging a New Path: Moving the Church Forward in a Post-Pandemic World (2022).

    Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

    How Do We Get People (Back) to Church? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    How Do We Get People (Back) to Church? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    by | Jun 1, 2022

    How do we get people back to church – or even get them there for the first time? This is the second of the top three questions most on people’s minds post-pandemic. Worshiping together is the heart of the church. Empty pews are a tough reality to face now that the world has opened up again.

    “How do you get people back to church?” isn’t a new question, though. It’s one we’ve been asking for years. The truth is that people have been leaving church for a long time.

    This week’s blog is part three of a four-part series that sheds light on the top three questions church leaders are asking in a post-pandemic world.

     

    Why Aren’t People Coming Back to Church?

    As I’ve discovered while researching Forging a New Path, according to many studies, religious affiliation has waned in the decades since the Third Great Awakening of the 1950s. Church attendance has dropped year by year since 1960, with the most dramatic declines in the last ten years. While church attendance regularly fluctuates based on societal changes, studies indicate that beginning in 2000, the decline was twice as great as it was between 1960 and 1970, marking this period as the Great Decline.

     

    Tips for Building True Community that Bring People Back to Church

    Even as people leave church, they are still hungry for community. What if we could create strong, spirited community at church? Here are four strategies for building the kind of spiritual community that makes people want to stay.

    Before you start, though, let me dispel one myth. You may think you have to do things on your own. You don’t. In fact, you can’t.

    Remember that no one person can do this work alone. As the church comes together to create spiritual connections, approach community-building as Creating a Culture of Renewal® participant Rev. Heather Bailes Baker learned to do. At first, Heather went about her work in the church, fearing she was burdening others when asking them to help or lead ministries. This fear left her shouldering too many responsibilities for rebuilding and growing the church. As she learned to delegate responsibilities to others, she saw a new way to approach the work ahead, referring to it as “our” work, not simply her work as the clergy. Building community is always “our” work.

     

    1.     Start Small Groups

    Small groups have always been at the heart of the church. Jesus conducted the first small groups as he called disciples and then sent them out as apostles. His small group lasted a mere three years, but all of his students became teachers of new classes after he died and was resurrected.

    Many churches are creatively reinvigorating their outreach by crafting “fresh expressions” of faith, including initiatives like Pub Theology or Bibles and Beer. Instead of insisting that new people come to the church building to worship with them, church folks meet people at bars, pubs, coffee shops, laundromats, and restaurants to engage in faith discussion with them. Sometimes informal settings outside the church encourage greater self-revelation and create an easier way to get to know each other.

     

    2.     Keep it Short and Sweet

    Spend time together but keep your offerings short and sweet. People’s attention spans have shortened, and their lives have gotten busier. Instead of a year-long Bible study, offer a four-to-six-week study. Instead of a ninety-minute learning session, try forty-five-minutes instead.

    Instead of a three-day retreat, invite others to a three-hour retreat. The point is to build togetherness with the time that people have. Many touches with the same people over time will build a more enduring community than one long experience never to be replicated.

     

    3.     Mix Social and Spiritual

    Intentionally combine the social and the spiritual to create stronger community. Often small groups are organized around spiritual material, and the social part gets added in. But I want to encourage you to think about having groups based on social activities that add in the spiritual. For instance, gather a group that enjoys going to the movies, with a meal before or after the film.

    Discuss religious or spiritual themes in the movie, letting the movie prompt discussion about your own lives. End your time together by praying for one another.

     

    4.     Start with an Existing Community

    Another Creating a Culture of Renewal® member, Pastor RJ Davis, noted that the congregation he serves was founded out of a housing development. These neighbors already had strong relationships and realized they wanted to be able to worship together, so they contacted denominational authorities and asked for a church to be planted there. True to their community nature, this congregation is all about doing life together. “People go to dinner together, take vacations together, and celebrate their kids’ birthdays together,” RJ notes. Others want to be part of this level of community, and it’s brought new people to the church. Their vision is to “Bring intentional community back to the neighborhood.” What already existing community can you build upon to create spiritual community?

     

    How the Power of Being Social Gets People Back to Church

    I admit, “being social” sometimes gets a bad name in the church. Inward-focused church communities may be dismissed as little more than social clubs. Churches that focus less on being of service in the community than on hosting potlucks, socials, and meals for each other, can be seen as selfish or not really a church. In fact, I used to share that critical view: these weren’t churches as much as they were social clubs.

    But the pandemic has changed my mind. I now believe that the church, in addition to being spiritually focused and service-oriented, needs to be a lot more socially minded. Here’s my thinking. Social connections create a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging leads to emotional and relational stability and provides an ingredient essential to the formation of spiritual community: trust. Trust is built by the hard work of honesty, vulnerability, celebration, and accountability. In addition to trust, belonging and stability are the blessed results of living in true community.

    Ironically, I think there’s a connection between the disconnect people feel in society and their  disconnect from each other. Even before the pandemic, America was experiencing a crisis of connection, of belonging. Interestingly enough, according to a study of American life, this crisis of belonging isn’t limited to a specific demographic or generation. The study shows that people of all demographics – including both Democrats and Republicans as well as the young and the elderly – experience a lack of connection with others. The shutdowns fueled the rise of mental health issues by forcing us apart even more than we already were. Longing to belong is as basic to human makeup as spirituality. In fact, satisfying the longing to belong is fundamental to creating a spiritual community.

    Now that you have these four strategies, it’s time to put them into practice! This can be trial and error, so don’t give up too soon. I’m always interested in helping people forge a new path, so let me know what you discover.

     

    Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah’s new book, Forging a New Path: Moving the Church Forward in a Post-Pandemic World (2022).

    Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

    When Do Things Go Back to Normal? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    When Do Things Go Back to Normal? A Post-Pandemic Answer

    by | May 18, 2022

    Given the events of 2020, 2021, and 2022 that have dramatically impacted and changed the landscape in which churches operate, it’s important to address three persistent questions I hear church leaders asking. In last week’s blog, I shared each of the three questions, as well as an important shift in perspective that the church can make to allow us to better take advantage of the time before us. The first question on most people’s minds has been, “When do things go back to normal?” This week, I’ll share what we can learn from pandemics past, as well as the answer, from a 2022 perspective.

    In the church, normal means greeting each other with hugs and handshakes and singing together in worship. Normal means taking Holy Communion in the company of others. It means returning to live, in-person worship with the same people we were used to seeing before, while also welcoming new folks. Normal means getting back to the ministries we used to offer and traveling freely without fear. Normal means recovering from the shutdowns, coming back together, and getting past the pandemic. So, when do things go back to normal?

    Many churches have journeyed back to the familiar. Others are quickly making up for lost time. I’m all for in-person worship and relaxing in the company of others. After all, we are social creatures. Being together like “before” nourishes the heart and is good for the soul.

    There’s just one problem with going back to the familiar, but most people don’t want to hear this. “Normal” doesn’t exist anymore. There’s no going back to 2019. And, even if churches could go back to normal, the rest of the world wouldn’t be joining us. That’s because lives have changed. People have picked up new habits and established new patterns. Life, in general, is not magically going back to a time before COVID-19.

     

    The Forgotten Problem with Normal

    So, the old normal of 2019 no longer exists. Life has evolved along with the virus, showing up in all kinds of new variants. Today we find ourselves in brand new terrain. While you could try to go back to the same worship service, meetings, discussions, and debates, if you did, you would also return to the forgotten problem with “normal,” which is that the normal way of doing church had actually become a model for decline.

    Long before the pandemic erupted, churches were already worried about their health and vitality. Younger generations and their parents weren’t as interested in church as previous generations. Boomers fretted about how to attract more children and their parents while resisting changing the worship service to meet those needs. The Pioneer generation worried if their congregation could stay vibrant long enough to ensure that at least someone would be there to conduct their funeral, even if the congregation didn’t outlast them by long.

    That’s what “normal” looked like before the pandemic hit. The normal way of doing church wasn’t just a series of unfortunate dynamics. Instead, it was a pattern of expectations woven into the very culture of church life.

    Simply resuming the “normal” way of doing things in church – Sunday worship + Sunday school classes + small groups + administrative meetings – won’t make the needed difference now. While we can all be forgiven the intense desire for normalcy, “normal” wasn’t a sustainable model for building a robust life of faith or for growing a vital congregation before the pandemic.

    And it still isn’t.

     

    Medieval Churches Faced a Crisis Before the Plague, too

    Before waves of the bubonic plague rolled across Europe, the church had already shifted some of its focus from the care of souls to gaining political power and amassing wealth. Religious and political leaders formed alliances similar to marriages of convenience to achieve their individual goals. This focus on political power weakened the spiritual power of the church by diverting its attention from the care of bodies and souls to worldly matters. This revealed the need for greater spirituality in the church and gave rise to a medieval version of the spiritual but not religious movement.

    As the plague decimated the ranks of the clergy, the church trained new priests, but many of them were young, poorly educated, and ill-equipped to serve people well. People were left to find their own way to safeguard their souls from the plague they believed was a sign of the wrath of God. While still identifying as Catholic, because no other form of Western European Christian faith expression existed until the Protestant Reformation of 1517, people went around the church authorities and structures to create new ways of connecting to God. The development of the Reformation itself was an example of this yearning for more direct spiritual connection.

    I used to think that the rise of the spiritual but not religious movement – people who were once associated with the church but left to pursue their relationship with God on their own terms – was a twentieth- and twenty-first-century phenomenon. But it’s clear to me now, looking back at how people responded to the plague, that this movement began much earlier than I ever suspected.

     

    Embrace Spirituality and the Next Normal

    In the quest to return to normal, many church leaders and members are operating from the assumption that the church as-is can grow past the impacts of the pandemic. These churches believe once the pandemic is over, we’ll go back to something recognizable. They believe, in the meantime, we need to get our programs back up and running, offer a full calendar, go invite people, and wait for them to show up.

    While there is some validity to this approach, it misses the innovative opportunities before us. This is the perfect time to learn from medieval Christians and pandemics past to align ourselves with God’s unfolding future. It’s time to envision a new path forward beyond putting the coffee pot back on for the fellowship hour and passing the offering plate. The church today has a similar, contemporary version of the spiritual but not religious movement.

    Even as religious affiliation has dropped over the years, spiritual affiliation has dramatically increased. The God of the Bible is a God of direct encounters. But, over the centuries, people of faith have taken this record of spiritual experiences and mined them for morals, lessons, and do’s and dont’s. We have recast these spiritual experiences as religious experiences by focusing on the beliefs and behaviors derived from them rather than the transcendent states being described in them. As a result, sometimes even church people think that a direct experience of God is out of reach.

    Rather than fearing or dismissing the message that the spiritual but not religious communicate by leaving the church, let’s learn from them instead. They’re signaling the need for a shift in church culture we can all benefit from.

    As we pay attention, I think we’ll find that the news is generally hopeful. People want to experience God and the transcendent. People want more of church, not less. As you move the church forward in this post-pandemic world, this is the perfect time to lead people to refocus on the spiritual aspects of the Bible, and to encourage divine encounters in their life. Not just to learn about Jesus, but to be in the presence of Jesus.

    If you’d like to build deep relationships with fellow church leaders in spiritual community, consider joining a Creating a Culture of Renewal® cohort! Our three-year leadership development program will empower you to bring renewal to your congregation and community.

    Excerpted and adapted from Rebekah’s new book, Forging a New Path: Moving the Church Forward in a Post-Pandemic World (Market Square Publishers, May 2022).

    Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.