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The Distillery podcast explores what motivates the work of Christian scholars and why it matters for theology and ministry.
Shari (00:00):
Countless churches in the United States know they need to change, but change can be hard and disruptive. In today's episode, Douglas Powe and Lovett Weems explore how congregations can approach change and how they can experiment as they faithfully respond to God's call. Lovett Weems, Jr. is a pastor, educator, author, and church leader. He was also the founding director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, where he continues to serve as a senior consultant. Douglas Powe is the director of the Lewis Center and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He also serves as Professor of Evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary. Their co-authored book is titled Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation. You're listening to The Distillery at Princeton Theological Seminary. Today we are talking about something that is pressing for a lot of churches and a lot of Christian leaders right now, and that is the topic of congregational innovation. And so I'd love to get started by hearing from you: why is this topic so pressing right now?
Doug (01:13):
This topic is important for a couple of reasons. If you look over the history of the church, the church tends to always be sort of behind the eight ball in terms of innovation and falling behind the culture. And there's a good reason for that. The church has many wonderful traditions, and we love our traditions and things we do, but there are times that those traditions prevent us from taking the next faithful step of connecting with individuals that are not a part of the church. So innovation is important because we have to always be thinking about, how do we connect with those individuals who may not be a part of our congregation or a part of our faith community at this time. And if we think about in the history of the church, at one point in time, Sunday School was an innovation that took place where there was not Sunday School and then somebody realized it would be good to engage people and have a time of study that was separate from the worship experience, and that became an innovation that took off tremendously. But if you look today, Sunday Schools are declining, and we need to look at other innovations for how people would engage in those small group activities. So the need for innovation is the church always has to be thinking about, how does it take the next faithful step?
Shari (02:54):
It almost sounds like there's a tone of evangelism in that too.
Doug (02:58):
Absolutely. I think that evangelism, or the other word I would use is mission, that we always have to be keeping in mind that the church is unique and that while it exists to certainly take care of those who are currently there, it also must always have a heart for those who are not there. So the church has this mission of where biblically we are called to be looking for and seeking those who are not with us, sort of the story of the one lost sheep where the 99 are there, but Jesus says we must go out and find the one. So the church has to have a heart for those who are not a part of it.
Shari (03:45):
Yeah. Thank you, Doug. So the book is titled Sustaining While Disrupting. So what is sustaining leadership? What does that look like?
Lovett (03:56):
Well, we use the concepts of sustaining and disrupting in the title, though they could easily be deceptive, because sometimes we think of sustaining as just keeping things going. That's not what we're talking about. With sustaining, it's a technical term that refers primarily to what goes on in established institutions with established constituencies. So in the church it would be a church that's been around for a while. Disrupting doesn't mean chaos, but again, it's a technical term that refers generally to upstart organizations that are tending to serve those that have been previously not served or underserved. So with sustaining innovation, that's when this established organization with an established constituency improves on what it does well. So it may be that this established church across from the courthouse will have just hired the most qualified music minister they've ever had, who also will be the highest paid music minister in the community. That's a characteristic of a sustaining institution, whereas an upstart church trying to get started might be more likely to start a biker ministry. So it doesn't mean that the established church couldn't start a biker ministry, but it's not likely to because it doesn't fit with who they are. And so what established churches do well is to take what they are currently doing and doing relatively well and to improve it. What the new organizations are far better at is reaching those that are currently not served or underserved.
Shari (06:54):
You use the Book of Acts as kind of a way into this to give us a framework to think about that. So can you, Doug, talk about some of the disagreements in the early church and how they relate to what congregations are experiencing right now?
Doug (07:11):
The Book of Acts is really interesting and fascinating because you really see in the early church this theme of sustaining and disrupting. And if you think about the Book of Acts, one of the major discussions that takes place is around circumcision.
Shari (07:31):
Which we don't talk about very often on this podcast. So I'm glad we have the opportunity to talk about circumcision today.
Doug (07:36):
I'm sure it's, it's not a topic normally discussed. So if we think about that issue though, what is fascinating about it is that those who are in favor of circumcision really fundamentally believe it’s critical because they're trying to faithfully pursue God's calling. And then Paul and Barnabas, who are trying to sort of open up a space for the Gentiles, also are faithfully trying to pursue God's calling. So the issue of circumcision is on both sides, one of trying to faithfully pursue God's calling, but the question becomes, how do we do this in a way that stays sort of faithful to what they see as core to Jesus's message? So we use the Book of Acts because you can see in both sides where in trying to live out God's calling the one side, the Pharisees, and we often pick on the Pharisees, we make them...
Shari (08:46):
Oh yeah, they're fun to pick on.
Doug (08:48):
Yeah, we make them the easy fall person. But the reality is the Pharisees are us. They are trying to uphold the traditions and say, we've been handed these traditions to faithfully live out, so we need to live them out. So that's why circumcision is important. And it's not that they're trying to be mean, but they're saying, this is a part of who we are. On the other side, you have Paul and Barnabas saying, “We have all these individuals,” as Lovett would say, “out in the community, who are Gentiles, who want to be a part of the faith, but circumcision for them just doesn't make sense. But they want to faithfully also live out what we're doing.” So what you have is disruption, and this is what Lovett was referring to. So in the Book of Acts, Peter experiences disruption with Cornelius and that both of them get visions from God.
Doug (09:48):
And this vision goes against everything Peter has known, because it sort of goes against the tradition he's been brought up with. And if this disruption, this vision hadn't come, he probably would not have ever considered a Gentile could actually faithfully live out God's calling. But because of this vision and then of course going to see Cornelius, he sees things in a different manner. So the Book of Acts allows us to illustrate this biblically that disruption is important for helping us to see things differently where you can faithfully continue to sustain the tradition. So they don't say circumcision has to go away, but it also allowed space for something new to happen with Paul and Barnabas, where Gentiles could come in and be a part of the faith and not be circumcised but were still considered to be fully pursuing God's calling. So that's the innovation that takes place. So the Book of Acts is wonderful in illustrating sort of this idea of sustaining innovation and disrupting innovation at the same time.
Shari (11:02):
Yeah. Thank you for spelling that out. It's interesting how many of us long for a vision that would clarify what the faithful next step is, but it's harder to sit in the reality of how disruptive that vision would've been, because it challenged the way that they thought things should be.
Doug (11:20):
Absolutely. And even after experiencing it, and they have the council meeting, if you notice as you follow the scripture that things don't start swinging Paul and Barnabus’s way until Peter actually speaks up and says, “I had this vision and had this experience with Cornelius,” that people buy in. So it took an insider of the faith to actually allow the innovation to take place, or it probably would've been ignored. So it is a challenge and we have to have those insiders who are willing to think outside of the box.
Shari (12:05):
Can one of you say a little bit more about that, the insider/outsider perspective and how those, they're not necessarily opposed to each other, but they are unique and different from each other. So talk a little bit more about that please.
Lovett (12:19):
Well, I would say that the church tends to operate more from an inside to outside way of thinking. We come up with a program. We encourage people to attend. We present announcements. We present many things as if the person in the pew is being asked to do something for the church, or even if preaching, we decide what is it I want to say, as opposed to operating from an outside to inside perspective instead of operating from an inside to outside perspective. So this is one of the skills we mentioned in the book that's needed for any kind of innovation: that you start not with what we want to offer or what we plan to do or what we want to say, but you first begin with the question: Who are the people we hope to reach through this? Who are the people that will be present for this sermon?
Lovett (13:46):
Who are the people that we believe God has given us? Who do we hope will participate? And so if it's a Lenten study, you would say, well, the most regular people, but also people who've joined in the last year or people that are more on the periphery, and well then what are they thinking about? What are their questions? That's outside to inside. And then we still decide what to offer. But we decided based not just on what we've been reading lately or what we're most interested in, but in terms of what people, what's on the minds of people so that we can with all character say, as we begin to announce things, “Some of you have asked, some of you have mentioned,” and it will appear as something that is being offered as a possibility for people rather than an obligation.
Shari (14:57):
I love what you just did, Lovett. You just used one of your own suggestions in your sentence, you said, “so that,” and then you talked about what people might do, and that's a suggestion you offer in the book, is thinking about what churches are doing, which of course is the result of some critical decision making, but encouraging people to incorporate the phrase, “so that,” to kind of keep them accountable maybe to their mission. But I noticed you just did that yourself.
Lovett (15:25):
Well, “so that” is critical, because the church also tends to focus more on intentions and activities rather than results. So we say, “We will start a youth ministry,” or, “We will begin a new worship service.” And without saying, “We will begin a youth ministry so that,” or, “We will begin a new worship service so that,” and the “so that” should be followed by the change you seek six months from now, a year from now, five years from now. What do you hope is going to be different because of this youth ministry? What will be different in the lives of youth and the lives of their parents and the lives of the congregation? Who is it you're seeking to reach with that new worship service? Because only then can you know if you are achieving the goal. And it's not just something to evaluate at the end. You have to know what harvest you're seeking before you know when to plant or what to plant, to use the fruitfulness concept from the Bible. So it determines everything. So instead of preferences, we base it on which steps will make it more likely that we reach the desired harvest or our “so that” goal.
Shari (17:19):
Yeah, that's beautiful. With the example of a youth ministry, it seems almost as though there's a, well, a church should have a youth ministry, so we will start a youth ministry to have a youth ministry, which of course is not the most compelling framework for someone who would participate in such a program.
Lovett (17:43):
Absolutely.
Doug (17:44):
Yes.
Shari (17:47):
Much of your book revolves around a concept that leverages the phrase, “adaptive challenges.” What does that mean? Where does that concept come from?
Lovett (17:57):
Well, Ron Heifetz talks about technical challenges and adaptive challenges. And technical challenges are those things where the problem is clear, the solution is clear, and you have what's needed to address it, that is, resources and authority. Whereas adaptive challenges are those things where either the problem is not clear or the solution is not clear or you don't know how to get from the problem to the solution. And Heifetz says that the biggest mistake that leaders can make is confusing an adaptive challenge and a technical challenge, that is, treating an adaptive challenge as if it is a technical challenge. And that's why often when things are done in the church and there's a disproportionate negative response for something that on the surface seems quite ordinary because leaders have not read the situation correctly.
Shari (19:21):
Is there an example of when some of it, what it would look like to offer a technical solution to an adaptive challenge?
Lovett (19:29):
Yes. It could be that the boiler goes out in a church, and so the trustees have the money in the bank, and they have authority to take care of property, and they immediately spend a lot of money replacing the boiler. Normally, 99 times out of a hundred, that would be a technical challenge and a technical solution. However, in this particular case, this church has for five years been in intense conversations with two other churches about the possibility of merging. And if they merge, which it looks like that's the way it's moving, they would not be using their building, because another of the buildings is in far better condition. The trustees have been opposed to the merger all along. So now they have spent much of the remaining money that this church has on a boiler in a building that may not be in use a year later. So that would be an example of something that appears to be technical but is actually adaptive.
Shari (21:12):
Yeah. And so what would happen in the wake of that I imagine is a lot of conflict.
Lovett (21:19):
Absolutely.
Shari (21:19):
Because of this underlying situation.
Lovett (21:21):
Absolutely. And I've seen this happen with new chairs, for new seating arrangements for the choir, or all kinds of simple things because it taps into some tension that's already going on, perhaps between the contemporary service and the traditional service or longstanding members and new members. And this should be seen if leaders are paying attention to what's going on around them.
Shari (22:06):
Doug, did you want to jump in with a story? I thought I heard you.
Doug (22:11):
I was just going to say no, it's absolutely correct, what Lovett just said and you were indicating is true, that this often leads to conflict, but the conflict is typically not about that issue. It’s a deeper issue as Lovett was uncovering in the story that he shared.
Shari (22:36):
Yeah. You noted at one point in the book that a new leader who might be more prone to this, although I'm sure all leaders can make a mistake that would involve a technical solution for an adaptive challenge, but you find out 25% of the problems in the, before you take your position, 25 in the first year and the other 50% you have to find out along the way. This feels like the kinds of stories that people find out along the way.
Lovett (23:03):
Yes.
Doug (23:03):
Absolutely.
Lovett (23:04):
And the way this relates to sustaining and disrupting is there, the problem is you use the methods you use to address a sustaining issue with something that's really a disruptive issue. That is, we take something that we use for something we know how to do. For instance, we have a wonderful food pantry. It's perhaps the best in the community, but we want to improve it. The people who work on it get together, they come up with suggestions, they make assignments, they implement those suggestions in the new year, and they have an even better food pantry. But then, they will use that same method to start the new youth group. They have not had a youth group in 30 years, but yet they will still bring a group together and share their ideas. Perhaps we could do this. What if we do this? Maybe we should do this.
Lovett (24:20):
They make a list, they make assignments, they do it, and then just hope to high heaven something good is going to happen, and it normally doesn't because we are using the method for what we know how to do with something that we don't know how to do and have no experience. So the way it connects again to adaptive challenges, Heifetz says that the first task in dealing with an adaptive challenge is not to say, “What do we do?” but “What do we need to learn?” And so we don't know enough to know what to do about these things that we've never done or we have no good track record on. We have to turn to learning.
Shari (25:17):
Oh, that is a good word, Lovett. To be able to pause long enough to say it's not about what to do, but what to learn. That is very challenging to live out.
Doug (25:29):
Absolutely.
Lovett (25:29):
Yes.
Shari (25:33):
So there's one tension that's kind of this rush to action, but also there's almost a counter response, which is around things that we already do. And I'll say we to kind of implicate myself in this as someone who has been a church member my whole life, and anyone like me has heard this phrase, “We've always done it this way.” So what would you say to folks in congregations for whom, whether or not they say it out loud, that that's a real dynamic?
Doug (26:10):
Well, it absolutely is a real dynamic. And as you say, we all have heard this phrase over and over again, and it's a phrase that often prevents congregations from taking the next faithful step or trying something new. And one of the ways to address this, and we talk about this in the book, is what we call experiments. And I'll give an example of one from a congregation that I know dearly in the Kansas City, Missouri, area. The congregation wanted to start a new worship experience but knew that people would push back because they'd only had sort of the traditional experience. “We've always done it this way” mentality. So in trying to sort of help people to think about things differently, if you live in Kansas City for any period of time, you'll quickly realize that the Kansas City Chiefs are the real sort of religion on Sundays for most people.
Shari (27:26):
Sure. Sure.
Doug (27:29):
So what happened is the congregation went and said to the leaders, “We want to do an experiment. There are many of you who are Chiefs fans and tailgate or go to the games on Sunday, and we want to create an opportunity for an earlier worship experience, so you could still come to church and then have the time to go and enjoy the Chiefs.” So the leaders thought it was a wonderful idea, and it was presented as an experiment that would have an end time when the season was over. So they didn't put any sort of pushback against it. So of course, it worked wonderfully well. And as promised, when the time came for it to be over, went back and they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, this is great. We got to keep it going. But it was made possible, one, because it was presented as an experiment, and not that we're just going to change and do this, but secondly was also something that benefited those who were already there. So you got buy-in into what was happening. So a part of it is, is that when we're thinking about trying to do something that is going to be disruptive, we can't just sort of force it onto people, but we have to strategically think about, how do we help them to test the waters and buy into it, and thinking about it as an experiment is one way of making that possible.
Shari (29:11):
Yeah, that's a really encouraging way to frame a strategy and give the church permission to fail. Can you say a little bit about risk, like taking a risk to try something new?
Doug (29:26):
Sure. I mean, even in that you're taking a risk that it won't work. And the wonderful thing about, again, thinking of it as an experiment, and this connects to what Lovett was saying, is you're still learning something so that if the experiment doesn't work, we don't think about it as a failure. What we ask is, “What have we learned from what we tried so that it means then that we're able to try a different experiment based off of what we've learned?” Part of the challenge, and you just sort of framed it that way, is that we think of things succeeding or failing often in the church. And if it fails, then we never want to try it again. But if we think of things as an experiment where we learn something and we build off of what we learn, then it means that we can adapt the next time that we move forward and try something different.
Doug (30:27):
And not think of it as that we failed, but we now know that it may be that if we were in a city that didn't enjoy football, that that experiment would not have worked. We would have to think about it differently. So it's not that having a second service was a bad idea. The way we framed it may have been bad and may need to be adapted. So there's always a risk, but the challenge that people are afraid of is that it's going to fail. So that if we can reframe it and say, let's not think about it as failure, but learning, it helps people to be more willing to move forward with the risk.
Shari (31:07):
Yeah, that's really, really interesting. And it sounds to me like it also helps people stay focused on the missional idea behind that change rather than the way that it's implemented in a program or a worship service, which can be where a lot of the energy is and the time. But if you can learn from something that doesn't go well, it can bring you back to the mission of why you tried to do that thing in the first place and then what you might do differently. So learning is such a helpful thing to keep in mind when something quote-unquote “fails” or doesn't go well.
Doug (31:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
Shari (31:43):
I have one last question. You both work with Christian leaders and with congregations, and so often there's this dominant narrative about decline or cultural divides or denominational splits. And I'm curious if each of you could share what's giving you hope right now in spite of all those narratives and realities.
Doug (32:12):
I'll be happy to begin. I remain extremely hopeful, because even as you hear the stories of decline, and I'm United Methodist, my church would be one where we're going through some challenges at this point in time.
Shari (32:30):
Yeah.
Doug (32:30): But as you visit congregations and you see just the excitement and joy for people who get to live out the gospel in various ways, and this is of all ages, and being able to connect with their community in different ways they had not imagined before or getting the opportunity to make the difference by adopting a school and working with the teachers and the children that had not taken place before. So for me, the excitement and the hope is that we're rediscovering what it means to be community congregations that are really trying to impact the lives of those around us and the joy that that can bring for the work we're doing and not focus so much on sort of, we have to become a megachurch. And there's nothing wrong with being a megachurch. We don't have to try to change the whole world. If we can impact the life of those who are closest to us, then we know that we're still participating in the work that God has called us to do. And for me, as we see that playing out and we hear those stories, that gives me hope that regardless of what happens, big picture, umbrella denomination, the impact that congregation and faith communities will have will continue to be significant.
Shari (34:12):
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Doug. How about you, Lovett? What's giving you hope right now?
Lovett (34:16):
Well, it's similar to what Doug is saying. I think the key to revitalization is for churches to fall in love with their communities again. Many of the churches that are declining are churches that were established many, many years ago, and many of those are located in places where the population shifting of the country has moved people away from them. But they're still communities and there's still people there. The sociologist Nancy Ammerman says that although it's counterintuitive, the longer a church has been in existence, the less connected and the less knowledgeable it tends to be of its community. Now, you would think it'd be just the opposite, but if you have a community and one church has been there 150 years and the other just started worship services six months ago, and you ask, which of these two churches has its finger on the pulse of the community the most, everyone will always answer, the church that just started six months ago. It makes no sense. The church that's been there 150 years, there shouldn't be anything they don't know, but it has become, it has often turned in on itself. It doesn't have to stay connected to the community the way it did in its early days, knowing that it would've died if it had not. So again, falling in love with the community again, engaging local schools, often can help build that bridge. And churches have been sustained by having an older, more well-to-do population, that can't continue: fall in love with your communities again.
Shari (36:20):
Yeah, that's a beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much, Lovett and Doug, it's a gift to have this conversation today.
Doug (36:26):
Thank you.
Shari (36:29):
You've been listening to The Distillery at Princeton Theological Seminary. I'm your host, Shari Oosting. Our editorial and production team includes LaDonna Damon, Armond Banks, Madeline Polhill, and Garrett Mostowski. Like what you're hearing? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Even better, share an episode with a friend. The Distillery is a production of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Thanks for listening.