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“Dark Woke”

Perhaps you’ve heard the term before.

And for those unfamiliar, the term comes from a social media phenomenon and political messaging strategy that emerged following the president’s second inauguration in 2025.

The New York Times described it as an attempt to step outside the bounds of political correctness.

Examples offered feature dark humor, sarcasm, and a willingness to mock or demean opponents in ways that would have been unacceptable to previous generations.

Basically, it’s an abrupt U-turn from the old “when they go low, we go high” approach.

Instead, the mood is often closer to:

When they go low, we go lower.

Now, before we dismiss such thinking too quickly, we should acknowledge why it resonates with so many people.

Younger generations have come of age amid economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, political polarization, and a growing sense that the institutions around them are irreparably broken.

In many ways, we can understand why we got here.

Why people feel this way.

But perhaps what’s most troubling about such an approach is that it’s far deeper than anger and outrage.

As one source noted, younger generations have already tried anger and outrage.

But when they repeatedly saw little, if any, change while watching unjust systems burrow themselves deeper into power and oppression, the mood shifted toward something darker:

Despair.

Nihilism.

A “why even try?” mentality.

A very much “burn it all down” attitude.

Whereas previous generations often worked within institutions to bring about reform, many younger people have become convinced that these institutions—such as the church—are themselves the problem.

Why reform them?

Why not just tear it all down and start over?

But perhaps the most significant shift is this:

Suffering itself has increasingly come to be seen as irredeemable.

Whereas past generations might have seen oppression, persecution, or sacrifice as the cost of pursuing justice—or even something that could move the needle toward change—increasingly suffering is viewed as having no tangible benefit.

Nothing good can come from it.

Nothing can be learned from it.

Nothing can emerge except more pain.

And if suffering has no meaning, then hope itself becomes quite foolish.

Why suffer?

Why sacrifice?

Why risk more disappointment?

Why not simply protect yourself?

After all, if the world is burning and you’ve tried putting out the fire only to get burned yourself, why keep risking your own health and well-being while others are simply fanning the flames?

You might as well grab some chocolate and marshmallows and make some s’mores while everything burns.

Nothing wrong with s’mores, by the way.

It’s obviously a dark and dystopian vision.

But not entirely illogical.

The problem, however, is that it simply produces more of what we might expect:

More disillusionment.

More despondency.

More despair.

And neither human history nor experience suggests that despair has ever built a better future.

So what can we offer instead?

I would posit this morning that we can offer hope.

Christian hope.

Paul’s Radical Alternative

In his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul offers a radically different approach.

Hope.

In chapter five, Paul is telling his readers that because of Jesus, they have access to God’s grace and therefore have peace with God.

But Paul makes a bit of an aside, a bit of a parenthetical reference, as one commentator said.

And from this, two things stand out to me almost immediately.

The first is somewhat shocking:

Paul says that he and his colleagues take pride in their problems.

Other Bible translations say that they boast or even rejoice in their suffering.

The second is that Paul believes all the problems, all the suffering, actually produce hope.

From another Bible translation we read:

“We also boast in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us.”

Paul is saying, as silly as this sounds:

Hope does not make us foolish.

Now this sounds quite silly when we think about all the bad things in our world.

So bad that many have presumed that hope is not simply impractical.

It’s foolish.

It’s flat-out wrong.

Paul Knew Something About Suffering

But lest we think Paul to be some privileged person immune to pain and suffering, he writes elsewhere in the Bible that he’s encountered quite a bit of suffering himself:

“I’ve been imprisoned and beaten more times than I can count. I faced death many times. I’ve been brutally whipped five times. I was beaten with rods three times. I was stoned once. I was shipwrecked three times. I spent a day and a night in the open sea.

I faced dangers from rivers, robbers, people of all kinds, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers on the sea.

I faced these dangers with hard work and heavy labor, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food and in the cold, without enough clothes.”

This is quite clearly a guy who has encountered his fair share of challenge and suffering—or as we might say today, systemic abuse and oppression.

And yet he acknowledges how silly, how foolish he sounds in boasting of all this.

What If Paul Was Right?

But the question, I think, for us to consider this morning:

What if Paul was onto something?

What if he was right?

What if he knew deep down that God could bring life and renewal from even the most painful experiences?

And of course then we might wonder:

How?

How did he know it?

Paul says he knew it because God’s love had been poured into his heart because of the Holy Spirit.

As Christians celebrated a few weeks back at Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, Paul also took comfort in the lasting and abiding presence of the Spirit and God’s love made known through the Spirit.

But as one commentator notes, rather than being destroyed by challenges and experiences, for Paul these instead strengthened his hope.

And he realized that this hope in God does not disappoint.

Rather, he already had a measure of it in the Holy Spirit.

For Paul, he saw the Holy Spirit as a reminder that the same God who gave Jesus life from the dead will give us life too.

And for him, that gave Paul a measure of trust that God is at work amidst all of this.

That God can bring life and renewal from even the most broken, unjust, and painful parts of our lives.

God can bring renewal and life.

I mean, it’s no wonder, right?

It’s no wonder that Paul recognizes the foolishness in all of this.

As another commentator notes:

It is at the place of social failure and ostracism that God is present and active, transforming victims.

The Mystery and Gift of the Cross

See, if I can be so bold this morning, the problem in our culture and in our world today is that we tend to think that pain, suffering, and brokenness are irredeemable.

The mystery and gift of the cross, I believe, is that in the resurrection of Jesus, God said to all that is oppressive, unjust, and evil:

Give me your best shot.

Not only can I take it, but I can actually transform it and bring new and renewed life.

I mean, that’s good news.

Now, to be clear:

Paul is not saying that suffering itself is good.

He’s not saying injustice is good.

He is not saying that we should seek suffering or ignore injustice or allow others to suffer.

Rather, Paul is making a more surprising claim:

Even in the midst of suffering, God can bring about endurance, character, and hope.

Because of this then, let’s live with hope.

Not in our neighbors, ourselves, or our ability to change things.

Rather, let’s hope in God.

Because Paul says God’s hope will not disappoint us.

It will not prove us a fool.

Optimism Is Not Hope

Now again, I want to differentiate between optimism and hope because they’re not the same thing.

I recently spoke to one pastor who described herself as a:

Pessimistic hopeful.

She understood that God’s hope is not about some kind of blind optimism or Pollyanna attitude.

I’m reminded of this poem from Henry Nouwen:

Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes.

Optimism is the expectation that things will get better.

Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God’s promises in ways that lead to true freedom.

The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future.

The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in God’s hands.

All great leaders, all great spiritual leaders, were people of hope.

Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Gandhi, Dorothy Day.

They all lived with a promise in their heart that guided them toward the future without the need to know exactly what it would look like.

Optimism expects circumstances to improve.

Hope trusts God will fulfill God’s promises.

Hope Does Not Disappoint

You know what a powerful thing happens when we begin to live into God’s hope?

God’s love becomes our central and determining motive.

No longer are we dependent on our own ingenuity or efforts.

We’re simply content to share the love and grace of God, as foolish as it may be.

Because we root ourselves, we ground ourselves in God’s love and God’s promise that:

Hope does not disappoint.

There are many in life today who would presume that living with hope is foolish, naive, or even privileged.

Friends, if I may be so bold, I do not believe that is a recipe for hope and well-being.

But hope—that groundedness—that’s what guided so many of the faithful and prophetic leaders of our time.

The Witness of Hope

I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.

The famous civil rights leader had every reason to be cynical.

Churches were segregated.

Laws were unjust.

Racial violence was commonplace.

Yet he continued to hope that the moral arc of the universe was long and bent toward justice.

God’s hope did not disappoint Martin Luther King Jr.

Nelson Mandela, the post-apartheid president of South Africa, had every reason to be cynical.

Twenty-seven years in prison might do that to a person.

Yet he emerged believing that reconciliation was possible.

God’s hope did not disappoint Nelson Mandela.

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal clergy person who was the first gay man to be consecrated as a bishop within the Christian church, had every reason to be cynical.

He endured criticism, rejection, and controversy from fellow Christians, even within his own church.

Yet he stayed believing that the church could be more faithful than it was.

God’s hope did not disappoint Gene Robinson.

The Promise

Now again, let me be clear on this.

The inauguration or fulfillment of our hope may not come on our own timeline and as quickly or immediately as we want it to.

Martin Luther King Jr., even after many victories, still faced an assassin’s bullet that ended his life.

Robinson, even after his historic election, still faced much criticism and prejudice.

And lest we forget, Nelson Mandela sat in prison for twenty-seven years.

We cannot presume that living with hope means everything will be fixed right now or even in the foreseeable future.

Rather, living with hope means trusting that God, even in the midst of pain and suffering, is making things right.

And more, that when we ourselves go through pain and suffering, that suffering will produce endurance, which then produces character, which ultimately produces hope.

God’s hope within us.

I think it’s a bit like Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he referenced the promissory note of the Declaration of Independence.

He said:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—that all men are created equal.”

King trusted in the promise.

The promise that guaranteed unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

He trusted that promise would ultimately be fulfilled despite generations of injustice and broken promises.

Truth be told, in some ways Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is still yet unfulfilled.

There is more hoping and dreaming to be done.

But King himself warned against satisfying our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Our Hope Is Jesus

Our hope as followers of Jesus, as Christians, is in Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified and is now resurrected.

That same God who raised Jesus from the dead will give us life and can bring redemption and renewal to even the most broken, painful, and unjust systems within our own lives and communities.

That’s good news, friends.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

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Unmistakable Joy

A few weeks ago, while looking through photos from my children’s baptism, I noticed something unexpected.

It wasn’t my kids who first caught my attention. It was the pastor.

More specifically, the unmistakable joy on Pastor Thomas’ face as he poured the baptismal water.

And the more I sat with that image, the more I realized I was seeing something increasingly rare: a pastor leading not from exhaustion, cynicism, or performance—but from joy.

A grateful day

Ever since my own faith “deconstruction,” and especially after having kids, I’ve wrestled with what it looks like to pass on the faith without either repeating the rigid, prescribed faith of my youth or continuing another trend I’ve noticed in some Mainline spaces—the assumption that kids may or may not make the faith their own, and that it’s fine either way.

So I was grateful when the opportunity came for my daughter to participate in confirmation at our church. And because she had not yet been baptized, baptism became an important part of that process.

And since we already had family coming in to celebrate her baptism and confirmation—all on the same day!—we encouraged our son to be baptized as well. Being as we both grew up Baptist, my wife preferred baptism by immersion, hence the tank that Pastor Thomas is enthusiastically pouring into.1

Thankfully, the church had someone there taking pictures,2 because amidst all the logistics of coordinating family, changes of clothes, and lunch plans afterward, we completely forgot.

An Epic Pour

Looking through the photos later, what struck me most was this image above of Pastor Thomas gleefully pouring the water. He is an epic pourer after all—a running joke I have with another friend at the church. Anytime there’s a baptism and he misses it, I’m always texting him, “You missed an epic pour today!”3

The point isn’t to make fun of Pastor Thomas. Rather, it’s to highlight his joy in ministry.

It’s local church pastors like Pastor Thomas whom I so admire, so much so that I dedicate my forthcoming book to them and their leadership.

Maybe it’s because I don’t think I was ever a particularly good pastor myself. Maybe it’s because I know how hard the job really is. Maybe I’m just jealous.

But one thing is certain: Pastor Thomas exemplifies so much of what I admire in faithful local church ministry.

Joy Forged in the Wilderness

There is a joy that seems to overflow from Pastor Thomas. When he pours that water—like so much else he does in ministry—it comes from a place of deep gratitude, faith, and trust in God.

And notably, not from obvious success or church growth, but from wilderness seasons.

Pastor Thomas has shared openly in sermons about difficult chapters in life and ministry: divorce, diagnoses, disruptions, and hard seasons of leadership.

Nor is he untouched by the pain and injustice of the world around him. I’ve heard him regularly pray peace in places of war, for residents being priced out of local mobile home communities by greedy developers, and for victims of school shootings.

What I mean to say is:

His joy is not cheap.

Joy and Grace

The other day, while listening to Pastor Betty4 preach on joy, I noticed again in my Greek New Testament that the word for joy is closely tied to the word for grace.

In the Greek New Testament, the word for joy is chara (χαρά), the word for grace is charis (χάρις), and the verb “to rejoice” is chairō (χαίρω).5

That struck me as exactly right.

Joy is not mere happiness, optimism, or good vibes. Joy is living from a deep awareness that we have received abundantly from God’s grace.

That’s what strikes me about Pastor Thomas. His joy seems rooted in grateful recognition of God’s grace overflowing toward him. That’s why he can, as James writes, “count it all joy” amid trials and hardships.6

To be sure, Pastor Thomas did not feel joy immediately in many of those moments.7 But afterward, through them, it’s clear that joy was formed in him because he recognized God’s grace even in the wilderness.

And it makes me wonder:

How might churches and pastors be different if more ministry flowed from this kind of deep joy and gratitude? How much more compelling would churches become if pastors embodied this sort of rooted joy?8

Where Joy Comes From

This isn’t to say we ignore pain, injustice, or suffering. I don’t think Pastor Thomas does that at all.

But I do think that when we are deeply rooted in God’s grace, even amid difficulty, some measure of joy begins to emerge.

I think this is part of what James was trying to say, and why Corrie ten Boom’s sister Betsie comes to mind for me. Even amid the suffering of a Nazi concentration camp, Betsie insisted on seeing God’s grace at work.

In Boom’s recounting of the story in her book, she shares how Betsie thanked God for lice, realizing it kept the guards out of their barracks and therefore safe from abuse and harm.

Above all else, though, joy is not something we manufacture. It comes through surrender—through recognizing our own limitations, weakness, and need for grace. I know Pastor Thomas had to learn that in the wilderness.

And honestly, I think this may be part of why joy can sometimes feel elusive in progressive Mainline spaces.

We are often so focused on affirming our own uniqueness and enoughness that grace can subtly become little more than divine validation rather than God meeting us in our sin, frailty, and brokenness.

Meaning, we tend to act like grace is something we deserve.9

But I wonder if the opposite is true.

What if joy begins precisely when we become deeply aware of our limitations and need—and discover that God’s grace still meets us there?

That, I think, is where joy begins to overflow.

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The pastor shortage isn’t just about fewer candidates or broken systems—it’s also about formation. Many seminaries are producing leaders oriented toward activism rather than the day-to-day work of congregational ministry. The issue isn’t justice itself, but a growing mismatch between how pastors are trained and what churches actually need to survive and thrive.

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What if the pastor shortage isn’t just about numbers or systems—but formation?

What if we don’t just have fewer pastors…
but fewer people actually trained to be pastors?

In a previous post, I argued that while many churches think their biggest challenges are declining attendance and aging buildings, a deeper crisis is emerging: there simply aren’t enough pastors coming through the pipeline.

In a follow-up, I suggested the problem isn’t just the pipeline—it’s the system. Qualified, willing pastors (like me) are being sidelined by slow processes, geographic assumptions, and outdated models.

But there’s another layer to this.

Formation.

Or more directly: seminaries are turning out religious-leaning activists, not congregational pastors.

I say this as someone shaped by these same systems—someone who really bought into it for a long time.

A Strange Moment for Seminaries

More than a year and a half ago, I wrote a post asking, “what becomes of a seminary with no students?” Some seminaries are closing under financial pressure. Others—like my alma mater—are sitting on large endowments and effectively giving away degrees to access those funds.

At the same time, enrollment is declining across the board. Fewer churchgoers. Fewer job prospects. Less incentive to pursue ministry.

In his book The End of Theological Education, Ted Smith notes that many seminaries have responded by broadening their offerings—degrees in social justice, ethics, trauma, and healing.

I get it. You expand the customer base.

But it raises a real question: what exactly is being formed?

Because at some point, you’re no longer just training pastors. You’re training something adjacent to that.

Where This Becomes a Church Problem

Here’s where this actually hits congregations.

These graduates—like anyone—need jobs. And those jobs, especially well-paying ones in the “social justice” space, are hard to come by.

Churches, meanwhile, need pastors.

So the two meet.

But not always cleanly.

As one mainline pastor told me:
“seminaries are turning out religious leaning activists not congregational pastors.”

Another put it more bluntly:
“wannabe activists need jobs, so they get pulpits because they’re charismatic, but they suck at the daily congregational ministry work.”

That’s harsh. But it’s not coming out of nowhere.

Megaphones vs. Pulpits

At times it feels like grads don’t want a pulpit—they want a megaphone.

And again, to be clear, I’m not anti-activism. The church has always had a role in social engagement. Some of the best examples of justice work have come directly out of Christian communities.

But there’s a difference between activism flowing from pastoral formation… and activism replacing it.

In seminary, I remember hearing a version of this over and over: the pastor is less a preacher and shepherd, and more an activist or community organizer.

Fine.

But then where does that leave room for God? For the gospel? For the actual work of pastoring?

By “pastor,” I mean someone formed to preach, care for people, administer the life of the church, and sustain a community over time.

Because congregational ministry is not primarily about visibility or platform.

It’s about showing up.
Week after week.
In rooms that no one else sees.

In a recent post, said it far better than I could: “What the church needs from its leaders is not more statements on social media. It needs pastors willing to invest in the long, slow, costly relational work of orienting their communities…”1

The Limits of Deconstruction

The problem isn’t that seminaries care about justice—it’s that, in some cases, they’re neglecting formation for the work churches actually require.

And here’s where I think this becomes a real issue.

Many of these leaders are trained in deconstructing and dismantling. Those things have a place; the church has real failures that need to be named.

In his recent book Baal and the gods of More Andrew Root shares a story about a pastor who said “I want the opposite of growth. I want the church to diminish. That’s what I’m after” (26).

But those tools are not enough to sustain an institution.

You can’t pastor a congregation on deconstruction alone.2

At some point, you have to build. Stabilize. Endure.

And I think the last few years have made something pretty clear: we still need institutions. However flawed, they shape communities, form people, and provide continuity.

We are so drunk on the cult of individualism that we assume we can just reinvent everything on the fly.

We can’t.

A Telling Example

In my own denomination, the “new church ministry” leader recently posted a video on how to make protest signs.

Whatever your politics, two things seem obvious:

First, there are probably other departments better suited for that.
Second, making protest signs has very little to do with starting or sustaining a worshipping community.3

That gap matters.

What I’m Actually Saying

To be clear, this isn’t a call to abandon justice work. It’s not a defense of the status quo. And it’s not a denial that churches have caused real harm.

It’s a question of formation.

Are we training pastors?
Or are we training activists who happen to work at churches?

Because those are not the same thing.
And right now, in too many cases, the gap is starting to show.

The church doesn’t need less engagement with the world—it needs leaders formed deeply enough to engage it without losing the core of pastoral ministry.

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1

I’d highly recommend reading his post here:

American Blindspot: Race Religion, Power

The Court Prophet and the King: Franklin Graham, Donald Trump, and the Sociological Consequences of Unchecked Religious Flattery

I’m still thinking about Trump’s posting of himself as Jesus. It’s a memorable picture, and there’s still a lot to unpack…

Read more

2 months ago · 1 like · Gerardo Martí

The pastor shortage isn’t just a pipeline problem—it’s a systems problem. Qualified, willing pastors (like me) are being sidelined by slow processes, geographic assumptions, and outdated models. We don’t need to reinvent ministry formation—we need faster, supervised on-ramps that deploy pastors in real time.

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There’s a growing consensus in the mainline church: we don’t have enough pastors.

I’m not convinced that’s the whole problem.

I live in the Denver metro, close to family. Both my wife and my parents are within about 45 minutes. That proximity isn’t incidental—it’s part of how our life is structured. Support, relationships, shared time—it all matters.

I’m an ordained pastor in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) with an MDiv, over a decade of ministry experience, CPE training, and hospital chaplaincy experience. I’ve served across UMC, UCC, and DOC contexts, and I know how to step into a congregation and begin leading.

In other words, I’m not a new or untested candidate. I’m the kind of pastor many churches say they’re looking for.

And yet—I’m effectively unavailable.

Not because I’m unwilling. Because I’m rooted.

More, my wife is the primary breadwinner in our family. So, relocating wouldn’t just be a vocational decision—it would be a financial one. And in a place like Denver, with home prices what they are, leaving isn’t just leaving—it’s potentially closing the door on ever coming back.

So when I look at church job boards, I’m not just asking, “Who needs a pastor?” I’m asking, “Who needs a pastor within a realistic distance of where I already live?”

That significantly narrows the field.

And I don’t think I’m unique in that.

I suspect there are many pastors like me—trained, experienced, and willing—but geographically anchored in ways our current systems don’t account for.

The Bench Isn’t the Whole Story

A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I called the pastoral bench problem in the mainline church—the growing gap between the number of churches that need pastors and the number of pastors actually coming through the pipeline.

The data is hard to ignore. Ordinations are declining, clergy are aging, and many of the “new” pastors entering ministry are doing so later in life, often without the runway for long-term leadership. At the same time, the systems that once developed younger leaders—associate roles, apprenticeship models, informal farm systems—have largely disappeared.

In short, the bench is getting thinner.

But that’s only part of the story.

The System Problem

We often hear about a “pastor shortage,” yet the systems designed to connect pastors and churches can be slow, opaque, and difficult to navigate.

Recently, I reached out to an area church after seeing what appeared to be a job listing. It turns out—they aren’t actually hiring yet. They’re still forming a Pastor Nominating Committee and must complete a lengthy denominational process before the role can even be officially posted. Even though the job was listed on the denominational website with instructions to contact the church for more information.

In other words, what looked like an open position was really just an early signal that a search might begin months down the line.

That experience highlights a broader tension.

After my first article, I heard from others who described similarly tedious processes. Friends shared stories of candidates navigating years-long ordination pipelines—sometimes 5–10 years.

FIVE TO TEN YEARS

How can denominations be serious about a pastor shortage with timelines like that? How many churches will simply cease to exist in that window?

I understand that there is wisdom in these processes. They encourage discernment, shared leadership, and better long-term fit. A bad pastoral leader can do a lot of damage.

But processes also create a bottleneck—one where willing pastors and searching churches struggle to connect in any meaningful timeframe.

Are healthy, mature leaders really going to wait FIVE TO TEN YEARS to be able to lead a church!? More likely, most who are staying are the types you DO NOT wanting to lead a church.

The result is a gap between the narrative of scarcity and the lived experience of trying to engage the system.

A Connection Problem

Which means the “pastor shortage” isn’t just about supply.

It’s about connection.

We have churches that need pastors.
We have pastors and candidates who are willing to serve.
But the system designed to bring them together is slow, rigid, and often misaligned with the realities of modern life.

Search processes take months—sometimes years.1 Ordination pipelines stretch even longer. Geographic flexibility is often assumed. And in the meantime, both sides wait.

Or move on.

That’s the inefficiency.

It’s not just that we don’t have enough pastors.

It’s that we don’t have enough on-ramps for the pastors we already have.

A Different Model

This is where I think the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) model offers a compelling alternative.

CPE operates on a simple rhythm: action → reflection → action. Chaplain interns begin doing the work almost immediately—visiting patients, offering care—while being supervised and guided in real time.2

It’s not reckless.

It’s structured risk.

And it creates something our current church systems lack:

speed with accountability.

Imagine if churches functioned more like this.

Instead of waiting months to form committees and years to complete processes, a church could bring in a candidate quickly—on a defined, supervised, short-term basis. Call it an apprenticeship. Call it a residency. Call it a trial pastorate.

Of course, there would be clear expectations, regular reflection, and an obvious off-ramp if it’s not a good fit.

But there would also be something else:

A pastor. Right away.

Formation wouldn’t just happen before ministry—it would happen in ministry.

Imagine This

Imagine a different pathway.

A pastoral intern is paired with a seasoned pastor—learning not just theology, but the lived realities of ministry, unpaid, for a few months. If that season goes well, they step into a paid, one-year residency at a church that needs leadership. Not alone, but supported. Weekly check-ins—with a denominational leader or cohort—offer accountability, feedback, and pastoral wisdom in real time.

This matters because the first five years of ministry are decisive. Many pastors don’t make it past that window. In a moment of shortage, we cannot afford to lose leaders who have already done the hard work of formation.

At the end of that year, the pathway doesn’t close—it stabilizes. They may remain in that church or transition to another role, continuing through ordination while already functioning in ministry.

And here’s the key insight: we don’t need to invent something entirely new to make this work.

The infrastructure already exists. Most denominations recognize licensed or provisional pastors. The IRS already recognizes these roles for clergy tax purposes. Denominations like the UMC already have annual evaluation systems in place.

We have the tools.

What we lack is the imagination—and the will—to connect them.

Why This Matters

And for someone like me, that changes everything.

Instead of being functionally sidelined by geography and process, I could step into a real role, in a real church, with real responsibility—while still honoring the constraints of my life.

Multiply that across dozens—hundreds—of pastors in similar situations, and suddenly the “bench problem” starts to look very different.

Not solved.

But far more workable.

Final Thought

We don’t just need more pastors.

We need better ways to deploy the ones we already have.

If you’re a denominational leader, pastor, or lay leader—start asking: Where are we unnecessarily slowing this down? And if you’re seeing this same gap in your context, I want to hear from you.

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I was recently on The Nonprofit Exchange talking about leadership, mission, and strategy. It was a good conversation, but the more I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve come back to a simple conclusion: most churches and nonprofits don’t actually have a strategy problem. They have a clarity problem. You can listen to the full episode, but I want to reflect on a few ideas that have stayed with me since.

One of the hardest realities of leading in a church or nonprofit is that there is always more you could do.

There are more needs than you can meet, more opportunities than you can pursue, and more good ideas than you can possibly implement. And if you’re not careful, your organization slowly drifts into becoming about everything. Not because anyone explicitly decided that, but because no one made the harder decision to define what you’re actually about. Clarity rarely disappears all at once—it erodes over time.

One of the clearest signs that this erosion has taken place is the inability to say no. Not to bad ideas, but to good ones. Requests that sound meaningful, opportunities that feel important, initiatives that seem worth trying. Over time, saying yes to everything creates a kind of quiet fragmentation. You end up with a church or nonprofit that is very busy, doing a lot of things, but not actually moving in a clear direction.

Part of what drives this is deeply human. When something happens—especially something difficult or urgent—we feel the need to respond. We want to do something. In ministry contexts, that instinct can even feel spiritual. But action without clarity almost always pulls us away from our mission rather than toward it. Sometimes the most faithful thing a leader can do is pause, even briefly, and ask: is this actually what we are called to do?

There’s also a persistent assumption, especially in church life, that we are supposed to reach everyone. At one level, that instinct makes sense. But in practice, it often leads to vague communication, diluted energy, and a lack of meaningful connection. I’ve had to learn this myself. I’m someone who loves ideas, who takes in a lot of information, and who enjoys making connections across different domains. But not everything I find interesting is helpful to the people I’m trying to serve. Clarity requires restraint. It requires deciding who you are actually trying to reach, and shaping your work around that decision.

Another piece that stood out to me in the conversation is how little space leaders give themselves to think.

I feel this personally. When I’m overcommitted, I feel scattered. When I don’t take time to process decisions, I default to reacting rather than leading. But when I do create space to think—even if it’s just a small amount of time—I move forward with a different kind of confidence and focus. Thinking isn’t a luxury for leaders; it’s part of the work.

This lack of clarity often shows up in something as basic as a mission statement. Most organizations have one, but many function more like aspirations than actual guides. Saying “we want to show the love of God” is meaningful, but it doesn’t tell you what to do next. If a mission statement doesn’t create accountability—if it doesn’t help you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to—it won’t actually shape your work.

I’m seeing this play out right now in a nonprofit I’m working with. People are doing good things, but it doesn’t feel like those efforts are adding up to anything cohesive. It feels like energy being spent in parallel rather than converging toward a shared goal. And over time, that kind of misalignment leads to fatigue. Not because people don’t care, but because they can’t see how their work connects to something larger.

When leaders feel stuck, the instinct is often to look for a big solution—a new strategy, a major pivot, a breakthrough idea. But in my experience, clarity usually comes through smaller steps. Small decisions, small wins, small movements that begin to create traction again. Those moments don’t solve everything, but they remind you that forward movement is still possible.

At the end of the interview, I was asked for one word that defines great leadership. I said curiosity.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that’s true. Curiosity keeps you from assuming you already understand the situation. It keeps you open to people, to context, to what’s actually happening beneath the surface. And in a time when churches and nonprofits are navigating so much change and uncertainty, that posture matters.

If you’re feeling stuck in your leadership, it may not be because you need a better strategy. It may be because you need clearer direction. And the good news is, that’s something you can begin to recover with intention, reflection, and a willingness to make harder decisions about what you are—and what you are not—called to do.

If you want to listen to the full conversation, you can find it here:
👉 https://synervisionleadership.org/2026/03/31/clarity-before-strategy-getting-your-mission-straight/

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The Mainline Church’s Real Crisis

Recently I learned that the pastor of a church I know well will be moving to another congregation in hopes of helping revitalize it. In his denominational system, pastors are periodically reassigned to new churches—sometimes with their approval, sometimes not—as part of the way the denomination deploys clergy across congregations.

What makes the situation striking is the contrast between the two churches. This pastor, in his 50s, is leaving a church that averages more than 350 people across two services and includes many families with children. The church he is moving to averages fewer than 100 and has very few families.

In many ways, the struggling church would seem like an ideal call for a pastor in their 30s with a few years of experience under their belt—someone with the energy to experiment, build relationships, and try new things.

I’ll admit I may be a little too close to the situation to see it objectively. Still, the contrast between the two churches makes the move feel less like a strategic deployment of leadership and more like a desperate attempt to plug a hole.

The question isn’t whether the pastor is capable of helping a struggling church. The question is whether taking him away from a healthy one creates more risk than it solves.

And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the move revealed something deeper happening across the mainline church.

Stories like this reveal an uncomfortable reality: the real crisis in the mainline church may not be attendance or buildings. It may be the pastoral bench.

The Numbers Are Getting Harder to Ignore

Sociologist recently wrote about decline within the United Church of Christ, spending some time dissecting the coming clergy shortage—and the numbers are quite shocking.

Graphs about Religion

The United Church of Christ Is Running Out of People—and Pastors

I swear before I get done writing this newsletter, I will have written up a big report on nearly every American Protestant denomination. Just looking through the archive, I think I’ve tackled at least seven of them so far (TEC, ELCA, PCUSA, SBC, AG…

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4 months ago · 41 likes · 30 comments · Ryan Burge

In 2013, the UCC ordained 177 new ministers. Since then the number has steadily declined. By 2019 it had dropped to 120. In 2022 it fell to 92, and in 2023 only 80 new ministers were ordained.

In the most recent two years of data, there were 172 new ministers ordained total. In 2013 alone there were 177.

That’s a 55 percent decline in ordinations in just a single decade.

Burge notes that if the current trajectory holds, something remarkable may happen within the next several years:

“If that current trajectory holds steady, there will be more retired UCC ministers than active UCC ministers in the next five to seven years.”

Meanwhile the clergy already serving are aging. According to denominational records, roughly three in five active ministers in the UCC have already celebrated their 60th birthday.

As Burge’s data details, if retirement rates begin to accelerate—as seems likely—the math becomes stark. It would not be surprising to see retirement rates approach five percent annually in the coming years. If that happens, for every two pastors entering ministry, five could be retiring.

Which means hundreds of pulpits could soon sit empty. And, as Burge notes, empty pulpits often lead to church closures.

The mainline church may think it has a building problem or an attendance problem. What it actually has is a bench problem.

An Illustration of the Problem

You can already see this dynamic playing out in the kinds of clergy entering ministry.

Increasingly, many of the new pastors I see in mainline settings are third-career pastors—people who have already retired from another profession and are answering a call to ministry much later in life.

Let me be clear: there are many faithful and capable clergy coming through this path, and their gifts should not be dismissed. But the demographic reality remains.

A denomination cannot sustain itself if many of its “new” pastors are beginning ministry in their 60s.

The issue is not commitment or calling.

It’s time.

A pastor beginning ministry at thirty may serve a church for three decades. A pastor beginning ministry at sixty simply does not have the same runway.

Research on pastoral tenure suggests that many congregations experience some of their most fruitful years between a pastor’s sixth and tenth year of ministry, once trust has been built and relationships have deepened. Long tenures remain relatively rare, but the evidence is fairly consistent: churches often become healthier when pastors remain long enough to build strong relationships and guide congregations through challenges over time.1

Which raises a practical challenge. A pastor beginning ministry at age sixty-five may not realistically be able to remain in one congregation long enough to experience that full arc of ministry.

This is not a criticism of older clergy. Many bring deep wisdom and experience to the churches they serve. But it does highlight the demographic challenge facing many mainline denominations: if most new pastors are beginning ministry close to retirement age, the long-term leadership pipeline becomes much harder to sustain.

Questions About Formation

There are also questions about how pastors are being formed.

In one conversation I had with a judicatory leader in the mainline church, she expressed concern that a certain seminary was not doing enough to form students as pastors.

The concern wasn’t that students lacked passion or conviction. It was that the formation seemed less focused on preparing leaders to shepherd congregations—to preach week after week, guide communities through conflict, develop lay leadership, and sustain local churches.

She did not use the word “activist,” but reading between the lines, that seemed to be the concern.

In other words, seminaries may sometimes be forming leaders who are well prepared to critique institutions but less prepared to sustain and lead them.

Perceptions in the Field

I have heard similar concerns from pastors themselves.

One mainline pastor I spoke with in the Midwest was trying to revitalize a struggling congregation through a multisite strategy. When it came time to hire additional staff, he ended up looking outside the mainline entirely.

As he explained it to me somewhat bluntly (my paraphrase):

“If I hired a graduate from a certain seminary, they’d probably just want to sell the building and give the money to an NGO.”

That comment shouldn’t be taken as a blanket judgment about seminaries or the many thoughtful leaders they produce. But it does reveal a perception that has taken hold in some corners of the mainline church.

Some pastors worry that the formation pipeline is not always producing leaders eager—or prepared—to shepherd congregations.

The Missing Farm System

Even if more young clergy were entering the pipeline, there is another structural challenge.

Many mainline churches no longer provide the kind of low-stakes leadership development that once formed young pastors.

In previous generations, a young minister might spend a few years serving as an associate pastor in a healthy congregation before taking on the responsibility of leading a church, often like what happens in Evangelical or non-denominational churches.

Today, many seminary graduates move directly from the classroom into pastoring small, struggling, and often dysfunctional congregations. How many promising young clergy just give up after five years or less because it’s simply too much?

Seeing a seasoned pastor handle even low-grade conflict and division sure can be helpful when it comes time for that same young pastor trying to navigate dysfunction within their own revitalization effort.

That was certainly my experience, and it is increasingly common.

Without a healthy system for developing younger pastors within thriving congregations, the pipeline becomes even more fragile.

Looking Beyond the Mainline

Another dynamic that observers like Andy Root have noted is that churches are increasingly hiring pastors from outside their own traditions.

I have seen this firsthand. One mainline pastor I know hired a pastor from outside the tradition to help lead a revitalization effort. The same pastor also hired a youth pastor—also from outside the mainline.

Whether we like it or not, this trend may accelerate.

If denominations cannot produce enough pastors internally, churches will eventually look elsewhere.

And if that happens, it will increasingly fall to the churches themselves—not pastors—to become the primary stewards of their traditions.

What Can Be Done?

Several things seem necessary.

1. First, churches must identify and invest in young leaders who show gifts for pastoral leadership and encourage them to pursue ministry.

2. Second, denominations need to simplify the pastor leadership pipeline. Careful discernment and vetting are important, but endless meetings and uncertain job prospects can make ministry an increasingly difficult path for younger leaders.

3. Third, mainline churches need to look beyond their own traditions to find capable pastors willing to lead congregations faithfully.2

None of these solutions are simple.

But ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

Back to the Beginning

Which brings me back to the story that started this reflection.

Moving a successful pastor out of a healthy church in order to stabilize a struggling one is a huge risk. I’ve seen too many incoming pastors unintentionally damage otherwise healthy congregations for that risk to be taken lightly.

But when the bench is thin, decisions like this start to look less like strategy and more like triage.

For years we’ve talked about declining attendance and aging buildings in the mainline church.

Those concerns are real.

But the deeper crisis may be something else entirely.

There simply may not be enough pastors.

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How we respond to adversity doesn’t just reveal our character—it shapes our future.

This year’s Super Bowl matchup of the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks has brought with it a wave of reflection on one of the most unforgettable games in recent NFL history—Super Bowl XLIX, when the Patriots edged the Seahawks 28–24 in a last-second thriller that has lingered in football lore. As former players and pundits revisit that moment there’s a fascinating contrast emerging not just in sound bites, but in how individuals talk about that loss and how they have lived with it ever since.

I was scrolling social media recently and came across clips from interviews with former Seahawks players reflecting on Super Bowl XLIX. Two interviews in particular stood out to me: one from former tight end Luke Willson, and another from longtime cornerback Richard Sherman.

Both acknowledged the absolute devastation of the loss—shock, confusion, disbelief. But what really caught my ear was something Luke Willson said about the aftermath, and how it continued to affect the team long after the game ended.

Willson described the locker room following the Super Bowl as “the worst atmosphere I’ve ever been in.”

He walked through the many factors that contributed to the loss. The Seahawks were up ten points in the fourth quarter. They had a historically great defense. Kam Chancellor was playing hurt. Jeremy Lane was injured and out. That defense then gave up back-to-back long scoring drives. Willson’s point was clear: it didn’t really come down to a single play.

What was especially striking was when Willson said, “Looking back on it, it doesn’t get any better because of what happened after.” He went on to describe how the locker room essentially imploded. Most of the same players returned the following season—and even the year after—but they were never able to get back. They lost to the eventual NFC champions the next two seasons. But beyond the playoff losses, it’s no secret that the team was marked by deep internal tension.

Much of that tension centered on Russell Wilson—the quarterback who threw the ill-fated interception at the goal line.

That blame has been kept alive most publicly by Richard Sherman, now an analyst for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. Sherman has always been loud and brash—his post-game interview with Erin Andrews after the NFC Championship in 2013 still comes to mind—but he also seems unable to fully let go of the Super Bowl loss or to accept responsibility for the blown leads. In recent interviews, he points to coaching decisions, specifically blames the quarterback for “throwing an interception,” and even declares that coaching missteps led to Kam Chancellor’s injury.

An aside worth naming:

Especially in our current moment, one can seem smart—even prophetic—by being bold and brash.

Saying the economy may continue to sputter barely registers. Predicting an imminent Great Depression draws clicks. “We need to adjust some things” sounds weak. “Burn it all down” sounds courageous.

I think this reveals something about our anxiety. When we’re uneasy, we gravitate toward shock over sobriety, toward heat over wisdom. That’s part of why figures like Richard Sherman’s still-raw anger resonate more than Russell Wilson’s quieter resolve.

There is a place for prophetic boldness. Scripture is full of it. But not everyone who is loud is a prophet—and I’m not convinced we need nearly as many as our media ecosystem rewards.

No doubt, the ball was caught by the wrong person.

But no intellectually honest person can argue that the interception was simply Russell Wilson’s fault. Video has circulated for years showing how the Patriots practiced defending that exact play. The margin was inches. Another receiver could have driven his defender just slightly differently. Malcolm Butler made the play by a matter of feet and fractions of seconds.

And this is where the contrast becomes stark.

Russell Wilson—the person most visibly associated with the loss—has consistently refused to let that moment define him.

In a recent interview, Wilson reflected on the play and his mindset afterward:

“I look at all the collection of great moments and tough moments along the way. But I’ve had a lot of great moments,” Wilson said. “I always look forward to the next moment. I think that’s always been my mentality—being able to look forward to the next play, the next moment… I think it’s the baseball in me. Every pitch is a new pitch, a new day.”1

Wilson has been repeatedly mocked for that optimism, especially by former teammates. And to be fair, that mindset plays a lot better when you’re winning—something his time in Denver made painfully clear. But I’ve never understood the anger and vitriol directed at him.

After Super Bowl XLIX, many Seahawks players stayed stuck in blame—wanting to fault coaches, play calls, or Russell Wilson himself.

Russell Wilson, the one who threw the pass, grieved, learned, and moved forward.

He never returned to that peak. But he built a strong, meaningful career.

Many others are still living in the loss.

Wilson once said, reflecting on his career:

“They’ve asked me a lot about my experiences—the highs and all the amazing moments, and really our work habits daily.”

And about the play itself:

“I had no doubt in the play call. It looked open enough… When I threw it, it was, ‘Touchdown. Second Super Bowl ring. Here we go.’”

I know this dynamic because I lived it.

I stayed stuck for years after a painful loss. Go back and read some of my writing from the aftermath of the church I helped plant, which closed after COVID. It wasn’t pretty. I grovelled in the pain, anger, and disappointment far longer than I needed to.

I’d much rather be like Russ than Sherm.

You can grieve and grow.
Or you can grieve and get stuck.

The choice matters.

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Good Marketing as Good Storytelling

I appreciate good marketing. Why? Because good marketing is essentially good storytelling. These days, marketers are always trying to tell me why their product will make the story of my life better.

In my mind, StoryBrand has done this best. Founded by Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz fame, Miller has built a multimillion-dollar business and marketing agency by turning the basic framework of stories into a marketing plan:

• A Character

• Has a Problem

• Meets a Guide

• Who Gives Them a Plan

• And Calls Them to Action

• That Helps Them Avoid Failure

• And Ends in a Success

But even beyond this, StoryBrand—and other marketers like them—don’t want to simply solve your problem. They want you to believe their product will help you become a better person, maybe even your best self.

In Building a StoryBrand, Miller admits he was once compelled to buy a $40 pocketknife not because he needed it, but because the ad convinced him the knife would make him more adventurous and manly. Think also of car commercials in Colorado: bouncing along mountain trails, zipping down alpine highways, hauling skis or bikes. The message is clear: buy our car and you’ll become the person you dream of being.

This is aspirational marketing—it works because people don’t just buy products, they buy a future version of themselves.

As a communicator, I appreciate the power of that framework and often use it. But in the church, it can be problematic. Because at some point, we have to ask: is Jesus the hero of the story, or are we trying to sell ourselves as the hero?

From Aspirational Marketing to Aspirational Pastors

I see the same pattern creeping into pastoral hiring. For the last few years, I’ve watched churches in both Evangelical and Mainline contexts make head-scratching hires. Not bad people, not unqualified on paper—but often mismatched, aspirational choices. The search committees seem to be asking not, “Who can best shepherd us in this season?” but, “Who do we wish we were?”

For months—maybe even years—a friend and clergy colleague had been telling me about Michelle Huneven’s novel Search. She said it captured the absurdities and heartbreak of church search committees better than anything else she’d read. When I finally picked it up, I realized she was right. The book put words and story to a hunch I’d been carrying for some time: that churches often hire pastors not because they are the best fit for their actual context, but because they represent who the church wishes it could be.

The novel, based on Huneven’s real experience serving on a Unitarian Universalist search committee, follows an under-qualified but charismatic candidate who, thanks to an overzealous committee member, ends up getting the job.

As one character reflects:

“When professionals decide, it’s cleaner. Search committees are amateurs, and apt to be dazzled by personality and lose track of what their church needs.”

Committees fall in love with a candidate who looks the part—telegenic, young, different from the bulk of the congregation. They ignore red flags, sometimes even their own surveys:

“The survey told us that we want a wonderful preacher—not a beginning preacher with promise, but a skilled, gifted, mid-career preacher in their prime… The survey also said we want an experienced manager. Alanna has no experience running a church. How do we know she’ll be any good? Because she took a class?”

Yet the aspirational glow wins. As the narrator laments:

“The search was veering off course… Alanna was in because she looked like a movie star?”

Why It Matters

I’ve seen versions of this pattern repeatedly. Churches under pressure for growth often convince themselves that leadership is easily transferable—that someone shaped in a different context or with a exuberant personality can quickly become what the congregation hopes to be. In moments of anxiety, the appeal of a bold outsider can overshadow the slower, more demanding work of pastoral formation and ecclesial leadership.

But that’s unfair. It’s unfair to the candidate, who may be set up for failure. As Search shows, the risk is real:

“This is why consensus is problematic… Jennie maneuvered Alanna into a pre-candidacy she didn’t deserve by casting aspersions on someone with far superior credentials. Jennie can and will outwait us all to get what she wants.”

And it’s unfair to the church, which doesn’t need a savior figure but a shepherd: someone steady, grounded, and faithful enough to help them become who God is calling them to be.

The fallout in Search was predictable:

“Pledges are way down… as is attendance, and membership is dropping. Alanna, in her newsletter column, attributes this decline to a national trend of dwindling church attendance.”

That’s exactly what happens when image gets prioritized over substance.

Closing Thought

Aspirational marketing works because it sells us a vision of who we want to become. But churches don’t need aspirational pastors.

An aspirational candidate is someone chosen not because they fit the congregation’s real needs, but because they project the image of who the church wishes it could be. They’re young, charismatic, demographically different, or have a flashy résumé—and the committee convinces itself this person will save them.

The problem, as Search makes painfully clear, is that aspirational hires rarely deliver. Alanna wasn’t chosen because she had the experience or skills the church needed. She was chosen because she checked boxes, looked the part, and had the backing of one determined advocate. The church suffered for it.

That’s the risk when churches hire aspirational candidates today. It’s unfair to the pastor, who is set up for failure. It’s unfair to the congregation, which avoids the harder work of facing its reality. And it’s spiritually dangerous, because it tempts us to look for a savior in a person rather than in Christ.

Churches don’t need aspirational pastors who make us feel more exciting, more youthful, or more relevant than we really are. They need shepherds who can walk with us as we are, tell us the truth about who we are, and guide us toward who God is shaping us to be.

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In a culture built around “doing what feels good,” it’s easy to mistake vibes for virtue. Drawing on parenting, civil rights history, and Christian moral thought, this post argues that real moral formation rarely feels good—and that sacrifice, not pleasure, is what actually shapes character.

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I started writing this Substack draft only to be interrupted by the reminder that I needed to go upstairs and clean up my son’s puke from the night before. He’d picked up some kind of stomach ailment on Christmas Eve—read: more puke—and even though it’s been about a week, apparently his stomach still wasn’t recovered enough to handle the pizza we bought with the gift cards tucked into the kids’ stockings.

It was not what you would call pleasant.
Or enjoyable.
Or feel-good in any sense.

The vibes, as they might say, were not good.

The Cult of Good Vibes

Also this past week, actress Jameela Jamil made waves on this platform with a post explaining why she dislikes kids. She wrote:

“I dislike children, I know that’s taboo, but I find them fucking annoying and very loud. The constant stream of snot freaks me out.”

As for what prompted the post, she explained:

“I’m turning 40 in two months. I am without child. I am by choice, without child. I am asked a minimum of once a week why I don’t want children, and I am maybe writing this just to text it to people rather than having to exhaust myself any longer.”

It’s no secret that Western society is facing something of a demographic cliff, as more individuals and couples choose not to have children. I don’t intend this to be a diatribe against women in general, nor a screed in favor of more traditional gender roles. But what Jamil’s post does exemplify—quite clearly—is how, in our modern cultural imagination, children are often seen less as a blessing and more as a liability.

There are, of course, very legitimate reasons for this. Rising costs—healthcare, childcare, housing, food, and eventually college—make the prospect of raising children feel economically impossible for many would-be parents.

I also want to say this plainly: not every woman or couple must have children, and not wanting children does not automatically make someone selfish or self-centered. Jamil herself names real concerns—the instability of the world, climate change, war, abuse. Those fears are not imaginary.

And yet, I find it telling that she opens her post by saying:

“I am aware that everything I’m about to say is an indictment on my character but fuck it.”

Why Vibes Can’t Form Character

In this post, I want to explore how much of the resistance to having children—and, more broadly, resistance to costly commitments—stems from a cultural assumption that life is about positive vibes and doing what feels good. Following up on my recent writing about moral ecology and moral imagination, I want to argue that vibes and feeling-good are profoundly inadequate foundations for forming people of moral character.

In a previous post, I wrote that anger and vitriol cannot sustain moral action:

“Reaction can feel satisfying in the moment, but it doesn’t actually form character. And when the emotional energy runs out—or the vibes shift—it leaves very little behind to sustain people.”

To review: in How to Reach the West, Tim Keller argues that character isn’t taught in a classroom but lived in community. He suggests that a moral ecology answers five basic questions:

• Why be good?

• What specifically is good?

• What is not good?

• Who is good? (moral imagination)

• How can we be good in daily life?

Justin Giboney, in Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, defines moral imagination this way:

“Moral imagination is the ability to see not simply what has been historically, what is in the present moment, or what’s likely to be in the future. It’s the ability to see what ought to be and what will be based on God’s capacity, character, and promises” (156).

Put simply:
Moral ecology answers what should be.
Moral imagination asks what could be.

Moral Ecology and Moral Imagination

Our current cultural moment, however, tends to answer questions of good and bad almost entirely through feelings and vibes. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that “if it feels good, do it” has become the default moral framework of our time.

On the surface, that logic sounds obvious—even humane. But it starts to crack under pressure.

Try saying in public, “endlessly chasing personal pleasure is both morally insufficient and socially destructive,” and see how that goes.

We’ve become such a pleasure-seeking, happiness-chasing society that even suggesting limits sounds backwards, even dangerous. Many of us suffer from a kind of main-character syndrome—assuming life revolves around us, or at least should.

Which brings me back to kids.
And puke.

Cleaning up my kid’s puke was not fun.
There were no positive vibes.
None.

And yet, this is perhaps the most important thing parenting has taught me:

Life is not about me.

Equally important is this: many of the most formative moments in parenting do not feel good. Dirty diapers. Middle-of-the-night wakeups. Worrying about development, health, friendships, failure. All of it is tedious, exhausting, and often gross.

And yet—precisely because these moments demand sacrifice—they lead to moments of deep moral clarity and fulfillment.

Parents don’t get constant rewards.
They get fleeting ones.
A small victory.
A smile.
A moment of growth.

And somehow, that’s enough.

Parenting, in this sense, is moral formation.

When Doing the Right Thing Doesn’t Feel Good

This is why Giboney’s reflections on the Black church tradition resonate so deeply with me. He highlights how African American Christians sustained movements for justice that did not feel good, did not generate positive vibes, and offered little immediate payoff. They endured suffering in hope of future redemption.

I’m reminded here of the Civil Rights movement—and of figures like John Lewis, who endured brutal violence crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. Long marches. Late meetings. Beatings. Jail.

No dopamine hits.
No vibes.

Just a deeply rooted moral ecology that knew what was right—and trusted that goodness itself was worth the cost.

I recently saw a Substack post—can’t remember the title exactly—lamenting that “no one wants to do the hard work of going to meetings.” And honestly, I get it. Meetings are boring. Inefficient. Time-consuming. They require patience, listening, and sitting with people you disagree with or find irritating (dare I say, like kids).

Many meetings should be better run.

But the core point still stands: the meetings that actually matter rarely feel good.

And it’s no accident that they’re often dominated by older generations—people formed by a moral ecology that assumed change requires sacrifice. Many younger folks, by contrast, have been shaped by the logic that if it doesn’t feel good, it’s not worth doing.

Beyond Vibes

I’ll close with this.

I remember the surge of positive energy in the summer of ’24 when Kamala Harris stepped in for Biden. Dread turned into optimism. Then came the social media celebration around Tim Walz’s “big-dad energy.” Bluesky was awash in good vibes. Hope. Enthusiasm.

And yet, nothing fundamental had changed on the ground. The economy was souring. Cultural backlash was building.

And I can’t help but wonder: beyond vibing online, how many people actually did the hard work of talking to a swing voter?

I understand that in a pluralistic society, Christianity cannot function as THE shared moral foundation. Attempts to declare the U.S. a “Christian nation” are both laughable and corrupt.

But we do need some kind of moral framework—some shared story capable of forming people for costly action.

Again, part of the challenge of the all the cultural-deconstruction over the past decade is that America has been stripped of a moral framework. While it’s absolutely understandable that many of these stories were rooted in myth, historical inaccuracies, and sometimes absolute oppression, I do think they did, to some extent, define what it meant to “be a good American.”

And as a Christian, I think Christians—especially those of us on the Christian left—need to be far more explicit and confident about the moral foundation of our faith.

Not as vibes.
Not as aesthetics.
Not as feel-good energy.

Because in the end, doing the right thing rarely feels good.

Especially when there’s puke involved.

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When the Vibes Shift, What Holds?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how wildly out of touch parts of the progressive left seem to be with large swaths of American society—and how many of their proposed “solutions” to Trumpism amount to little more than swinging the pendulum hard in the opposite direction. The goal often appears less about articulating a compelling moral vision and more about undoing whatever Trump did, rather than offering policies and practices capable of shaping a kinder and more generous society.

What strikes me is that this isn’t just a political failure; it’s a moral one. Reaction can feel satisfying in the moment, but it doesn’t actually form character. And when the emotional energy runs out—or the vibes shift—it leaves very little behind to sustain people.

That question—what actually forms people morally over time—is what brings me back to the idea of moral ecology, and more recently, to the concept of moral imagination as discussed by Justin Giboney is his book Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around.

In a past post, I wrote about how the Anglican tradition forms a moral ecology. Here’s the key point I’m drawing from that work.

In his book How to Reach the West, Tim Keller writes that character isn’t taught in a classroom but lived in community. He breaks down a moral ecology by explaining that it answers five basic questions:

Why be good?
What specifically is good?
What is not good?
Who is good? (imagination)
How can we be good in daily life?

For this post, I want to explore how a moral ecology gives rise to a moral imagination, working largely from Justin Giboney’s book.

Giboney defines moral imagination this way:
“Moral imagination is the ability to see not simply what has been historically, what is in the present moment, or what’s likely to be in the future. It’s the ability to see what ought to be and what will be based on God’s capacity, character, and promises” (156).

He expands on this definition by noting that moral imagination is faith applied to what we see as possible in our daily lives, and that it should shape our public witness. More than that, it becomes the frame through which we evaluate circumstances and pursue solutions. What I think is especially important is his claim that moral imagination is “how we know wicked systems can be overcome, anyone can be forgiven and redeemed, and biblical truth is still truth” (162).

A simple way I’ve come to think about the difference between these two ideas is this:

Moral ecology answers what should be.
Moral imagination asks what could be.

Keller seems to suggest that imagination is part of a moral ecology, and I think that’s mostly right. But following Giboney, I’d argue that moral imagination actually stems from a moral ecology; it doesn’t arise on its own.

Giboney points to the Black Church as a particularly instructive example here, noting that its social action tradition is distinctive precisely because it exemplifies moral imagination, especially in transcending today’s culture-war mentality (171). He’s careful to add that this moral vision is rooted in Christian orthodoxy. I was reminded of Walter Strickland’s Swing Low, where he makes a similar argument, writing that “the roots of African American Christianity are unmistakably evangelical, and orthodox doctrine has flourished outside white evangelical denominations and institutions” (205).

The takeaway for me is fairly straightforward: a moral imagination must be rooted and grounded in a solid moral ecology.

A second, related observation from Giboney is his assertion that “reason and emotion alone can’t apprehend the gospel ethic” (156). In other words, as I understand it, reason and emotion by themselves are not sufficient foundations for a moral ecology.

To illustrate this, Giboney points to how despair and cynicism have begun to overrun parts of American society, especially on the progressive left. He writes that “despair… has caused some to fetishize oppression,” assigning moral status based on accumulated markers of marginalization. Ironically, he argues, reveling in marginalization is often a display of privilege—only those with certain advantages have the space to be performative about real struggle (161).

The short of it is this: the progressive left has insisted that there are no foundational truths or metanarratives, nor are they necessary for pursuing goodness or justice. Yet over the past few years, the opposite seems to have been revealed. Much of the modern left has moved away from reason and leaned heavily into emotion. Reading Susan Neiman’s Left Is Not Woke, I was struck by how thoroughly reason has been sidelined in favor of feeling.

The problem with feelings, of course, is that they shift. What happens, as Giboney suggests, is a kind of nihilism. A good example of this was the “Dark Brandon” meme trend that circulated a year or two ago. It began as ironic political humor but evolved into something broader—a celebration of cruelty, mockery, and dominance framed as moral righteousness. My point isn’t about the meme itself; it’s that when there’s no moral foundation, emotion becomes all we have.

Again, as Giboney highlights the Black Church as a moral example, it’s worth remembering that the Civil Rights movement faced countless setbacks and obstacles—and arguably still does. What sustained many of its leaders was a refusal to give in to reactive anger or despair. The movement was grounded not in emotion but in moral conviction rooted in God and Scripture. As Martin Luther King Jr. said explicitly in Letter from Birmingham Jail, “there are just laws and there are unjust laws…A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or law of God.”

Similarly, in this critique of the white American church, the standard he held them to was not his own or cultural vibes—rather, he continually lashed out at the church for failing to live up to its foundational values—demanding the church not be “merely a thermometer… of popular opinion” and instead for it to recapture it’s “sacrificial spirit.”

To sum this up, what I appreciated most about Giboney’s book is the reminder that moral imagination can only grow out of a moral ecology—specifically one grounded in truth and conviction. A foundational flaw of the progressive left is the assumption that all truths are equal. But when the rubber meets the road, challenges arise, and the vibes shift, what’s going to sustain someone is not emotion but rather morally grounded truth.

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Sunday afternoon, I walked into the hotel that we’re all staying at. My friend, the pastor whose church I spoke at Monday morning, was checking me in to stay Sunday night onto Monday morning. And I noticed if you recognize this, when you walk into the hotel, you kind of have this V. On your right, there’s the lobby area, on your left is the desk. So I was trying to follow my friend as he was checking me in, but I was also noticing on the right, soldiers and camos to the right. And I text him after the fact, like, hey, why are there dudes in camos and fatigues in the lobby? And he’s like, oh, you know, our governor has got it hard for Trump and is bringing out the National Guard. And I thought, well, that’s interesting.

And the thought came to mind because I just read or started reading a super progressive book on the plane, that there was no, as we might hear, trigger warning or content warning sent out to the group that, hey, there’s people in camos in the hotel lobby, or you might encounter them. And the thought then also struck me that we have a group that’s very white. For better or worse, it is what it is.

The book I just finished on the plane was Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. And in the book, he makes the point that Jesus was a Jew, something we, for, I don’t know if we forget about, but seem to downplay, at least broadly speaking, in American Christianity. So he says Jesus is a Jewish. He says Jesus was poor, as evidenced by Mary and Joseph bringing a turtle dove and what have you for the dedication. And then he says Jesus was a member of an oppressed minority group under Roman occupation.

So I had this all kind of circling in my brain, and my friend Dennis Sanders, an alum of this project last year in Ryan’s group, had sent me before we got on the planes together to come here, or before I got on the plane to come here last weekend, had sent me an image that I didn’t think was serious. I thought it was just like someone was talking about it. This image sent out, I guess on Twitter by DHS, I think of 100 million deportations. And I thought. I just assumed that was a joke.

So I’m kind of wrestling with all this in my brain and thinking about the ethnicity of Jesus and how that matters, and thinking about the ethnicity of human beings in our nation, doing the math. One hundred million deportations is quite shocking and startling and in my opinion, at least, inhumane. And wrestling with how to think faithfully about that. Dennis said to me, Loren, you should write something on this. And I don’t know what to say about that. I try not to be uber political in my things because I think that scene is widely enough covered. And also, what else can I really say on that? So I try to think theologically, at least in my mindset.

So, I was thinking about the ethnicity, the social location of Jesus and so many of those who might be under threat of that hundred million deportation, whether serious or meant to be, in my opinion, ridiculous cosplay, what that would happen or what that would look like.

Isaiah 58 comes to mind as we prepare for Ash Wednesday.

So, as we were assigned to read one of these texts, I was flipping through last night trying to think, like, what the heck am I going to say about Ash Wednesday? Or any of these texts that’s going to make any sense? And I was trying to get to sleep last night. For some reason, Isaiah 58 came to mind.

I’m going to read from the King James Version because it’s a long story, but maybe someday I’ll tell you about it. Isaiah 58:5-6 says:

Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

So I was thinking about Ash Wednesday and Lent, the beginning of Lent, and thinking about, like, how so many of us are thinking about or will be thinking about, like, what are going to be our chosen fasts? You know, something like social media fasts from social media. Great. Like, that’s going to benefit me. [Or I’ll] fast from Diet Pepsi or gummy bears. And[whose] kidding, I’m not going to fast from those. Like, I need those, you know?

But then my mind, uh, came to the other text, one of the other texts in this lectionary reading of Matthew [6] right? And Jesus says to lay up treasure in heaven. And again, as I remember in the King James Version, “where moth or rust doth not corrupt.”

And I thought about, like, if I’m going to lay up treasure in heaven, like, something costly has to be required of me. It has to be more costly than gummy bears or Diet Pepsi or even social media. So, like, I don’t know if this is, frankly, like law and gospel within the scope of IPP. I don’t know if this is like a “lettuce” sermon, but, like, I know this, I believe this. That, as David Wright said downstairs, like, I want to be taken by a story, not to take a story for myself. And I think the story requires for me to be taken by that story, [the story] requires more from me than Diet Pepsi and gummy bears.

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