This is what Chuck Blaisdell and I talked about in his last years; he was frustrated that the church structures in general & seminaries in particular were not focused on supporting & enhancing congregations, and I would ruefully reply "but why would they?" As congregations shrank & closed, the seminaries shifted to where they could get students. A focus on the M.Div. program & parish ministry would meet Chuck's hopes, but it was already a losing proposition for the seminaries I was working with most closely in the late 1990s & early 2000s. Fewer placements that could even support a seminary student, fewer prospects coming from congregations & regions, more inquirers and seekers who had little church background but were coming to a place in their lives where a spirituality based approach to life and work was what they wanted . . . and would pay for, or go into debt for. So the MA in social justice and MCC degrees became bigger because they were paying the bills . . . see my alma mater, CTS Indy, which has made a major shift to the counseling side, because the students are there & the jobs (I'm told) are waiting. His reply was that this all may be true now, but they failed the church & local churches earlier in their turn, which took us back to the question of Restructure and what it did & didn't do for the Disciples, but that's like trying to resolve the Gaza crisis by getting clarity on the relative justice of 1948 . . . we're where we are now, and what's to be done?
I would agree, in part. But it would have meant looking at how to prepare churches and regions for the future instead of either closing their eyes to it and acting as if nothing happened or going where the money is. I think Chuck was right. The problem is how to get there and I think the denomination failed in try to answer that question. I don't think churches can support full-time pastors anymore. So how do we refashion pastoral education? What does that look like? These were questions we should have been asking in the 90s, but we can ask now. And we aren't. Loren's book review suggests that we have sort of given up on church altogether, thinking that activism will save us. Looking at the news, it feels as if we need the church and the gospel now more than ever.
Well, the good news for Dawn & Amy is this is clearly going to get me to buy the book & read it. But Loren's description matches much of what I've been seeing over the last two decades over steering smaller congregations into closure & liquidation & repurposing where there were options for lay ministry & useful congregational life . . . in a place where the congregation had bounced around 40 a Sunday for over a century (or even two!). The fact that a church can't afford a modern full-time compensation package isn't -- and certainly shouldn't be in our tradition -- reason for a congregation to close up and sell off. This is why I've had a passion for supporting commissioned ministry (formerly licensed ministry) for three decades. It's already 30% and more of many regions's congregational pastorates.
Guilty as cited; my thoughts on the whole activist model as it interacts with the congregational model (which may not be as dead as some suppose, but there's a lot of motivated reasoning out there) shows up as I concluded my thoughts about our recent Memphis General Assembly, and beyond Memphis:
This is why it’s so hard for me to find a church! I see many churches that have the values I have move toward activist clubs with barely a nod to sacrament. But the opposite, with values I don’t share, are maybe too institutional. I just can’t win!
'a church exists wherever word and sacrament are practiced in community'.
100% yes. I could not agree more that this is the definition of church - and ultimately, ministry.
AND ...
I love the idea of entrepreneurial ministry - and I'm convinced that it is at least *part* of what the future of church looks like.
I think the difference between myself and Butler is not the 'what' but the 'how'.
I imagine lots of 'clergypreneurs' working in and around (online especially) church buildings and church communities - supporting discipleship, formation, evangelism, witness, peacemaking, healing, etc - that strengthens the members of the church, which gathers around Word and Sacrament.
A home run. I think this is why we don't hear our new church ministry talk about planting new churches.
This is what Chuck Blaisdell and I talked about in his last years; he was frustrated that the church structures in general & seminaries in particular were not focused on supporting & enhancing congregations, and I would ruefully reply "but why would they?" As congregations shrank & closed, the seminaries shifted to where they could get students. A focus on the M.Div. program & parish ministry would meet Chuck's hopes, but it was already a losing proposition for the seminaries I was working with most closely in the late 1990s & early 2000s. Fewer placements that could even support a seminary student, fewer prospects coming from congregations & regions, more inquirers and seekers who had little church background but were coming to a place in their lives where a spirituality based approach to life and work was what they wanted . . . and would pay for, or go into debt for. So the MA in social justice and MCC degrees became bigger because they were paying the bills . . . see my alma mater, CTS Indy, which has made a major shift to the counseling side, because the students are there & the jobs (I'm told) are waiting. His reply was that this all may be true now, but they failed the church & local churches earlier in their turn, which took us back to the question of Restructure and what it did & didn't do for the Disciples, but that's like trying to resolve the Gaza crisis by getting clarity on the relative justice of 1948 . . . we're where we are now, and what's to be done?
I would agree, in part. But it would have meant looking at how to prepare churches and regions for the future instead of either closing their eyes to it and acting as if nothing happened or going where the money is. I think Chuck was right. The problem is how to get there and I think the denomination failed in try to answer that question. I don't think churches can support full-time pastors anymore. So how do we refashion pastoral education? What does that look like? These were questions we should have been asking in the 90s, but we can ask now. And we aren't. Loren's book review suggests that we have sort of given up on church altogether, thinking that activism will save us. Looking at the news, it feels as if we need the church and the gospel now more than ever.
Well, the good news for Dawn & Amy is this is clearly going to get me to buy the book & read it. But Loren's description matches much of what I've been seeing over the last two decades over steering smaller congregations into closure & liquidation & repurposing where there were options for lay ministry & useful congregational life . . . in a place where the congregation had bounced around 40 a Sunday for over a century (or even two!). The fact that a church can't afford a modern full-time compensation package isn't -- and certainly shouldn't be in our tradition -- reason for a congregation to close up and sell off. This is why I've had a passion for supporting commissioned ministry (formerly licensed ministry) for three decades. It's already 30% and more of many regions's congregational pastorates.
Guilty as cited; my thoughts on the whole activist model as it interacts with the congregational model (which may not be as dead as some suppose, but there's a lot of motivated reasoning out there) shows up as I concluded my thoughts about our recent Memphis General Assembly, and beyond Memphis:
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/general-assembly-2025-tentative-conclusions
https://knapsack.substack.com/p/beyond-memphis
This is why it’s so hard for me to find a church! I see many churches that have the values I have move toward activist clubs with barely a nod to sacrament. But the opposite, with values I don’t share, are maybe too institutional. I just can’t win!
Oh gosh, I love this!
And it both excites and agitates me.
'a church exists wherever word and sacrament are practiced in community'.
100% yes. I could not agree more that this is the definition of church - and ultimately, ministry.
AND ...
I love the idea of entrepreneurial ministry - and I'm convinced that it is at least *part* of what the future of church looks like.
I think the difference between myself and Butler is not the 'what' but the 'how'.
I imagine lots of 'clergypreneurs' working in and around (online especially) church buildings and church communities - supporting discipleship, formation, evangelism, witness, peacemaking, healing, etc - that strengthens the members of the church, which gathers around Word and Sacrament.