When Church Stops Working (Andrew Root & Blair Bertrand) - Review

 

WHEN CHURCH STOPS WORKING: A Future for Your Congregationbeyond More Money, Programs, and Innovations. By Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2023. Xv + 156 pages.

                It is common knowledge that religious institutions have been in decline for many years. Where once it was liberal mainline churches that suffered, now even conservative ones (SBC) are experiencing significant decline. It's not just Christian communities, other faith communities are experiencing similar challenges. The fact is institutional religion is not what it used to be. That doesn't mean people don't believe in God (gods), it's just that institutions don't have the same cachet as they once did. Among the many challenges is the growing secularization of our society. So, how do we who inhabit these institutions respond?

                Folks who have been reading Andrew Root’s series Ministry in a Secular Age have been introduced to the challenges facing churches and possible solutions. Having read most of the books in the series, I have appreciated the message, including the reminder that despite our efforts to catch up with the secular age, we keep falling further behind. So, maybe trying to catch up isn’t the best solution. One of the solutions that church leaders often hear is that we need to innovate, but in his most recent book, Root has called into question this response. As valuable as these books have been, they are often rather dense as Root interacts with philosophers such as Charles Taylor and theologians such as Karl Barth. So, clergy might find them valuable, what about congregational leaders? How might this information be communicated to them? The scholarly series (all published by Baker Academic) isn’t something one would normally hand over to a group of lay leaders unless they had substantial theological training. The good news is that a book that can be used in a congregation is now available.   One of the critiques of that series is that the books are rather dense reading. In other words, they tend toward the scholarly side. While clergy find them valuable, they may not be usable with congregations. It goes by the title When Church Stops Working: A Future for Your Congregation Beyond More Money, Programs, and Innovation. This time the book is published by the Brazos Press division, which signals a different audience from the previous series.

                In producing this book, Andrew Root has been joined by Blair D. Bertrand, as co-author. For those who know Root’s previous work, they will know that he is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary. His co-author, Blair Bertrand, who also holds a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, is a lecturer at Zomba Theological University, is a teaching consultant with Theological Education by Extension Malawi, and serves as an adjunct lecturer at Tyndale University, Toronto. Root notes that Bertrand has been a reader of his earlier work and a regular conversation partner. Thus, the synergism of the relationship led to this new work.

                This book, which I read as an advanced reader’s copy, is, I think, just the right length for a lay audience, the authors invite the church to navigate an increasingly secular world, not by focusing on bringing in more money, developing more programs, and busying ourselves with innovation, all of which will prove challenging to aging congregations that simply don’t have the same numbers of people as in yesteryears, but by actively listening and waiting for God to act. That is not an easy task, especially for task-oriented American Christians. It is true for pastors and lay leaders of congregations who look at their situations and see a rather bleak future ahead. We are always feeling the pressure to do something to stave off the inevitable. I have to note here that when I arrived at my first congregation some twenty-five years ago, I was informed that the congregation had enough money available to survive another five years. I’m happy to report that they still exist, though not in the same form (they’ve innovated, but that’s a different story). Nevertheless, having served mainline churches with aging memberships I understand how easy it is to feel anxiety about the future. When you’re anxious sitting back and waiting for God to act isn’t easy nor does it seem responsible. Surely God wants us to do what we can to get this thing going again! e at the moment) I know that feeling well. Waiting for God to act just doesn't seem responsible. Thus, Root and Bertrand’s When Church Stops Working won’t impress those who feel the time for waiting on God has ended.

                What we need, we keep being told, is more innovation, nothing more and nothing less. The problem is that with all our attempts at innovation, we church leaders (clergy and lay) find ourselves exhausted. In our exhaustion, we might find the message of this book a breath of fresh air. What we find here, in this book, is a distillation and perhaps better, a translation, of the message found in Root’s Ministry in a Secular Age series. As with the more academic Ministry in a Secular Age books, this book provides helpful guidance and assistance to churches, many of which are small, helping them to move forward with confidence and even some boldness. What it doesn't do is provide a detailed map that promises success. Thus, what they offer here is "an invitation to find the stories and visions that can lead the church beyond the crisis of decline and into the crisis of an encounter with the living God" (p. xiii).

                While the basic ideas that form the foundation for this relatively small and accessible book written with lay leaders in mind emerge from Andrew Root's earlier books, his coauthor, Blair Bertrand, has helped help form a version of Root’s work that has been utilized in churches. There is a synergism that brings the insights of the more academic series to an audience that needs to hear the message.

                The authors begin in Chapter 1 laying out the challenge facing the church. That is, they seek to identify the crisis faced by the church. It is a crisis of influence, loss of people, and even belief. While many would like to make the church great again (by returning to the glory days of the 1950s), that is a problematic quest, especially in the post-COVID era. So here is the foundation, the introduction to the challenges posed by this increasingly secular age. While this is a challenge, they believe there is good news. The church has faced these kinds of crises before, including those very first Christians who weren't sure what to make of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

                With this foundation laid, Root and Bertrand, in Chapter 2, address the feeling on the part of so many clergy (that at times included me prior to my retirement) that the church needs to be busy. In other words, more is better. As the world accelerates, we need to follow suit. As we work harder, we do so not to get ahead, but so we don't fall further behind. While they suggest that we might want to slow down, that isn't the entire solution to the problem. We need not only to slow down, but we need to wait so we can pay attention to what God is doing. One of the signs that God is present is the presence of joy, even laughter. Consider for a moment Sarah’s laughter when she was told about the promise that she was going to have a baby. They had tried innovation (Hagar and Ishmael) but that wasn't God's plan. Waiting is difficult, as most clergy know so very well. We're paid to keep things moving, not sit still and wait for God to act. Nevertheless, that is the invitation.

                In Chapter 3, titled "Stop All the Having and Just Be," Root and Bertrand, call for us to just be, and in doing so we can receive life as a gift. We tend to miss out on this gift because we feel the need to move faster and faster lest we miss something, even if we're not sure what that something is. The first step in just “being” begins with recognizing the reality of death, for "only dying can stop acceleration." Thus, they call for a humble death. That is, we confess our need for something/someone outside ourselves to save us. Step two involves confession, which is a move to repair/restore a broken relationship. It is an act of "letting go, stopping, admitting, and waiting" (p. 48). Step 3 is gratitude. According to the authors, at the root of gratitude is connection. Thus, "a waiting church is waiting for God, waiting for the Spirit to move, and waiting to connect with God. Our crisis becomes the crisis of God's action. As we wait for God's action, we open ourselves to God's arrival by ministering to one another" (p. 50).

                In Chapter 4, Root and Bertrand attend to the question of what it is we're waiting for. We find it difficult to wait, they suggest, because we've made the church the star of its own story. Thus, we experience anxiety about its future. While getting busy doing things makes sense, they again tell us that the solution is to be found in waiting, because waiting allows us to experience God's actions. As we move into Chapter 5, they address the belief by many that waiting will lead to a slow death. They believe that rather than leading to a slow death, waiting on God brings life. While most of us want to avoid conflict, the authors believe that conflict in the church is a sign of life. Tension is part of the program in the body of Christ. Thus, if there is no conflict there is no community. That's because real communities are made up of real people who live real lives that involve tension. As for crisis, they suggest that no crisis means no God. That is crises come as we enter the crisis that is God's own life. This sounds odd, but they want us to know that while God might be intimate to us, God is also outside us and unknowable to us. To get back to the church being the star of its own story, Root and Bertrand, tell us that this cannot be true "because God who makes the church can never be caged or captured by the church” (p. 99).

                I found Chapter 6 to be fascinating because we're always being told to develop mission statements. The message is that without a mission statement, we won't know what to do as a church. Mission statements, we’re told "direct everyone's attention and activity, unifying them toward a certain future" (p. 102). It all makes great sense, but Root and Bertrand suggest that instead of a mission statement, we need a watchword. While we don't talk much about watchwords these days, they believe it is time to reembrace that concept, which originated in the 14th century. A watchword is designed to encompass a larger story. It is " a shorthand for a story of a deep experience that has shaped a group of people." (p. 105). The watchword helps form us because it contains within it the story that forms us. It is "the lens through which we look out into the world for the living God" (p. 106). I have not thought in terms of a watchword, but it makes great sense. A word or phrase carries within itself a larger story that comes to life when we ponder the watchword. The authors note a few things about watchwords. First, they come from real-life experiences. They come through waiting because they come from God. Finally, they are for a time and not eternity (normally). Chapters seven and eight offer us two stories of churches that discover their watchwords and live out of them. One church is very small and the other is medium-sized. Both congregations were struggling when they discovered their watchwords that proved, at least for a time, to be transformative.

                Those of us who have been reading Root's books know that much of what he offers is counter-intuitive. Most of what we hear from the experts suggests we need to get busy with innovation. Of course, we need new programs, which leads to the need for money. So, let's be like Starbucks. As with Starbucks, efficiency is important (I like efficiency). Unfortunately, it appears, God doesn't work for Starbucks. In fact, God isn't necessarily efficient. However, God does act.

                Having read most of the books in the Ministry in a Secular Age series, and having found them to be informative and thought-provoking, I also know that they are not the kind of books a church board is going to read. What we’ve needed (I hear this from other clergy) is a distilled version of that message that can be shared with and discussed by local church leaders. With When Church Stops Working we have the book many have clamored for. This book doesn’t replace the earlier series, of course, but it provides a resource that churches can use as they begin to consider what it means to live as the church in this increasingly secularized world.