The Rev. Billy Doidge Kilgore writes a post on the Ministry Matters blog that says“I’m done fixing the church”:
If you have fallen into the trap of trying to “fix” the church, I don’t write this article to make you feel guilty or to encourage you to beat yourself up. At best, we are all stumbling along on the journey of faith in need of God’s grace. Careful discernment is always necessary in serving the church, especially in times like our own when congregations are under tremendous pressure to find a way forward. The time is ripe for us to confuse our human needs with God’s desires for the church. In addition to confusion over God’s desires, I believe a major reason for our misguided attempts to fix the church is a misunderstanding of our role as clergy.
In an age that encourages and often expects clergy to be religious entrepreneurs boldly paving a way forward for congregations, it is easy to misunderstand our role. As church members turn to us with their concerns about decline, we feel the pressure to “fix” our congregations, which can quickly distort our understanding of ministry. We find ourselves easily distracted by things that do not relate to our pastoral identity.
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Amen!
That's an excellent article. Love this part: "Instead of going down this exhausting and frustrating path, there is the opportunity to commit together, clergy and laity, to turning the future of the church over to God. We can let go and trust that the God who has been faithful to the church throughout the ages will make a way forward."
I liked, too, that he mentioned his congregation is working on a plan for the future. "Letting go" of the results of that is really hard to do sometimes, but I think it's the right prescription. And taking that step out into the future without knowing what will happen - well, that can be exhilarating, too....
Faith, hope, and love, wasn't it?