Thread by @eugenepkim2

1/Some real talk from my experience as a former evangelical pastor in the U.S...
When I was a church pastor, I liked to think it was about making disciples of Jesus. But in reality, a large part of it was about making more loyal and committed (insert name of church brand)-ers.

2/Meaning that despite all our good intentions and the things we said we valued, in the end, attendance, giving, and volunteering usually became the "bottom line" measures of success. It's simply the way most churches in my spheres are structured as organizations.

3/I also liked to think it was about loving our neighbors. But in reality, our budget might say otherwise and almost everything we did had a secondary motive to build the brand or attract people to it. No judgment. Again, it's just how most organizations operate.

4/I also liked to think it was about being a place of healing and connection. I think we did okay in this area but our structures were certainly not optimized for it. So much time and energy went into content, programming, and production, keeping already busy people even busier!

5/The truth is my last church was a good one, probably the best I've ever been a part of. We did our thoughtful best but ultimately, it is what it is: a membership-based business with all that that entails. All churches operating the same way have similar challenges!

6/I realized all these compromises and downsides are simply baked into the system, which means the problem might not be anything wrong with my church or any church in particular, but with the model itself–the "traditional," staff-led, attractional, local church model.

7/And before anyone says, "but this is how it's always been," no, it hasn't.
The Church has not always been 1000's of separately incorporated entities led by paid staff, with programming, buildings, AV systems, all part of a massive industrial and institutional complex.

8/Perhaps the way we do church has become so overbuilt and overcomplicated that we've lost sight of what it means to simply be the Church.
Church ministry is hard but the top-down, consumer-driven church model just makes it harder. Pastors are over-functioning and burning out!

9/What if we've misunderstood the assignment?
What if we've inherited a playbook that simply doesn't work anymore?
Or what if the model never really "worked" for everyone in the first place? (Think about who's getting silenced, broken, burnt out, and left out...)

10/The world is a mess and the Christian industrial complex cannot save us. More sermons, books, and conferences are not likely to help much because...
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
- maybe Albert Einstein? (apocryphal)

11/We need new thinking and innovation. And we need new voices and movements emerging out of the margins. Most of all, we need to create new systems and structures that result in new habits and practices for the Church.

12/Every new study on younger generations just confirms the writing that's already on the wall. Without real change, the current church model is probably about 10 yrs away from virtual irrelevance. The world is changing and so must the Church, just as it has many times before.

13/We're in a paradigm shift and don't yet know what the next iteration of Christianity will look like. But in the meantime, we can trust the process and keep asking good questions. We can hold loosely to current forms, welcome innovation, and stay tuned to voices in the margins.

14/Of course, there's more complexity and nuance to everything I've just said but this is Twitter so, just doing my best here.
What are your thoughts and experiences with the current church model? What needs to change? What shouldn't?

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