🧵 The Church is facing a discipleship crisis.
Could it be that the current forms and structures we’ve inherited are simply not very good at making people more like Jesus?
We need system change, starting with a paradigm shift in our approach to spirituality. 1/10 Spirituality is a journey, not a destination.
Yet for too long, the Church has treated formation, discipleship, and spiritual growth (or whatever you like to call it) as a linear process with the end goal of conforming to a certain set of beliefs and behaviors. 2/10

🧵Is "church" supposed to be like a factory or a workshop?
I believe you cannot do genuine discipleship and spiritual community at scale. People and relationships are not products that can be mass-produced on an assembly line.
Ever since the industrial revolution, it seems the Church has been trying to copy the gains of mass production and distribution. Christian publishing created more and more content to consume, an industry of experts and leaders emerged to share their secrets of success...

🧵IMO, more pastor sabbaticals, self-care, and emotional health resources are good but just temporary bandaids that do not address the root of the problem.
What if clergy burnout is simply the byproduct of an unhealthy system based on over-functioning and uneven power dynamics? In other words, maybe we should stop blaming pastors for not being able to sustain themselves in an environment that's unsustainable.
The constant pressure to perform, produce, and maintain appearances makes it difficult to be a human being!

🧵 On Thursday, 4/20, we're having an honest talk about the good, the bad, and what might need to change about how we do leadership in the Church! It will be a moderated conversation and an opportunity to connect and learn from one another. 1/4
@newwinecollect1 There's a leadership crisis in the ⛪️. Pastor burnout and walkout are on the rise and we're seeing far too many examples of scandals and abuses of power in churches and Xian orgs. What if these are not just anomalies but symptoms of a dysfunctional and unsustainable system? 2/4

🧵Most churches and orgs now acknowledge that change is a given. So there are many conversations being had about the “future of the Church” which is valuable and needed.

However, may I suggest that…
1/8 If you’re relying mostly on insiders from within the Christian institutional or industrial complex to tell you what the future might look like, you may not be getting the clearest or most complete perspective. 2/8

🧵It can be difficult to see the forest for the trees but we are in the midst of a massive disruption in the spiritual landscape and the existing model of church will most likely not be able to see it coming. Here’s why… The world is changing rapidly. Yet, most existing Sunday, programmatic churches are not able to adapt because they are too preoccupied with meeting the needs of their most demanding consumer: pre-churched, insider Christians.

We need a better paradigm for how we handle leadership and power in the Church.
We can shift from static, fixed hierarchies to a more dynamic, flexible mutuality where we take turns in leadership and allow power to flow. 1/5


@newwinecollect1 Instead of one person dominating the conversation all the time, we can do church in a way that allows every voice to be heard and gives everyone a chance to grow and exercise their gifts. 2/5

🧵 Dear ⛪️,
What if we're part of the problem? ☹️
What if much of the polarization, hate, and division we see in society is the mess we Christians have made and now need to own up to it?

TL;DR: The way we're doing church might have unhealthy and harmful side effects. (Speaking as a former evangelical pastor in the U.S. so pardon the broad strokes. Please take what fits and leave what doesn't.🙏)

It seems clear that, as a whole, our current version of Christianity is just not very good at its main job–which is to make people more like Jesus.

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.

What would it look like if Christianity was shaped more by capitalism than by Christ?

- We would be preoccupied with branding, marketing, and production
- We would use numbers and metrics to measure success
- We would assume bigger is better

1/4 - We would see pastors functioning more like CEO’s or small business owners than shepherds
- We would see hype and self-promotion as normal
- We would see more competition than cooperation

2/4