1. Congregational Vitality & Vulnerability
Linda Bobbitt
Congregational Vitality Project
ELCA
Presented at
Rocky Mountain Synod Theological Conference
September 19, 2017
Colorado Springs, CO

2. What is a vital congregation?
Congregations with life-giving, life-changing relationships with God, one another and the world.
The Holy Spirit breaths through these relationships moving us to live out:
Great Commandment (Love God and neighbor)
Great Commission (Make disciples inside and outside the congregation)
Sustainability ensures that disciples are made over time and across generations.
What does a vital congregation look like?

3. Adaptive change cycles: Vitality looks different at different stages
We need to pay attention to the fact that there are seasons to everything – like it says in Ecclesiastes.
This world operates within cycles of change. They are present everywhere, in nature, societies, civilizations. In all these cycles, there are times of birth, growth, aging, death and rebirth.
A vital tree looks really different in the spring than it does in the fall.
The church goes through the same cycles. The seasons continue on even as individual congregations come and go.
Adaptive change cycles: Vitality looks different at different stages

4. Adaptive change process: Vitality looks different at different stages
How change happens
Adaptive change process: Vitality looks different at different stages

5. Interacting systems

6. Congregation change cycle
Identity established – who we are and what we are all about
Crisis question: Shall we continue and if so, why?
Congregation change cycle
Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World

7. Build Escape Imagine Vitality looks different in different seasons
Vitality looks different at different stages. How to improve vitality? It depends…
Green line from choice toward Red– build on who they already are. Strengthen programs and processes.
Blue line from Crisis to green zone – accompany them through adaptive change, help them recognize and release boxes, open imagination for what might be next.
Red zone – help them listen to one another and God enough to come to terms with where they are and be willing to stop looking back and start looking forward. Find missional folks in congregation, try to help their voices become dominant. If not, help them see a future beyond themselves.
Vitality looks different in different seasons
Congregations constantly move through the cycles – there is no safe place of “success”.
Leadership style depends on stage.

8. ESCAPEIMAGINE: From Crisis to Choice
Adaptive Change Journey
Pain
Possibility
The BOX
Wilderness
Creative, faithful choice
Allows congregations to challenge their underlying identity and perhaps even discover a new identity.
Gilbert Rendle: Leading Change in the Congregation: Spiritual & Organizational Tools for Leaders

9. Interacting systems within congregations – One congregation’s story
Congregation’s life cycle
Congregation’s seasons
Minister’s seasons
Programs, volunteers, program staff
Interacting systems within congregations – One congregation’s story

10. So What? Key Points Vitality looks different at each stage
Change is continuous. No stage is successful, no stage is failure.
Discussion
What has been your congregation’s journey so far?
Where is your congregation now?
How does where you are interact with where the congregation is?

11. How do we help congregations be vital?
Programs
Resources
Admin/Gov.
Culture/Attitudes
Local Context
Relationships
Leadership
When I’m asked how to make congregations more vital, that question makes sense for blue congregations building on their present identity. It assumes that know what success looks like and we know what a good foundation is.
We know weak blocks at the bottom cause collapse and we know we don’t want that, right? Those with blocks that fall lose right?
What if failure is really an opportunity!
Mission/Purpose
God’s Presence
Core Identity
How do we help congregations be vital?

12. What if God isn’t interesting in reinforcing monolithic towers of Bable? What if God wants the blocks to knock over so God can build something new? What if that is what happens in the cycle from green to red?
Then the role of the leader is to trust that God has this and allow the blocks to fall, relying only on God’s call and promise.
Maybe it isn’t working because it isn’t supposed to any more.
Maybe vitality looks completely different in God’s eyes than it does in our own.
What if God is building something different? Can we allow God to re-arrange our blocks?

13. God’s Story – western civilization
Denominations in US Culture
Congregations
Interacting systems God works through churches to change society and God works through society to change the church

14. What does this have to do with leadership?
Key question is NOT: “How do we fix the church?”
Limited by our imagination.
Key question IS: “What is God doing now and how do we join?”
It’s about letting go of our definitions and control, trusting and following Jesus.
Leadership focuses on God questions.
Discussion
How can you inspire your congregation ask God questions?
Who else can join you in engaging those questions?

15. What if God is building a new creation with us and through us
What if God is building a new creation with us and through us. We are living at a really exciting time in the church. We get to see some of these changes begin to take shape.
The red zone isn’t a sign of failure, it is a sign that something entirely new is now possible.
GOD IS BUILDING THE KINGDOM and needs all our blocks.
My answer to those synod leaders is that their job isn’t to improve the vitality of congregations or to fix the church. Their job is to accompany them forward helping them listen, reflect and experiment while they themselves listen and watch as God creates a new thing beyond what we can imagine.
As Lutherans we talk about being a church that is always reforming. Lets walk forward boldly trusting that God’s creation continues in and through us. We too will be made new.
What if God is building something entirely new? How can your congregation join God? For ideas visit