A note on the blog...

As we reach the end of Lent, Bishop Scarfe’s book study blog is taking a break for Holy Week and the Octave of Easter as it becomes the Bishop’s Lent + Easter Blog. We have been challenged these last several weeks to face the realities that are before us and to walk with courage toward a hopeful future. The reflections will continue April 14 & 21 with the final two blog postings reflecting on organizing for innovation and claiming the promise of the Resurrection. 

Please rejoin us then and take this opportunity now to register for the Baptismal Living Day, which will take place on Saturday, April 25, at St. Timothy’s in West Des Moines, led by our guide for this Lent + Easter book journey, the Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile.

Chapter 5: Disciplines of a Learning Church

By The Rev. Elizabeth Popplewell, St. Luke's Cedar Falls

The Rev. Elizabeth Popplewell

A short time ago, I was speaking with a young woman who was in the midst of a professional training program for her work. Emma is bright, well-rounded in her vocation and social skills, and has, on more than one occasion, demonstrated unique courage in standing up for what she believes. It is my guess that her bosses think well of her, too, as they were keen to have her embark in this schooling designed to provide new skills and to improve existing ones.  

As we continued to talk, a couple of things emerged from our conversation that, for me, connected with what Dwight Zscheile is presenting in the The Agile Church—to begin, the belief that learning new skills and practices is a lifelong commitment. Emma is a few years out of school and into her career; still, she makes it her practice to keep (and, in fact, her position is tethered to her staying) abreast of shifts in cultural norms, demographic trends, and public expectations. Emma also said that there was a notable age difference between her and her classmates in the training program. She said that when introductions were being made, the person closest to her in age had graduated from college the year she was born. This age gap, she said, was intimidating for her. And finally, the evaluation! Emma explained that after each session students were asked to demonstrate what they had learned and then be critiqued by the instructor and classmates. Paying attention to what’s happening in the world around us; adopting new skills and developing old ones in order to better connect with the people around us; acknowledging that every age group might feel a bit sheepish at first when engaging in new learning—I wonder, could these be characteristics of a learning church?  

In chapter five, Zscheile spells out nine practices through which a new future might emerge for those who engage in this work. He begins by inviting churches to cultivate spaces for conversation and play. This excites me. I know how to do those things! Actually, the truth is that I know how to have a conversation. In fact, I like discussions. I relish opportunities in which to engage people—to find out what’s happening in their lives, what they think about certain issues, what’s been their life stories. I do, however (and I bet I am not alone in this), need someone to encourage me to play, which is sad in a way because I used to be really good at it. I remember the box of “dress up” clothes my mother collected over the years. In it were all sorts of hats, dresses, aprons, vests, shoes, and gloves. At my whim I could become a nurse, a chef, an explorer, or a teacher. With my playmates I could imagine a new setting without fear or shame that someone would say, “That could never happen.” I wonder what the church might discover from more conversation and more play?

As the chapter progresses, it is apparent that the practices of a learning church flow from and into one another. Unleashing the possibilities seems to be the unifying characteristic of Zscheile’s disciplines. He follows Conversation and Play with the practice of Addressing Fear and Shame and advocates replacing them with “wholehearted living,” a concept he borrows from researcher Brene Brown, which focuses on courage, compassion, and trust (p. 93). It has been my experience that communities that are intentional about building relationships and having honest conversations about all sorts of subjects are usually communities in which it is possible to take risks, to be vulnerable in our imagining, and to try on new roles. In such communities it is also possible to lovingly critique what went well, what did not go well, what more should we consider. Zscheile advocates faith communities to Translate and Interpret the church’s story into language and symbols and experiences that are familiar to those who do not yet know God’s story and the church’s witness to the Gospel. He reminds us that we are the stewards and curators of the Good News. The learning church is one that engages in conversation, not just among its members, but also with the wider community. Zscheile uses the image of front porch sitting to challenge us to Discover our Open Spaces so that the church might become a place of public gathering, a venue to address civic matters and create fellowship. He urges us, the church, to be present to our neighbors, to learn their stories, their struggles, and their dreams.  

Thinking back to my conversation with Emma, I, too, strive to be a lifelong learner, although the older I get the more I seem to fall into default patterns. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I enjoyed this chapter of The Agile Church. The idea that all this is possible remains real to me. Zscheile ends the chapter with this thought: “The church must trust that the Spirit of God is indeed alive and working among God’s ordinary people as something new is brought forth in, through, and among them” (p. 108) That practice—not perfection—is emphasized over and again is reassuring and liberating. That innovation and creativity are the mainstay of the Holy Spirit invites collaboration and acknowledgement of the gifts of all the baptized. That being deeply rooted in the love of Christ makes all things possible is the ultimate truth that sustains me.   

I am reminded of a commercial for an airline some years ago: “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign. You are now free to roam about the cabin.” Let the adventure begin!

Chapter 4: Failing Well, or What the Church Can Learn from Silicon Valley

Ellen Bruckner

By Ellen Bruckner, Cedar Rapids

In Chapter 4 of The Agile Church, Zscheile offers several concepts and insights from organizations that have found themselves in much the same place mainline churches find themselves today. We are wondering why what has worked so well in the past is not working for us now; we are wondering why younger generations are not too interested in our life; and we are wondering what is the best way to move to places where all will be well again.

I am particularly interested in exploring some of the concepts presented by Zscheile and in applying those concepts to life in the organization called “the Church.” It probably will help to ponder some terms being used in the organizational worlds today, some more frequently than others.   

Technical and adaptive change: Technical problems are those for which a solution already exists and all that is needed is an application in order for the problem to be fixed. Adaptive change, however, is a bit more complicated. There are many situations for which a solution is not apparent and there really is no “fix it” known. It is up to the persons involved in such a situation to try various changes or ideas in order to determine if any of the actions help the situation or provide a solution or a part of a solution. This may involve some “trial and error” type behavior—not very acceptable behavior in today’s culture, which is often not very forgiving. Sometimes, solutions don’t emerge until several failures have forced a direction not apparent at the beginning.

Agile Project Management: Paying much greater attention to what is going on outside the organization, and engaging in lots of small experiments (most of which will fail) in close conversations with the people involved and offering them opportunities to provide feedback. These small experiments often lead to points of reflection or pivots that encourage shifts without incurring too much loss of resource. The key is the connections with people outside the process.

Design thinking: This is about joining with people where they are in their lives, listening carefully to their challenges, and working with them to create solutions to these challenges. The key is inviting people into the creation of their own solutions not just providing something for them to consume. 

Disruptive innovation: The established organizations, for various reasons, begin to crumble because they cannot or will not compete with the disruptive innovators that generally offer a simpler or cheaper solution to challenges. Disruptive innovation requires divesting oneself of the elaborate, often expensive, ways of operating that characterize the status quo in order to accept and respond to new ideas that may provide necessary solutions.

Positive Deviance: This is a favorite of mine. It is recognizing that, most likely, solutions to challenges already exist within the community. There is no need to import a magical solution from the outside. The key is to find the ways to assess and call out the skills, strengths, ideas, commitment from within the local community. It means each community will find the ways to solve its challenges and these ways may not look just like a neighboring community’s ways, but it is about the future emerging from God’s people in each place. 

It seems to me there are reoccurring themes in these concepts: 

• We need to recognize that solutions to challenges come from the people who are facing the challenges, not necessarily from outside or from another place. Just because another place faced a similar challenge does not mean that the solution for that other place will be the same solution for the current place. It is about the people together in a particular place facing their challenges and finding their solutions, not relying on being told what to do by an outsider. 
• An organization will have to loosen its hold on some of its “ways of always doing something” in order to respond to its current challenges. 
• An organization will need to become “nimble,” able to reflect and shift easily when trying new ideas. 
• This work of responding to challenges is about relationships. Community is based on the relationship built within it. We, as the Church, may have the responsibility of encouraging all people to deepen their relationships within their communities. We can begin to grow the culture of discernment—that deep listening to God and each other.

As a Church, we probably need to look at a few things:

• How do we grow that discerning culture that recognizes the current strengths, skills, compassion, etc already available and happening, and then support these organic happenings? 
• How do we create the safe places for people to innovate?  How do we invite the creative ideas and open ourselves to the ideas we may not have thought of ourselves, but are worth trying for the good of the community?
• What would a more nimble, responsive faith community look like and act like?
• How do we maintain an identity that has served God well without getting bogged down in serving ourselves?

There are many questions that arise for me as we look at living more fully into a culture that is not afraid to take risks or to try something new which will probably fail several times before it works. We will need to call upon all the faith we have in our God who has promised to always be with us and to guide us. We will need to turn to each other and recognize the Spirit at work in each other so that we can together respond to God’s vision for God’s people on earth.

Chapter Four seems to issue these challenges to me.

Chapter 3: Forming and Restoring Community in a Nomadic World

By Doug Smith, St. Luke's Cedar Falls

Doug Smith

I found this chapter to be a helpful and hopeful change after the bracing reality check of Chapter Two. While it is true that the church is no longer the focal point of public life in the way it once was, this is nothing new. The author reminds us of many examples in both the Old and New Testaments where God’s people were displaced and nomadic, searching for community in a world they no longer understood.

The church today finds itself in a difficult position. Our numbers overall are declining and the church seems irrelevant and outmoded in the face of modern culture. I have at times wondered: Who would seek out a church if they had not been brought up in one? What is it that we have to offer that is so compelling that it would draw people in? It feels like we have reached another point where God’s people are again exiled and nomadic, searching for meaning and purpose.

Here’s where the author begins to lay out his vision of community. We all are searching for community, a place of belonging. The story of our faith is rooted in community. Our understanding of the Trinity is itself the illustration of a perfectly balanced community. Throughout the stories of the Hebrew Bible, we see people overcoming displacement and aimless wandering with community, and unfortunately, undermining that community from time to time as well.

Jesus’ ministry with his disciples was also one of building community. “Following Jesus meant close observation of his actions in relationship, going where he went, staying where he stayed, sharing conversations, listening, and trying things out. It was about being formed into a new way of life” (p. 46). But we are reminded that even with Jesus himself as the “community organizer,” things didn’t go perfectly. Their time together was “fraught with misunderstanding, confusion, and even denial” (p.47).

These imperfect attempts at community continued into the apostolic age as well. Right from the start there were problems with competing agendas and an antagonistic culture in which nascent Christianity was an unwelcome upstart. And yet, I am encouraged because it was in the middle of this picture that these early Jesus-followers were so magnetic and compelling that people joined them by the thousands.

And it is from these stories of our early history that we, today, can find hope. What is it that will draw people into exploring a life of faith in God? “God’s mission is about forming and restoring community” (p. 53). People want and need true community, and I believe they can recognize it when they see it lived out. The challenge for us is to find new ways in this generation to create a compelling sense of community.

This chapter doesn’t go into detail on what those new ways might be, but it does give us a caution. “In seeking to attract new members, the church has also often sought to welcome neighbors into its established life on its cultural and social turf, rather than risk forming new expressions of Christian community on the neighbors’ turf. As the body of Christ, however, we are sent to join up with people where they are, to listen deeply to their lives, and to discern together with those neighbors what new life God is bringing forth” (p. 56).

Chapter Two: Faith and Spirituality in a Fluid and Insecure Age

By The Rev. Torey Lightcap, St. Thomas, Sioux City

The Rev. Torey Lightcap

Chapter two of The Agile Church is titled “Faith and Spirituality in a Fluid and Insecure Age.” It’s not a feel-good part of the book, but rather a true, articulate, and (to me at least) depressing series of well-observed, high-level statements about how things really are. Perhaps you’ve read the chapter and agree with that assessment. And perhaps the fact that I have the unique privilege of discussing it with you means that I might end up depressing you even further. I beg you, then, to recall that old saw about not shooting the messenger.

This summer, God willing, I will turn 43. That puts me in the back half of Generation X. Ours is a generation wedged between the Boomers who burned their draft cards and bras, and the Millennials who, we’re told, are much more civic-minded. In other words, our parents showed us how it is helpful to deconstruct certain elements of society for the wider good, and our children are trying to rearrange those elements so we can all go forward. A lot of Xers caught between are left scratching their heads: we aren’t quite sure what has happened, and we don’t necessarily approve, but neither do we necessarily disapprove. In general, we are simply disoriented. A lot of the narratives we thought we would be able to rely on—in other words, to construct our identities, careers, families, and lives on—have shifted out from under us.

I grew up in oil boom/bust Oklahoma, in the 1980s, in the Southern Baptist tradition. It wouldn’t surprise you to learn that I was formed by Jesus, TV, and Ronald Reagan. I got the idea that after assuring eternal security for myself and others, and starting up a family, my only real task remaining would be to locate a respectable job I could work for forty years before retiring to some place a little warmer. (From there it would be Jesus’ prepared mansions, so all in all a pretty sweet deal.) Identity was not only meant to be fixed; one’s very survival was pegged to however firmly one remained every bit of what one knew oneself to be. Identity formation was a matter of just getting it all figured out and then banking on it, like pouring out a level of new concrete upon an existing one. “Know thyself” was an entirely practical maxim to live by.

(You’d have figured it out by now, but it’s worth saying that we read the Bible in precisely the same way back then. Not unlike, say, the Sooners, Jesus was a dynasty built upon the results of everything that had already taken place; heaven and earth would pass away before his words would.)

Now that I am the age I am, and live where I live, and do what I do for a living, and have the kind of life that I have, I have come to see the folly of believing in a world where things should be cast in concrete. It’s not that I don’t yearn for security and certitude; just that the more I search for it, the less I seem to find it. Life has gone all higgledy-piggledy. We didn’t ask for this. It’s just the way things are. To borrow an old military coin, life in general is VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

There’s a specific indictment here for those of us who claim the mantle of Christ. That wonderful and sacred mystery called the Church has been slow to adapt to the new reality and even slower to adopt the kinds of meaningful reforms that create the space necessary for genuine transformation. We must be telling ourselves that as long as we still have our buildings, our priests, our endowments, our programs, and our healthy-sounding mission statements, we’re doing just fine. If that’s the line you want to respond with, then I would encourage you to look at the numbers. Do the computations about how much longer all these things will be able to last at their current rates of attrition (not accounting for inflation, more intractable conflict, or the odd natural disaster) and see how it feels.

I can see how you might think of me in all this as some grumpy old man on his porch with a shotgun across his knees. That’s not my intent. I only want to say as clearly as I can that a church’s failure to evolve in any given moment can be an indicator of a larger pattern of a church giving in to fear and inertia, and therefore a good predictor of future failure in general. Just because “the culture” has slipped away from “the church” doesn’t mean it’s time to pack it in.

On the other hand, I’ve staked my livelihood to the continuation of the Church and her mission. And I’ve staked my life to Christ. (Those are two discrete, if overlapping, categories.) I burn at the core with a desire to see healthy congregations that radiate the truth about Jesus into their communities and participate in re/building them in fundamental ways. My interest in the strength of churches is the driving force of my ministry.

But if we aim to become stronger—or, you might say, reasonably healthy, whole, and sound—then we need to come face-to-face with the truth the way Dwight Zscheile names it in chapter two of The Agile Church.