Dying and Rising

Here are transformations that are not only possible but are also likely. They fit the “dying and rising” metaphor that belongs to the church:
• Dying to hopelessness and defeatism, and rising to fresh new life.
• Dying to worrying about or obsessing over numbers, and rising to passion for authenticity.
• Dying to self-absorption, consumer thinking, and the desire to have one’s needs met, and rising to passion to reach others with Christ and to attend to the poor, powerless, and disenfranchised with the compassion of Christ that has no boundaries or limits.
• Dying to worship wars, and rising to new openness for worship that embraces all.
• Dying to saying, “We can’t,” and rising to asking, “Why not?”
• Dying to fear of conflict, and rising to welcome conflict as healthy and needful to keep clarifying that the main thing must remain the main thing.
• Dying to fiscal fears and an ethic of scarcity, and rising to lavish generosity and an ethic of abundance.
• Dying to clergy-driven ministry, and rising to ministry owned by all.
• Dying to programs, and rising to witness.
• Dying to negative energy and bashing the church, bishops and judicatory executives, and the seminaries, and rising to an awareness of being advance scouts for an emerging new church.
• Dying to a sense that the church is necrotic, and rising to a new day of optimism and vitality.
• Dying to deals, causes, and spiritual self-help, and rising to a childlike passionate love for Jesus Christ and his church.
--Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit

Churches and Loss of Passion

As churches move deeper into their ruts…the congregation’s spiritual experience—its passion—fades. The church prays, but lacks any expectation of being acted upon by God. The church praises a holy and awesome God, but sings ho-hum hymns. A church can travel so far within its own little groove that it can no longer see how much its neighbors long to know God. When congregations cease being excited about bringing the good news of Jesus to others, they cease to be exciting.

A congregation can be in this downward path for a long time without being aware that it has walked away from the activity of God.
-- Bill Kemp, Ezekiel’s Bones: Rekindling Your Congregation’s Spiritual Passion

Good leadership and Vision

A congregation is desperate for leaders who are filled with passion, have already demonstrated courage, see flexibility as a virtue, are missional because of their passion, are wise, really believe God expects them to win with a whole groups of saints who feel the same, and who take bottom-line responsibility for what God will do through them.

Vision does not necessarily start with the pastor. However, most pastors who arrive to lead congregations that lack vision, hope, and morale will find that if they do not generate vision, no one else will. Committees, vision communities, or people exploring vision as a short-term project do not generate visions that produce systemic change.
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit

Vision and a Warning

Vision is derived from the passion of a leader who has a prophetic fire burning within the soul to accomplish something significant for God. Groups may take this vision, help produce congregational ownership, and delineate its implementation, but, without prophetic fire to begin with, there are no images of preferred futures that produce systemic change. If pastors are not clear about either their role or that of the Church, most congregations will remain dormant, irrelevant to life change, and in decline.
--Paul D. Borden, Direct Hit