A Changing Landscape for Ministry

"Few things are as constant as change," they say.  Many have observed that the pace of the changes we face is increasing as well,  As a result, we do well to identify some of the changes going on around us, and consider their impact on ministry in our time and place.

From my observation, time is becoming the increasingly scarce resource in people's lives.  Here are two statements that really brought this into focus in my thinking:

The good news is that the American economy is back to its pre-crisis size. The U.S. GDP is now about $13.5 trillion, a bit above what it was in 2007, before the financial crisis. The bad news is that we are producing the same amount of goods and services as in 2007 with 7 million fewer workers. (From Time Magazine, June 5, 2011, A Flight Plan For The American Economy.)

So - the same amount of goods and services produced by fewer people.  While technology may have given us some productivity gains, my sense is that we all feel the press of producing the difference by putting in more time.

Next:

Young couples today are strapped with considerably greater education and housing costs than were their parents and grandparents. Futurist Tom Sine estimates that the Greatest Generation spent roughly 30 percent of a single income on rent or mortgage; that same expense costs Gen-Xers 50 percent of two incomes. The average American is also working ten hours more per week than he was fifteen or twenty years ago. What this means for the church, in Sine's estimation, is that "young people will have less time for family, church, prayer, Scripture reading, witness, and service."' In other words, if people are working longer hours and spending more of their income on basic necessities, they are less and less likely to have disposable time or money to give the church. (From Brandon J. O'Brien. The Strategically Small Church: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective (p. 102). Kindle Edition.)

The squeeze on time is multiplied for us here in Fredericksburg because work for many of us includes a one hour commute each way.

This pressure on available time is on a collision course with the way ministry has been done in the United States for most of my time in ministry.  My training was focused on growing churches by adding programs: bigger programs, better programs, more programs.  We need space for programs, staff for programs and volunteers for programs. Programs for children, programs for students, programs for men, programs for women.  Do all of that well, and an increasing number of people are drawn into the life and ministry of your church.

I recently listened to a ministry colleague from our community lament the decline of participation in several key programs of the church he leads.  Response was even worse for several new initiatives.  Some quick questioning brought up the fact that most of these programs were dreamed up by church leaders who live and work in town, and that most of the people who were not coming were connected to a family with at least one commuter.  Most of the commuters that I know are getting home an hour or more later than his programs were starting!  That collision is happening right now.

If the first step in ministering effectively is to recognize the changing landscape in the lives of the people we lead, then the next step is to rethink and repray ministry in that new landscape.  Again, Brandon O'Brien:

Program-based ministry is designed to take place during people's extra time. We ask church members to donate their free evenings and weekends to the work of ministry. But even if we were to serve in a remarkable congregation in which every adult volunteered regularly, the amount of time people could spend as ministry participants is a miniscule percentage of the time they spend as employees, employers, stay-at-home moms or dads, coaches, den leaders, and volunteers..  .  . We would do well to equip them to serve where they are the other fifty or sixty (hours of their week), to help them recognize their regularly scheduled activities and interests as potential ministry opportunities. (From Brandon J. O'Brien. Strategically Small Church, The: Intimate, Nimble, Authentic, and Effective (pp. 102-103). Kindle Edition.)

I'm trying to think about ministry in new ways.  Less about church activities in our location, and more about transformed, encouraged and equipped people serving where they spend their time and have their relationships.  Our time together would increasingly become focused on corporate worship of God, deepening a gospel of grace mindset, encouraging people in the face of our increasingly challenging surroundings and equipping them for serving through the rest of their week.

Sort of reminds me of the Book of Acts, now that I think of it!