‘Just change anything - even if it’s really small.’

The vestry had called me in because they were struggling with the direction of the church, and how hard everything was getting. They didn’t have enough members - or money - to keep running the way they were. And they didn’t know how to change.

So I gave them my best advice:

I showed them how they could completely re-imagine their ministry.

I could feel their energy and enthusiasm rise as I was speaking - they were really excited about changing their vision and focus!

But after I finished speaking, there was a silence.

Then they started talking among themselves …

• ’we couldn’t possibly do this.’

• Eleanor started that program decades ago, it would hurt her feelings if we just quit it.’

• What would we do without the ‘Weeding Club’?
  
  
  They wanted change. They just didn’t want to actually change anything.
  

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry. Right now. Today.
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I pointed this out to them - the fear of change, the discomfort.

I could see that this might be too much change for them. So I tried something spontaneously:

’What if you just focused on one change? A small one? As small as you can imagine…’

They decided they could change the font of the bulletin.

It was a little hard to read, anyway. They’d find something cleaner. This sounded great! A step into the future…

Then they started talking among themselves…

• What about the parish administrator? This would put strain on her

• We would have to create a whole new header for the bulletin - we’re not sure we have the tech skills for that

• Would we have to go back and change all the old bulletins? This seems like a lot of work…’
  
  
  In the end, they tabled discussion of the font change until they could gather more information. They put it on the agenda for a future board meeting.
  
  

(If you see yourself in this story - and you really are ready for change, sign up for some time and let’s talk about it)

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I should not have been surprised.

No one wants to change. And the faithful people left in our pews are the least likely to want to change anything - because the system still works for them. Or at least well enough that they’re still there.

This should be respected.

At the same time, this is how church is stuck.
and it only leads in one direction:
more closed congregations.

The lessons I learned from the spontaneous (failed) change experiment:

#1:

Don’t try to take things away from people

Especially things that mean something to them.

It just makes them hold on tighter - and resent you more for disrespecting their feelings

(I learned this the very hard way when I ripped up the old carpeting in a church once without asking. It was worn and full of holes - and trip hazards! - and ugly. But I did not take into consideration that someone gave that carpet to the church. And someone laid it down with their own hands.)

#2
Offer a new ‘recipe’ for church.

Not taking things away.
Not changing ‘the way you’ve always done it’.

But a way to see ministry in a different light - a new vision for a new future.

How could we get excited to share the Gospel in ways that don’t seem so hard?

The ‘Unstuck Church’ recipe I’ve discovered is an invitation to more ministry JOY.

The next few posts will focus on each of these…

Read more

‘It’s a lie from the pit of hell’.

This is a quote from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church - the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, speaking at the Episcopal Parish Network conference in Charlotte last week.

Church decline, he went on to say - as 'a final word, and a final story’ is ‘not the teaching of Jesus’.

This quote got a lot of press - I’ve read it in at least three articles this week, plus I heard it from people I knew who were there at the conference (held in the city near where I live).

Bp. Rowe was answering a question about the decline - and predicted death - of the mainline church.

But he answered a question about the Body of Christ.

I completely agree - with my whole life - that the church itself is not disappearing.

I also believe that the way we do church - the mainline institutional structure - is, in fact, collapsing.

And that it may survive in some form - but it will not look anything like it does today (or more accurately, anything it look liked 50 years ago, which is where our imagination tends to get stuck).

There is danger in conflating the continuation of the church itself with the insistence on a certain expression of it.

The danger I see: we miss where God is actually calling us to death and resurrection.

Not our own re-construction of the church the way we remember it.

Not even our own re-imagination of ministry (which is my work!).

The actual adventure of being part of something that God is re-creating - something we cannot see yet. That is not ours to see yet.

And that if we keep insisting that particular denominations and congregations must live on into the future - and framing that as ‘the church’ - then we may be missing what God is leading us toward.

So how do we walk that line?

How do we move forward faithfully - trying new things, while holding to the tradition - while still having the humility to know that, in the words of Thomas Merton:

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

I ask myself these questions every day.

Part of the re-imagination journey for me has been to create a ‘gym for your soul’.

Technically, this is just a modern branch of it. As far back as the fourth century, Christian monastics have been describing a life of faith as ‘spiritual gymnastics’ - ascesis (ἄσκησις).

We don’t think our way into believing - we practice. We actively take part in life with God.

I see so many parallels between the first century and the 21st - it calls me to lean all the way back to the first Christians to find pathways into the church of the future.

Trexo: Gym for your Soul

Hearts up! Start Here to join the gym

That’s not just our slogan. It’s one of the first things Christians said to each other in worship. We’ve been saying it for 2,000 years…

Read more

4 months ago · Fr. Cathie Caimano

‘The decline is how we frame our next spiritual step forward’.

Bp. Rowe said this in the same conversation at the EPN conference.

I think he’s absolutely right about that.

We can’t let our fear push us into denial - and at the same time, we can’t let it push us into believing that we’re just going to do the same things we’ve always done, and God’s going to miraculously restore us.

I can see three ways to faithfully follow where God is leading us during this spiritually adventurous time…

Read more

I’m fasting for Lent and training for a half marathon.

The Coast Guard Half Marathon is April 12th - just a week after Easter. So the most intense part of both the fasting and the training are happening simultaneously.

It remains to be seen if this is a wise plan.

I’ve had a couple of uncomfortable moments.

I get a little shaky sometimes when I first start my runs, or at about an hour into them.

Yes, I’m fueling. Taking gels and sports drink, along with water.

I’m also learning how my spiritual practice of fasting - taking in a little less at each meal, eating only simple, nutritious food, and lengthening my overnight ‘fasting window’ - has to be coordinated with my workouts.

I eat a banana in the early morning, for instance, even though it may not have been a full 14 hours since I last ate, because I need that extra fuel for the run.

I’ve also learned that even though I technically stop eating at 5pm, on the night before a long run, I’ll have half a bagel and some peanut butter close to bedtime, so my carb stores are full the next day.

I don’t think of this as 'cheating’ my Lenten discipline, I think of it as combining my physical and spiritual disciplines in the most productive - and most faithful - way possible.

This morning on my run, when I got a little shaky (before the next gel kicked in), it made me think about my relationship with God and abundance. Having enough of what I need.

And it didn’t take too long - since running has a way of opening me up to my soul - to start drifting into thinking about abundance in other areas of my life and ministry.

It made me start to think about money. And specifically: the financial sustainability of my ministry.

Hearts up!

During Lent, I’m inviting paid subscribers into my process (or in this case, into my creation of a process…) while I sort out how to:

• Develop Christian Practices to share with individuals and communities

• Build a network of innovative ministers

• Walk with the small congregation I serve as they face the challenges of today’s church landscape and get ‘unstuck’

• Create a series of ‘mini consultations’ I’m calling ‘re-imagination packages’

It’s sort of like inviting you to watch while I rehab a house - there’s things that are messy and hard, but underneath, there’s good bones.

I’ll also keep you updated on the training and the fasting, in case you’re interested.

I’m building all this into what I’m calling the Stained Glass Project - all four of my separate ministries (the Four ‘Panes’) and how they work together…

Read more

‘You’re working too hard.’

This from both my husband and dear friend within 15 minutes of each other.
Why? Because we were at a party and I could not stop talking about church!

I can’t help it! People come up to me everywhere and they just spill:

• My church is struggling

• I’m called to ministry and I don’t know how I’m going to serve in today’s church

• I want to start a church podcast

• I want to start a church Substack

• I want to learn more about Jesus but I don’t want to go to church
  

It’s not even that I want to help them (though I do), it’s that I’m bursting with vision about how we can do and be church better.

I’m completely excited - and literally see things appearing before me - about how we as the church (and ministers in the church) can get closer to our mission of sharing Good News and farther from the institutional structures that get in the way of this.

But my loved ones have a point.

I’m reaching a point of exhaustion. Right now, I’m:

• Running around, trying to help everyone all the time.

• Developing four separate ministries.

• Simultaneously building a system to create roadmaps towards ministry transformation.

• Working with those least able to pay large consulting fees (small congregations, ministers…)

• Risking becoming exactly what I counsel people not to become: stressed, underpaid, doing everything for everyone.

• Oh, and it’s Lent, so I’m fasting for 40 days with Trexo.

• And I’m training for a half marathon that’s conveniently the weekend after Easter (is it a good idea to fast and train at the same time? I’m going to find out…)

It was on a training run this weekend that I realized I need to remember the thing I tell everyone else. The thing that God tells me:

You are not alone.

Which is how I got the idea to invite you to come with me.

I realized that I’m not just ‘building the plane while flying’ with my ministry, I’m also making all my ministry do double-duty: I’m serving God and the church, and I’m figuring out how to serve God and the church at the same time.

So what if I made this a place to update what I’m doing while I do it?

During Lent, I’m inviting paid subscribers into my process (or in this case, into my creation of a process…) while I sort out how to:

• Develop Christian Practices to share with individuals and communities

• Build a network of innovative ministers

• Walk with the small congregation I serve as they face the challenges of today’s church landscape and get ‘unstuck’

• Create a series of ‘mini consultations’ I’m calling ‘re-imagination packages’

Each Wednesday, I’ll give you an update of where I am with each of these projects - the challenges and the joys.

Which will hopefully be an inspiration to you in your ministry.

My goal is to create the ‘re-imagination packages’ by Easter (or as close as possible). Paid Free Range Priest subscribers will also get 10% off of these.

It’s sort of like inviting you to watch while I rehab a house - there’s things that are messy and hard, but underneath, there’s good bones.

I’ll also keep you updated on the training and the fasting, in case you’re interested.

I’m building all this into what I’m calling the Stained Glass Project - all four of my separate ministries (the Four ‘Panes’) and how they work together…

Each ministry in the Stained Glass Project has its own Substack site:

Free Range Priest
Substack Seminary
Trexo: a gym for your soul
St. Paul’s, Salisbury, NC

You can subscribe - Free, Paid, or Founding - to each of these to be part of each community.

If you want to be part of everything - and get the discount, and support the Future of Church - you’re invited to become a Founding member of Free Range Priest.

This will give you access as a monthly paid member to all four communities (Subscriptions to St. Paul’s go directly to them. The others support Free Range Priest).

Subscribe now

I know - because people keep reaching out to me, even at parties! - that so many people want to rediscover ministry JOY, and figure out how to have more of the ‘Good Stuff’ (love, joy, peace, connection, community - JESUS), and less of the ‘stuff’ (meetings, budgets, stress, conflict…) of church.

Come join me on this journey to discover how to do this - as I discover it, and as you’re inspired to do the same.

Become a Paid member of Free Range Priest to get church transformation in real time (and discounts). Become a Founding Member of Free Range Priest to be a paid member of all four Panes of the Stained Glass Project and the benefits of all four communities.

Be part of Bringing Church to People.

Hearts up!

Fr. Cathie

I heard a confession via Face time last night.

• Not from a member of ‘my’ congregation, but from someone I’ve known a long time, who lives in another state. And serves with several churches there.

I’m praying for someone who filled out a form on my church’s website.

• The whole congregation is praying - even though we’ve never met. And even though that person belongs to a church, where they are also praying.

I’m preparing a Lenten retreat for members of an Episcopal organization.

• They found out about me through a recommendation from their priest, and they’re paying my ministry - not me.

The community I serve with is planning a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper with another congregation.

• I won’t be there, and I had nothing to do with planning it. They have their own life and ministry, and they contract with me for the ministry they need.

I’m teaching seminarians in the spring.

• In another diocese, not my own. They’re learning ‘Cage Free’ ministry from the beginning, as they go out to serve a new church landscape.
  

I’m writing this post.

• It will show up in a thousand email inboxes, and be posted on social media. People will (hopefully!) read it and engage with it. Consider what it might mean for their ministry.

Not one of these things, all by itself, is remarkable these days.

Together, though…

I believe this is the shape of the Future of Church.

The institutional church is collapsing. The typical mainline congregation is struggling.

But we mostly don’t know why. We just know there’s tons of stress, and things don’t work as well as they used to.

Lots of people at this point say to me: ‘My church is actually growing! We’re doing all sorts of innovative things.’

But if I scratch the surface - and that’s my job! - I find that they are usually not that involved in the actual workings of the congregation, so they don’t see the struggles. Or they are part of the leadership, and once they start talking, they just pour out how hard it is to keep everything going.

I don’t say all this to be negative, or not to value the good work so many churches are doing. I say it to acknowledge what’s true: no one’s congregation is doing well these days in terms of growth or sustainability.

But something encouraging is happening:

The church is becoming a network of Christian worship, practice, service and hospitality.

The traditional congregational model assumes independent ‘islands’ of full-service, in-house religious ecosystems.

That’s not the way the world works anymore. That’s not the way the church works anymore.

So keeping up the ‘island’ mentality - and structure - is not working anymore.

The Good News: we can join the archipelago!

What I’m seeing:

• Small worshiping communities, organized around Christian practice, treated as a shared Rule of Life, not as programs or committees.
  
  

• Congregations not as a closed systems with one clergy person/group of people who sustain it (and get all their religious needs met there).
  

  … but as an interconnected hub that contracts with multiple ministries (and community members belong to multiple hubs).
  Ministers run one hub - or several.
  These ‘hubs’ can look like typical congregations, online ministries, or ‘faith practitioners’ who specialize in one particular type of ministry (pastoral care, Sabbath-keeping, etc.).
  
  
  

• All of this is kept running with powerful online platforms (I use a combo of Substack, Planning Center, and Google Workspace. Every ministry would have their own ‘tech stack’). These are the core of keeping each hub - and the people in them - connected and informed.
  
  And connecting them with one another! This is the core change for today’s congregations. Every little last thing is not your responsibility to do alone.
  

  This creates a web (or an ‘archipelago’. Pick your metaphor!) of Christian community - both online and in-person - connected with each other, grounded in following Jesus.
  

Agile, networked, technology-based, focused on Christian practice and small worshiping communities.

Everything I just described is already happening - in small pockets, in a few places. Innovative, ‘connecting’ ministries are often struggling themselves - ‘where do I plug in?’ ‘What congregation/ministry will want to work with me?’

Now is the time to move towards each other.

It’s my own ministry vision to be a ‘connector’:

• To make this shift in ministry more apparent

• To help us find each other - innovative ministers, typical congregations ‘doing everything’, denominations struggling to keep a dying system going.

• To help intentionally develop an ‘archipelago’ of connected ministries

• And to help congregations/denominations get rid of the ‘island’ mentality and structure that’s holding them back.

’Even as churches and denominations acknowledge institutional decline, most still operate as if institutional stability is the norm.’

The biggest obstacle I see to the church moving forward is denial.

I make my pitch every day, to organizations large and small:
let’s think about church as:

Agile
Networked
Technology-based
Focusing on Christian practice
and small worshiping communities.

‘That’s not how we do things,’ I hear - again and again.

Exactly. That’s that the death-spiral of the institution.

It’s no longer a choice - not for mainline Christian churches.

Not If we want to live into the Future of Church.

At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.

Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry. Right now. Today.
Become a paid subscriber to re-discover ministry JOY.

Subscribe now

I watch Owning Manhattan, without apology.

I can’t help it - I love real estate and design, and I love the nostalgic feeling I get seeing the apartments (and the views!) since I lived in New York City in the late 1990s, and went to seminary there.

The show is also decidedly escapist - and decidedly non-spiritual. Ryan Serhant and his high-powered team selling $50 million penthouses to oligarchs, wearing clothes that cost more than I make in a year. Chasing success in the two-dimensional realm of having more of everything. Doing more than anyone else.

I find it kind of soothing and almost sociological to drop in on a world that is utterly foreign to me.

So the last thing I expected to see was someone having a personal spiritual crisis.

AND a bunch of people having a real estate spiritual crisis!

In the show’s finale, Ryan Serhant - the show is built around him and his eponymous company - breaks down crying.

He’s successful in almost every aspect of the word: He’s rich, powerful, good-looking, smart, talented. He inspires people to be their best. He has a loving wife and a small daughter. He’s ridiculously charismatic.

And he’s in tears because his family means so much to him but he never sees them. He has no time with his child. He never takes time off. His stress levels are killing him.

His friend, who’s in recovery, gently suggests that Ryan is addicted to power and financial success - and he doesn’t disagree.

He’s spiritually struggling while living a wildly successful life.

This made me sit up on the couch.

I’m sure they didn’t mean to, but Netflix created an advertisement for the church.

It shows how nothing - nothing - matters more than understanding that the meaning of life is love.

Is being made in the image of God, and called to live a life that connects with the love of God, and shares that love.

And that we do not have this - we can have everything else, and still have nothing. We’re clanging gongs and noisy cymbals.

Not even this nakedly ambitious show about nakedly ambitious people can cover up that what we do in ministry is worth more than any measure of worldly success.

And that was just the show’s finale. Before that,

I had already started down a huge rabbit hole when the Serhant team spends lots of time struggling to sell a church building.

It was 281 Park Avenue South.

As they did a video tour of the building, it was immediately familiar to me. The stone and the arches. The crosses above the doorways. The likeness of Bishop Samuel Seabury - the first American Episcopal Church Bishop. The chapel (now a restaurant…).

I was sure I had seen it before - and I recognized the design, and all the elements. I knew it had been part of the Episcopal Church.

But I was stunned that I did not know its history.

This was the first Episcopal Church headquarters.

I was immediately obsessed with both why I didn’t know this story - and what the story was!

I did an AI-driven deep-dive, and this is what I discovered….

Built in 1894 with Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan money, as ‘a physical symbol of the Church’s permanence and commitment to global evangelism’. It cost $500,000 then - over $18 million in today’s dollars. The asking price now is north of $135 million.

The AI report is long (and you can access it below), but here are the highlights:

• The building is a Flemish Renaissance fortress on “Charity Row” (where all the benevolent societies clustered).

• It was the first ‘command center’ for the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS) - the Episcopal Church’s formal name.

• The whole concept of having a ‘church center’ was brand new - and it took 25 years to convince church leadership that it was needed.

• It was designed to coordinate missionaries going west (past the ‘Western Reserve’ of Ohio).

• Nicknamed just ‘281’ - so iconic that Episcopalians in Hawaii got license plates reading ‘281’ as tribute to the headquarters.

The theology carved in stone:

• The frieze over the entrance shows St. Augustine preaching to ‘barbarians’ in England (6th century) next to Bishop Samuel Seabury preaching to ‘barbarians’ in America.

• It’s symbolic of the direct line of apostolic succession, literally set in stone. The connection through the Anglican Church into the (fairly new) Episcopal Church in the US.

• Every detail of the building was a sermon about church mission and permanence.

It worked perfectly—for about 30 years.

By 1926, the building was already listed for sale. It was too expensive to maintain.

By the 1950s, it was hopelessly overcrowded:

• Departments scattered to Greenwich, Connecticut and Evanston, Illinois (30 miles and 1,000 miles away).

• The Bishop was commuting because there was no room in the building.

• New employees required ‘the services of an architect’ just to find desk space for everyone.

1963: The church traded up

• 281 was sold, and the Episcopal Church built 815 Second Avenue near the UN.

• A modern, efficient, corporate headquarters made of glass and steel—the opposite of 281’s stone fortress, with Christian theology carved in every detail.

• In the mid-20th century, this was the future: streamlined, professional, centralized.

• This was the height of the popularity of the Episcopal Church - and mainline Protestantism in the US.
  

Fast forward to today:

• 815 Second Avenue is running a $2.5 million annual deficit.

• The ‘efficient’ building is now the albatross in a dwindling church.

Meanwhile, 281 has been sold and resold:

• To Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (1963-2014) - kept the Charity Row legacy alive.

• Landmarked in 1979 (can’t be gutted or erased).

• To developer Aby Rosen (2014) for $50 million, plus $30 million renovation.

• Anna Delvey tried to lease it for her fake “Anna Delvey Foundation” (failed, she went to prison).

• Fotografiska photography museum took it (2019-2024, just closed in September. The official reason: ‘not conducive to expanded gallery space’).

The building has resisted every secular use.

And this is where Ryan Serhant came in. And me, too.

The history - and the plight of 281 Park Avenue South - is unexpectedly emotional for me.

I see so clearly how the drive to build it was evangelical - creating both a space that announced the message of the church in the most powerful city in the country, and a place to gather and train missionaries.

The building - and the movement behind it - were a new way to look systematically at a network of congregations and institutions that before this, were mostly united in name only.

And how almost as soon as it was completed, it was outdated.

Then we moved fully embraced the corporate, centralized business model, and moved into a space that reflected that.

Now this space, too, is a burden to the church - and the original structure is still there.

Still beckoning us - almost daring us - to admit we cannot reduce its spiritual power and symbolism to monuments of consumerism.

And inviting us to come full circle. To see that we are, again, on the verge of expanding the reach of the Gospel into the mission field of a new land.

The irony will not let me go:

I discovered 19th century church history through a 21st century real estate show with an unexpected (and probably unintentional) spiritual longing.

I researched it with AI, and I’m writing about it on Substack.

And through it all I can see that the core of what we do as church has never changed. And it has never stopped being relevant to the time we live in.

We’re just navigating a new landscape. And while we (blessedly) no longer refer to them as ‘barbarians’, we are still surrounded by people who need to hear Good News.

We just reach them in new ways.

The building is still for sale.

(I’m struggling to believe that God does not want me to try and buy it. So far my lack of $135 million is convincing me. But just barely…).

And I really want Ryan Serhant to know how much God loves him.

Want to read the full AI research on 281 Park Avenue South?

281 Park Ave S

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.

‘E-P-I-S-C-O-P-A-L’.

Yet again, I am spelling the name of my church over the phone to someone who needs my occupation. Yet again, I’m confronted by how few people have ever heard of my denomination.

‘Is that a Christian church?’, she asks.

It’s not just my church. All the major denominations are in steep decline:

• American Baptist

• Lutheran

• Presbyterian (PCUSA)

• Episcopal

• United Church of Christ (UCC)

• Methodist (UMC)

• Assemblies of God

• Southern Baptist Convention

• Presbyterian Church of America

  
  
  I follow , the statistician and political scientist who says this about denominations:

If these nine denominations would have grown as fast as the population from 1990 through 2022, they would have about 53 million members today. That’s about 16% of the overall population of the country.

Instead, they have a membership of 30.8 million people. That’s a total gap of just over 21 million members that don’t exist today. Those 30.8 million folks are just 9.3% of the total population. So, just these nine denominations are just slightly more than half the size they should be if they continued to grow with America.

- Just How Bad is Denominational Decline?

It’s well past time to see that we are in the midst of a major transformation.

And it’s not that people are losing their faith, or no longer practice Christianity.

It’s that how they want to practice Christianity is no longer defined by denominational difference.

If we were businesses, we would be forced to see the writing on the wall about the un-sustainability of this. Yet we keep trying to maintain nine different types of small churches in each community. We keep maintaining expensive, administration-heavy national headquarters for each separate denomination.

Denominational church is like malls in America - we are so full of nostalgia about them that we just don’t seem to understand that to the extent that they still exist, they no longer serve the same function they once did.

Shopping still exists. People still buy things - and want to buy things. But they’re not going to malls to do so.

Ryan Burge published another article that was much more optimistic about church in general:

‘Non-Denominationalism Is the Strongest Force in American Religion’.

In other words:

Church still exists. People still pray, worship, and gather - and want to be part of a faith community. But they’re not going to denominational churches to do so.

I disagree with one part of what Burge says, however.

I don’t think what we’re seeing is non-denominational.
I think it’s post-denominational.

I think we are transforming into a broader church that carries the traditions of the denominational past into a future without the same kind of organizational structure and authority.

And I think those of us who are part of denominational Christianity can live into that, instead of resisting it.

What does that mean for those of us who are part of a denominational church?

Well, I guess we could all just shut our doors and move on. Or we could all try to merge together … but that would be a disaster, of course.

At the same time, no one likes being in this anxious, stuck-feeling place - constantly resisting this transformation, or living in denial as denominational structure continues to collapse.

It also seems foolish - and wasteful of our calling to share Good News - to keep functioning in the same ways that are causing our deep decline.

I asked my AI assistant to give me a description of a ‘stuck’ organization:

• Excessive Layers of Management

• Decision-Making Bottlenecks

• High Costs, Low Efficiency

• Lack of Innovation and Adaptability

• Stagnant Growth

After 30 years serving the denominational church, I think this is a pretty good description of where we are at, at a denominational level.

It’s hard - perhaps impossible - to break out of these kinds of ruts. We want to make changes, but we are not really changing. It’s institutional gridlock.

This is why I’m so interested in systematic change.

It’s not about doing things, so much as observing how things are changing, and re-setting our vision.

It’s about living into a different story.

Which can then give us freedom to change how we respond to the new landscape.

The trick: we’re not in charge. We’re not the ones making the changes. The landscape is not one we’ve cultivated. Instead, we’re the ones adapting.

And if we choose to adapt to a post-denominational world, there’s much more good news for the whole church.

How to adapt to a Post-Denominational Church

We live in an era when people are hungry for spiritual growth - for connection with God - and also wary of traditional church structure.

We live in a time where Christianity is on the rise again.

As the landscape changes around us, we can adapt to a post-denominational world by emphasizing faith practice and discipleship, and infusing it with denominational gifts and traditions. And by going easy on the bureaucracy.

Here’s how.

1. Don’t start at the top.
   Trying to intentionally merge or re-organize denominations, dioceses, or conferences is not going to work. Institutions are made to be stable. They’re made to resist change. This is a good thing!
   
   Except when systematic change makes it into a ‘change or die’ scenario.
   
   Still, the best thing that institutions can do is to not squash innovation.
   
   This doesn’t sound like ‘doing’ something, but adaptive change comes from going against the grain. If mainline denominational authorities (bishops, conferences, presbyteries, dioceses…) simply work hard not to say ‘no’ or shut down new expressions of Christian ministry in their midst, that would be a great gift.

   
   It can be scary to do things that are ‘not like we’ve always done it’. New initiatives may fail. Actually, no ‘may’ about it - most will fail. This is good! You get to learn what does work. You get to define what ‘working’ means.

2. Don’t start with worship.
   
   I’ve always been uneasy with the word ‘ecumenical’. It feels like compromise to me (another word I don’t really like…). It feels like some kind of middle ground of various traditions that ends up not meaning much to anyone.

   
   Worship is the heart of our relationship with God, and each denomination and tradition is deeply important to those who find meaning there.
   
   When we think about a post-denominational church, it doesn’t have to start with our most distinctive feature!

   
   Instead, we can focus on the breadth of the Christian tradition that applies to all of us: formation, discipleship, service, Bible study.
   
   There are so many ways to share our faith that are held in common. If we start there, we’ll find it much easier, and we’ll find the ways the post-denominational tradition is starting to be something distinct and new.

2. Focus on faith practice.
   

   People want to know God. They want to follow Jesus. They want to know how to be Christian. They want to live transformed lives of greater peace, love, meaning, and joy.

   
   Each denomination has unique ways of sharing the Christian tradition, and a particular emphasis that the community has carried for decades, or centuries.

   
   My own tradition - the Episcopal Church - has the most beautiful liturgy, and an emphasis on sacraments that is being re-discovered by many today.

   
   We have an opportunity to share the best of denominational tradition - beyond our denomination.
   
   I’m fond of saying that instead of trying to bring people to church - and in particular, bring people into our particular kind of church (Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.), we can instead bring church to people.
   
   We can focus on how we offer what makes our own tradition a beautiful expression of Christianity, and how we share that with others beyond church walls.

3. Re-imagine membership.

   
   Sharing the faith in new ways also means thinking in new ways about who is a member of our church.
   
   Long gone are the days when someone is born, lives and dies as part of the same church community. Or even the days when someone worships and participates with only one congregation!
   
   Membership does not have to be a static, permanent thing. “Losing” or ‘gaining’ members does not have to feel like a win or loss.
   
   We can cultivate multiple ways for people to be connected with our community, and encourage them to have connections with different congregations.
   
   This can mean digital membership in many different ways. It can mean a person in a small town goes to worship at one church, has Bible study with another, and Wednesday potluck with a third. And is a member of them all!
   

Post-denominational church does not have to be the death of denominations. It can be the transformation of our gifts into ways to share our tradition with new generations.

At Free Range Priest, we’re reimagining ministry in the digital age.