The Resilience of the Institutional Church

Maybe I haven't been aware, but I don't think the church has really done studies on resilience. We are not paying much attention to our networks and their failures. For I believe the church is much like an ecosystem. And we are failing.

I think these are the kinds of studies which need to be done with faith communities. We need to have studies on resilience for denominations, faith communities, and their social networks. Some of this need to be done, I believe, because denominations are often ignoring crucial rural faith communities and their networks in favor of "the big givers." And this just bleeds us out. What those rural networks tell us, however, is that we are approaching system failure. So we avoid experimentation and alternative models in rural communities thinking that it does not "cost" us as much. When, in fact, they are the canaries in the coal mine (how prescient does that analogy feel right now?).  

It is much like the ocean. Rural faith communities often represent the coral reefs, providing infrastructure, connection, and basic well-being for all of the ocean. The bigger fish in the sea may survive without them for a time, but not for long.

This is why we need alternative models and experimentation going on at the rural church level. We need to hear these "symptoms" as the cry of a greater sickness within the church. I just don't see us trying. What we are forever telling people is that they should go find a neighboring church of the same denomination.

For mainline denominations, one needs an ordained clergy person and a building to have a local church. I think we need to think of how we might avoid these financial millstones around our sisters' and brothers' necks.

Watch this video and apply it to understandings of church systems. I don't think we are thinking about our resilience. I think we are thinking about our survival. One is about our individual, autonomous numbers. Another is about the whole well-being of our system. A focus on survival leads to poor barometers around survival. We will fail. That is a given. But how do we bounce back?