Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I was intrigued by the Lutheran blog that asked “Do we have Nadia problem?” reposted in part on Episcopal Cafe. Episcopal responses included an amusing retort: Would that we had a Nadia problem! We don’t even have a Nadia.

The Nadia in question is Nadia Bolz-Weber, possibly the only celebrity pastor out there from mainline/liberal Christianity these days. She’s tattooed, foul-mouthed, in recovery, and pastors a congregation that was founded to serve people disaffected and abused by more traditional forms of church. She’s a strong writer, inspiring preacher, and seemingly effective pastor. She’s also a bit of a rock star these days.

I’m skeptical enough of our culture’s love of making rock stars that I’m not sure we need an Episcopal rock star. I’m also a little tired of hearing about how excited certain staid Episcopalians get every time they hear about a young green-haired priest out there stirring things up. I’d love to have dozens of Nadias: gifted writers, pastors, theologians, preachers. By that definition there are arguably a number of Episcopal Nadias, just not the rock star variety. But in none of those cases (including that of the original Nadia) is the hair color or the skin decoration the substance of the ministry.

More importantly, comparing hip church-starts to churches with history is apples and oranges. This may be our biggest “Nadia problem.” Newly founded churches by definition cater to a particular, identified demographic and cultural moment. Churches that have been around awhile, in almost all cases, are multilayered, serving several generations, and often reaching out to new neighbors who are quite culturally different from the people the church was founded to serve.

Churches that have passed beyond their founding generation face different challenges than so-called emergent churches that just got started. They require different tools and approaches. Even success will look different. And guess what? If the new church-starts take hold, they will have older church problems in a matter of decades. The millennials’ kids will see the whole millennial relevance thing as so 2010s. My post-millennial teenage daughter refers to the 1990s as “back in the 1900s.” Au courant becomes stale very quickly these days.

We need new church starts, and we also need vision for our churches that have been around for a while. Both the gospel and our tradition are rich enough to speak to both sets of circumstances. But before we start passing the millennial- or hipster-focused church-start toolbox around, let’s remember the failure of the mega church toolbox to “turn around” our churches, especially the ones that were not well positioned to attract the suburban baby boomers that made up the cultural core of the mega church movement. We need tools and approaches that take into account the realities of multigenerational churches, where decades-long members provide stability and also resist experimentation, where new people are being invited into something with some history, a community that has meant different things to different people over the years. 

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