Let’s Talk About Our Congregation’s Future… or Not? (Part 2)

Talking about our congregation’s future is hard. It’s difficult and dangerous territory. So, why go there?

The future is relentless.

Avoiding conversations about the future doesn’t mean the future will leave you alone. Whether it is the short term future of the next hour or so; or, the long term future of life like retirement; the future is relentless. The future is coming. It stalks us like prey. The only question is: Will you seek to avoid the future or face the future?

I’ve seen people take both approaches to the future. Avoidance is sometimes based on a future that seems known to us. I can reach “this point” in the future before I have to make a decision. Then I’ll face the future. For pastors, sometimes it’s formed around children graduating or the ability to retire before a decision needs to be made. For other leaders, it can be about a term of office – can I get off consistory before we have to talk about the future or staffing changes? 

Whatever your rationale for avoiding the future, know this: You are, in fact choosing to face the future by trying to avoid it. Avoidance is a strategy. Lots of preys use the strategy: Avoid the predator. However, that approach also means you’re on the defensive and not free to explore. You’re always aware that the future is out there, you’re just hoping to live out something before it catches up to you.  

Conversations about the future are best done before we’re in crisis.

When the future has you in its sites, it generally causes a crisis. When in crisis, we react, we don’t get to consider and respond. 

I talked with a friend this weekend about end of life. The person is in their early 50’s and dealing with their own parent’s end of life choices. Those discussions made her ponder her own. We talked about how you make your decisions and how you communicate why you are making your decisions. Something her parents hadn’t done and were now facing a crisis. It was a pretty reflective conversation that we both had over a campfire on a Labor Day weekend. 

I’ve also had those conversations in other places that held a lot more pressure. I’ve been in hospital rooms with a person on life support and at funeral homes planning final services that have been filled with a lot of drama because no one really knew how the person felt about life support or how the person desired to be remembered in their funeral. The immediacy of those moments create crisis, not conversations.  

Conversations about the future are like that. When we talk about the future before the crisis, there is a lot more room for conversation. When the future catches us, we’re likely to just react.

God’s got this: the past, the present and the future.

I’ve been talking about “us” a lot so far. How about if we talk about God’s place in the future. I’m often surprised by people who think that if we consider the future, we are “intruding on God’s authority.” 

Here is my reply. Praying about and discerning God’s call for the future of our congregation honors God’s sovereignty. How’s that, you say? We believe in a sovereign God that not only has the seasons in his hand, but also chooses to reveal himself to us – intimately through his personal presence, the Holy Spirit. 

Conversations about a congregation’s future honor that sovereignty. It honors the fact that God promises to reveal himself and lead us. Throughout time, God has chosen to reveal himself and lead his people. Often, his people are guilty of questioning whether this is true (see Moses at the burning bush; God’s people in the wilderness; people’s responses to the resurrection; etc). There are other times, like Paul in Acts 13:3ff and 16:6ff, where the mission of God rests on people hearing the voice of God about the future and acting on what they heard. 

So, you want to honor God? You believe He is the author of the past, the present and the future? Then congregational conversations shouldn’t be limited to just recalling the past or living in the present. The sovereignty of God requires us to seek God’s voice for the future as well.