#250 | Navigating the Crisis: A Blueprint for Church Renewal

Welcome to those who Serve the Lord, a podcast for those at the front lines of ministry.

You've given your life to serve.

But what happens when the well runs dry?

If you've felt the weight of leadership, the tension between tradition and change, or the challenge of staying faithful while engaging culture, you're not alone.

I'm Travis Michael Fleming, founder and executive director of Apollo's Watered, the Center for Discipleship and Cultural Apologetics.

I've been at the front lines for over 25 years, leading churches to become thriving Testament testimonies of God's grace.

I've wrestled with the same questions you're facing, and I've seen how God brings renewal even in the hardest seasons.

Each week we have conversations with pastors, theologians, and cultural thinkers as we seek to equip you to lead well and stay rooted in Christ amid shifting cultural tides.

So grab your coffee and listen in, because your faith matters, your work is not in vain, and the Lord is still with you every step of the way.

Foreign welcome back to those who Serve the Lord.

I am so excited to kick off this new series based upon my book, Blueprint Kingdom Living in the Modern World.

Over the next five weeks, we are going to examine God's blueprint for us today.

We're going to see how we have kind of moored away from it and how we can get it back.

But before we do that, we need to get a lay of the land.

We need to see really how things are.

And when we examine the data, when we talk to the experts, we find out pretty quick that all is not well, despite some saying, oh no, there's nothing to see here, just move on.

No, there is a crisis before us.

In episode 211, I had Russell Moore, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, on the show, and he said that we're in a crisis.

But he also said that embedded within any crisis, there's an opportunity for hope.

Crisis is often a necessary step toward the right kind of change.

There has to be a shifting and a disorientation, the disruption of the status quo, because a lot of what we had was unhealthy and needed to be done away with.

And there never comes a time when we will say, oh, well, now's the time that we're going to address those things.

When crisis comes, we have the opportunity to make change.

There are some, when they hear me talk like that, they start to rise up and they want to defend the church.

They feel like we're insulting the church, we're insulting Jesus.

No, no, no, no.

That's not it at all.

And they're fearful because they think that we're going to just wipe everything away.

I'm not saying that everything is bad in the church today.

I'm saying that there are many things that are good, but we have to be discerning, we have to be patient, and we also have to be willing to call out error and rot when it's in front of us.

In a previous conversation I had Trevin wax on and this is what he said about the state of the Church today.

I think the church is at a.

Moment where there's a lot of rot in the church.

And so it's a time for reformation and rebuilding.

And unfortunately, a lot of times conservative.

Leaning people, in order to protect the institution, wind up.

Not intentionally, but they wind up defending rot.

And unfortunately, progressive leaning people, in order.

To purge the institution, wind up blowing up foundational pillars.

That's a sobering observation.

And he's right.

We are in a moment where reformation is needed.

Not just a tweak here or there, but a deep re evaluation of who we are, what we believe and how we live it out.

But in our fear.

Fear of losing influence, fear of compromise, fear of betrayal.

Many on the right are clinging to institutional structures or cultural norms that may actually be in decay.

And many on the left, in their pursuit of justice or authenticity, are sometimes tearing away at truths that hold the church together.

It's like we're stuck in a tug of war between institutional preservation and cultural purification.

And in the middle, a whole lot of people are letting go of the rope entirely.

That's where the Great Dechurching comes in.

Because while the debates rage on among leaders and thinkers, the people in the pews, or perhaps more accurately, those who used to be in the pews, are walking away to the number of 40 million people.

That's staggering.

That's more people that have left the Church in the last 25 years than the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening and all of the Billy Graham Crusades combined.

We had Michael Graham, co author of the book the Great Dechurching, back in episode 228, discussed this phenomenon with us.

And he revealed that the number is actually a lot more than 40 million.

It's actually probably more than that because there wasn't a technical definition for this.

So we tried to basically define it.

So we defined somebody as being de churched is that they consistently went to church on a monthly or greater basis, consistently, and then now go to church less than once per year.

So there are a bunch of people who just go to church on Christmas or Christmas Eve or just go on Easter or maybe Christmas and Easter.

Those people, for the purpose of our definition, we did not count as d church.

And so there's many, many million more Christmas than Easter.

Only people that aren't in that 40 million.

So the problem's even larger than just.

The 40 million number, significantly larger than the 40 million number.

I don't think we understand how massive this shift really is.

Tens of millions of people walking away from the church.

And here's the thing.

It's not just about church attendance.

It's about formation, or more accurately, the lack of it.

Because it's not just that people are leaving churches.

It's that even many who are staying aren't being deeply rooted in in scripture.

That's where John Plate from the American Bible Society offers some critical insight.

Each year, he helps lead the State of the Bible Report.

And the numbers don't lie.

Bible reading is in sharp decline.

In fact, we're seeing the lowest levels of consistent scripture engagement in decades.

And here's what's sobering.

This isn't just a cultural issue.

It's a church issue.

Many professing Christians have lost the habit of reading scripture.

The story of God has become unfamiliar, the voice of God distant.

So while the great detourching is happening outside the sanctuary, there's also a great drifting happening inside it.

As John put it, people aren't being shaped by the word of God.

They're being shaped by something else.

News feeds, social media, tribal narratives.

And without a steady diet of truth, the church becomes malnourished.

Listen in to what John had to say.

10% decrease in one year.

It dropped to 39% last year.

It's 38% this year.

So that means that for the first time on record, fewer than 100 million American adults say that they are reading the Bible at least two or three times a year.

And that's a really low bar.

But it's just an indicator of like, is the Bible even part of the conversation for most people?

We also look at a more granular view of things where we look at scripture engagement.

Scripture engagement is more than just how frequently do you read the Bible?

But it's what difference is it making in your inner life?

What difference is it making in the way you live your life?

And so if you put those things together, we have three big buckets of people.

We have a group that we call the Scripture Engaged or the Bible Engaged.

That group of people, they're consistently interacting with the Bible.

It's shaping their choices.

It's really transforming their relationships, the way they see themselves, see others, understand God, all of that.

Today, that's 18% of American adults, or 47 million American adults are scripture engaged.

It's a really, really big shift in just a few years.

John Plake's data is clear, and honestly, it's heartbreaking.

Fewer and fewer people are engaging with scripture.

And when the people of God disconnect from the Word of God, it's only a matter of time before drift sets in.

Personally, theologically, and even emotionally.

But this just isn't a challenge for church members.

It's taking a massive toll on church leaders like yourself too, because here's the reality, and you know this.

When the flock is struggling, the shepherds often suffer in silence.

And that suffering is reaching crisis levels.

That's where a ministry like Care for Pastors comes in.

It's a ministry dedicated to strengthening pastors and their families, helping them find healing, support, and rest.

When ministry becomes overwhelming, they're doing holy work behind the scenes, offering counseling retreats and one on one care for leaders who often feel like they have nowhere else to turn.

Robert White is one of the counselors of their team.

And back in episode 21, early on in our podcast, he shared something that I find very alarming, but not surprising.

Burnout, discouragement, isolation.

Pastors who feel like they're drowning under the weight of expectations and spiritual exhaustion.

And let's be honest, the pressures on pastors today are immense.

Theologically divided congregations, cultural battles, loneliness in leadership, a pressure to perform.

Many are leading churches that are shrinking, trying to keep people engaged and silently asking, is it worth it?

Can I keep going?

I spoke with Robert and here's what he described, what he's seeing on the front lines.

We're seeing resignations at an all time high, and pastors are just so exhausted and they're walking away from the ministry.

They're resigning in unprecedented numbers.

I'll tell you something else that's really happening.

And a lot of this can be at least partially blamed on the COVID crisis.

There's a lot of forced terminations among pastors, churches are firing their pastors, they're getting rid of them.

And sometimes it's because they just don't understand what's happening in the life of the pastor.

And sometimes it's a power grab.

You know, people take crisis and they turn it into a power grab and they get rid of the pastor, and they've see a chance to do that and they take it.

And we've seen all kinds of forced terminations.

And of course that's traumatic, the pastor and his family.

So we're seeing those kinds of things.

But as you mentioned, the biggest thing is pastors are just exhausted.

They're so tired.

The drain upon them mentally, emotionally and spiritually is just overwhelming for them.

Listening to Robert White, it's clear we're in triage mode.

People are exhausted.

Christian leaders are exhausted.

Pastors are burning out.

Congregations are shrinking.

The church feels like it's bleeding from a thousand cuts.

But here's the thing.

Considering all of that, what are we going to do?

We can't just keep patching wounds.

Here's what I mean.

Brian Fickert is an economist and the author of When Helping Hurts, a book that I highly recommend that everyone who has ever listened to to my show get.

If you needed to get one book based on any of the episodes that we've done, that would be the book.

He tells a story that really hits home for moments like this.

He says, imagine you're standing by a river and suddenly you see a body floating downstream.

You jump in and pull it out.

Then another and another.

You keep working, rescuing as fast as you can, but eventually you have to stop and ask the question, what's happening upstream that's causing all of this?

See, that's the moment we're in right now is the church.

We're pulling out bodies from the river, pastors on the edge, believers quietly drifting away, communities spiritually malnourished.

But we can't just stay in this crisis response mode.

We need to go upstream and we need to ask what deeper cultural and spiritual forces are creating this flood.

And one of those forces, one that doesn't make much headlines, may even be more significant when we look at it in the long run.

And it's what Philip Jenkins has pointed out in his research.

See, Jenkins is a global historian of Christianity, and he's raising the alarm about something we rarely talk about in church leadership circles.

He says, we're not having any children and we're not raising the ones we do have in the faith.

It's not just a demographic trend.

It's A deeply spiritual one, because for centuries, the church has grown, not just through revival, but through faithful generational discipleship around kitchen tables, through bedtime prayers and rhythms of life passed from parents to children.

But today, that handoff is breaking down.

Many Christians aren't prioritizing family formation or aren't seeing it as part of their calling in the kingdom.

And when that breaks down, the long term future of the church is at risk, no matter how dynamic our present may look.

So let's go upstream with Jenkins and hear why this matters so deeply, not just for sociology, but for discipleship.

For one thing, it provides a very good predictor, if you like to cut out the middleman.

It provides an interesting warning sign of the decline of religious institutions in particular countries, including the United States.

And for many years, people have said, well, you know, the United States is different.

It's a very wealthy society, but it's a relatively high fertility society, and that correlates with high religious practice.

In the last decade, the fertility rates have gone to European levels.

Demographically, the United States now looks a lot like Denmark.

And the suggestion is that if there's anything to this experience worldwide, then that foreshadows a much more secular United States.

So if you are an American and you're concerned with religion, this is a very pressing issue indeed.

Philip Jenkins helps us see something we don't often consider, that the future of the church isn't just about who's coming in.

It's about who's being raised up.

And right now, the numbers tell a sobering story.

Fewer children, fewer being discipled, fewer stepping into the life of faith.

If we're serious about the future of Christianity in the west, we can't ignore the demographic crises, because it's not just about numbers, it's about legacy.

But that's not even the whole picture, because even as parts of the American church are shrinking, especially white institutional Christianity, something else is happening just beneath the surface.

Gina Zirlow, a leading sociologist of global Christianity and co director of the center for the Study of Global Christianity, has tracked the data closely.

And what she sees is both sobering and.

And hopeful.

Yes, white Christianity in America is in decline, but Christianity itself, it's not disappearing, it's shifting.

It's becoming more Latino, more immigrant led, more global in flavor and expression, even right here in the United States.

So while one part of the church is fading, another is quietly rising.

And the question we have to ask is, are we paying attention?

Are we clinging so tightly to one version of Christianity, one expression that we're Missing what God is doing through others.

Here's how Gina Zurlow explains what's happening in the American church and what it might mean for our future.

Yeah, the USA is an outlier in so many different ways, both good and bad.

So the United States is the country with the most Christians in the world today and projected to continue to be the country with the most Christians.

But the internal dynamics of Christianity are changing.

So how can Christianity be declining in the USA but still be the country with the most Christians?

Well, it's because of immigration from Latin America.

Most Christians.

Most people in Latin America are Christians.

So when they cross the border and they come here, that helps bolster the Christian population in the usa.

So that means white Christianity is declining the fastest in the United States.

But Latino, Latina Christianity, even black Christianity, Asian Christianity has a much more robust staying power than white Christianity appears to have.

As we've seen today, there are some tough realities for the church in the West.

But despite the challenges, there's a hopeful reality that's emerging.

We don't have to look far to see it either.

The younger generation is hungry for something real.

Intellectuals in the United Kingdom are turning back to God.

As Justin Brierly notes in his book, the Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.

Immigrant churches are thriving, breathing new life into communities.

The gospel is still at work in ways we often overlook.

But the road forward isn't as simple as just trying harder or continuing the way things were before.

No, no, no, no.

We still have that rot that we have to deal with.

And the rot that we're talking about doesn't need a new program or a fresh strategy.

It needs a fresh return to the fundamentals.

And that's exactly what we're going to be focusing on in this new series, Blueprint Kingdom Living in the Modern World.

We've talked a lot about the challenges.

Now we're going to talk about a way forward.

What's the blueprint that will guide us through this season?

What does Kingdom living really look like today?

In this series, we're going to explore three areas that on the surface, we all know.

But too often we miss their full depth and implications.

These are the three pillars we need to understand and embody if we're going to move from crisis to renewal.

The great Commandment, loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

The great community.

The church is God's redeemed people, a new family in Christ, and the Great Commission living out our call to make disciples of all nations.

These just aren't slogans or lofty ideals.

They're the bedrock of Kingdom Living, and they're more radical and life shaping than we often realize.

So how do we reclaim these greats for today?

How do we let them reshape how we live, love and engage with the world?

That's what we're going to unpack together in this series.

And if you want to dive deeper into these ideas right now, you can grab a copy of Blueprint Kingdom Living in the Modern World over on Amazon.

It'll be a great companion as we explore how these three pillars can reshape our lives and our churches.

In the days ahead, we'll look at how each of these areas, when understood deeply and applied faithfully, can help us build a church that's not just surviving but thriving in this time of crisis.

So stay tuned.

The road ahead may be challenging, but with the right blueprint, we can see the church renewed and living out its true calling in the world.

Foreign thank you for joining us on today's episode of those who Serve the Lord.

A podcast of Apollo's watered the center for Discipleship and Cultural Apologetics.

We trust that what you've heard has inspired and encouraged you in your walk of faith.

Remember, serving the Lord isn't just about what we do.

It's about who we are becoming in Him.

Whether in the small moments or the grand gestures, each step of service brings us closer to his heart.

If you found today's discussion meaningful, we invite you to share it with others who might be encouraged.

And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.

It helps spread the message to those who need to hear it most.

Until next time, may you continue to serve the Lord with joy, humility, and a heart full of his love.

God bless you.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off.

Stay watered, everybody.