‘Nobody gets through an endeavor like this without focusing on what God is calling a congregation to do for the sake of their neighbors’

Two Presbyterians with an eye to the future stop by the ‘A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast’ microphones

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Mark Elsdon, an author and co-founder of Rooted Good, which has partnered with the PC(USA) on its Good Futures Accelerator Course, joined Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, the PC(USA)’s Deputy Executive for Vision andwhat Innovation, for a recent edition of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” hosted by Dr. Andrew Peterson and Simon Doong. Listen to their 52-minute conversation on reimagining church property here.

Here’s the question Doong and Peterson posed to their guests: “How can innovation and reimagining the use of church property help address these challenges while staying true to the church’s mission and fostering vibrant ministry in changing times? With the most pressing challenge related to church property being the cost of maintaining these assets, how can congregations navigate this issue?”

Elsdon, who edited the recent book “Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition” and wrote “We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry,” noted that churches and faith communities “have always been part of what’s going on in the world” but “at the same time, we have this economic shift that’s pretty radical for churches. Declining participation means declining giving” while aging buildings “are getting more expensive to maintain.”

“In some ways it feels dark, but I think it’s an exciting moment,” Elsdon said, “because it’s forcing a really creative rethinking of what it means to be the gathered community of Jesus followers in the world today.”

Schlosser-Hall added this dimension: “People are starting to see that the gifts of God in the form of land, property and assets can have more than the one purpose they were originally conceived for. They are starting to see their spaces in a new light.” One example: Underground Ministries, which equips local communities to embrace people returning from prison, operates out of a church’s Christian education wing. “It’s not necessarily part of our everyday worship life,” the congregation reasoned, according to Schlosser-Hall, “but it is an intervention in our community that’s making a huge difference in the lives of individuals and families.”

An example Elsdon brought forward is First Presbyterian Church of Gulf Shores, Alabama, home to the Hand-in-Hand Business Center. Before First Presbyterian considered opening a business incubator, “It was a classic case of the building weighing them down. It was so expensive they couldn’t see a way forward,” Elsdon said.

A key task as part of the Good Futures Accelerator Course is listening to the community. What FPC and its pastor, the Rev. Chrisy Ennen learned by doing that was there was a real need for a place for entrepreneurs to start their business. “Eighteen months later, this church has nine entrepreneurs starting a business out of [the church’s] education wing,” Elsdon said. “The church has become a new business incubator that’s central in the life of Gulf Shores.” It’s generated $100,000 in revenue for the church “and they’ve connected with all these people who otherwise would have never walked into the church. They have become a hub of activity.”

“It’s not worship on Sunday,” Elsdon said. “But it’s breathed new life into the congregation and given them a whole different perspective of what future years look like for them.”

However, “there’s no such thing as a model you can just pull off the shelf. This is all contextual,” Elsdon said. “It’s got to be rooted in our communities, in the life of the congregation itself, in its history and who the people are. That’s the stuff that really matters in the end.”

“We’re still the church. We’re trying to do things that are transformative of people’s lives,” Elsdon said. “Whatever the answer is, the answer comes in conversation with our neighbors and in community.”

Dr. Andrew Peterson

The PC(USA) has partnered with Rooted Good to make the Good Futures Accelerator available at half-off the regular price, Schlosser-Hall said. “It’s the classic Fred Buechner notion: Where does our great joy and capacity meet the world’s great need?”

“It’s a process to go through,” Schlosser-Hall said, “and it’s going to lead you to different kinds of outcomes, depending on where you’re planted.”

“That process is so important,” Elsdon said. “I’ve yet to see a congregation be successful in developing its property not having done a process like that.”

“Not all these churches will be here in a decade, and that’s OK,” Elsdon said. “Things have a lifecycle. That’s true of churches and all kinds of institutions. It doesn’t mean God’s going away.”

Schlosser-Hall pointed out that all faith communities, Presbyterians among them, are part of “a connected body of Christ. When part of the body is faithfully completing its ministry, there are other parts of the body that are growing new life, new ministry, new development — a new way of being.” Read the Book of Acts to learn more, Schlosser-Hall recommended. “You will see existing strategies being questioned over and over again. People found a new way, and they had to follow the Spirit to get there, because it wasn’t always apparent.”

“I think often we need to look at people who are in the margins in communities that are not as front and center,” Elsdon said. “They’re often immigrant communities” and other communities of color “doing interesting things, who don’t have access to wealth that traditional white congregations had.” As a connectional church, mid councils in the PC(USA) don’t “have to think of these properties one by one.”

A dynamic Schlosser-Hall and others see “a lot” is “people waiting too long to begin to open up to these possibilities,” he said. “They keep pushing back on the same thing: ‘Let’s make our music a little better. Let’s make our worship a little better. Let’s make our youth group a little more energized.’ If they wait too long, the creativity, the possibility, the resources to help that model shift diminish.”

Elsdon said a conversation about its legacy can help a congregation to shape its future. “I sometimes ask congregations to think about 50 years from now, which is usually past the life of most of the people making those decisions,” he said. “What’s happening [in 50 years] on this property, and how do you feel about that? If you were to come back 50 years from now and see what’s going on with this property, how would you feel about what’s happening here [now], because you have the ability to shape what’s going to go on there.”

Schlosser-Hall said a person attending Synod School last summer told him, “So much of our spiritual formation is built around conservation and preservation. We come here and we talk about innovation, and we just don’t know how to do it.”

“What an honest and interesting insight,” Schlosser-Hall said.

Simon Doong

At Rooted Good, “We encourage people not to start necessarily with huge things all the time. We haven’t exercised those muscles,” Elsdon said. He suggested trying “something manageable, like using your [church’s] commercial kitchen to launch a food entrepreneurship. Maybe start with inviting a food truck onto your parking lot for three Fridays in the summer. See what happens and figure out how to make those determinations as a congregation.”

“If you don’t set it up well in a way you’re actively learning and integrating your learning into what’s next,” Schlosser-Hall said, “then it can be just a thrust of energy that dissipates rather than a thrust of energy that integrates.”

He said a pastor he and Elsdon know, the Rev. Ashley Goff, pastor of Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia, has said this about congregations helping to create affordable housing in their community: “Nobody gets through an endeavor like this without focusing on what God is calling a congregation to do for the sake of their neighbors.”

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop on Thursdays. Go here to listen to previous editions.