fatigue
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Missional Fatigue
When I visit casual contemporary and traditional churches these days I’m meeting what could be called “a new kind of Christian:” believers who used to attend aggressively missional congregations elsewhere in town. Often a thirty-something couple with two or three elementary age children, these transfers sometimes seem motivated to explain to me their presence in more inwardly-focused settings. In the telling of their stories some patterns have emerged...
Stage 1: intense involvement in the ministry of a missional congregation (however defined), often as key leaders
Stage 2: weathering the financial emergencies, ministry shortfalls, and discipleship pressures that inevitably accompany this kind of enterprise
Stage 3: realizing that the stress of serving in a climate that one friend of mine called, “a miracle on the verge of a disaster every day” is never going to end
Stage 4: identifying a gracious exit strategy, often explained as the need for better children’s or teen ministry
Stage 5: transitioning to another high-quality church that is more family-focused.
Stage 6: feeling somewhat guilty over abandoning the missional scene to do more conventional church
I have absolutely zero evidence that this type of experience is widespread, but meeting several high profile examples has made me wonder if “missional fatigue” receives very little comment because of #6 above, those living with it may just not want to talk about it much.
So, if you will spot me that this “new kind of Christian” is out there, perhaps this sort of fatigue might be inherent to any form of missional ministry simply because of the burdens that it involves: minimal financial support, aggressive newcomers attempting hostile takeovers, handling lifestyle issues, and the fact that the thing has to be invented almost a day at a time. Along the way, leadership is dealing with people who don’t know the Christian “script” and will not be ready to be the Sunday School Superintendant three months after their first visit.
Seeing radical changes in the real lives of unchurched people is a wonderful thing, but dealing with it is also very draining because it involves so much more than packaged, programmatic measures. No wonder the characters on Law & Order: SVU keep mentioning that they are only allowed to serve in the unit for two years, although most of them have been around for much longer than that. Similarly, some hospitals put limits on the number of years a staff person can work in their trauma centers.
What if we thought of ministry the same way, producing some questions about Missional Fatigue:
1. Does it exist, and how widespread would you estimate it to be?
2. Is this why half or more of church planting core groups generally end up leaving the plant to return to a more established environment?
3. Could missional ministries anticipate fatigue onset and develop strategies to do something about it? What would that look like?
4. Is all of this just a normal and natural life-stage issue that revolves around the needs child-raising, perhaps leading to the conclusion that we should build this assumption in our thinking so that the fatigued don’t need to feel as if they are betraying something? See 1 Corinthians 7 on the impact on marriage on ministry, for example.
At the end of one conversation with an M-fatigue couple, I told them that their current sojourn in a mainstream church seemed like more of a seasonal than a permanent thing to me. I encouraged them to think this way and to look for opportunities to return to the “mission field” one day, perhaps when their children are older. I hope I was right.
Your thoughts?
Posted 8/16/2007 7:59 PM - email it
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Several thoughts:
1. "ministry fatigue" is abundant in any new endeavor missional or otherwise. participating in something established is much easier, which is why we always tell people that church planting is definitely not for everyone. - so to answer one question, we need to be very honest with people about the reality of this
2. I think a lot of the reason for this across the spectrum of types of churches is called "initial novelty". People get really excited about new things and dive in with with their whole selves and their whole families too fast and too strong. - so to answer another one of your questions, we have to encourage people not to do that
3. I think this might be happening in groups that appear to be missional but really more like very aggressive outreachers and social service people...which is ok but not really truly missional. So instead of living as incarnations of Jesus in daily life, people are actually adding more meetings, more gathering, more services to their calendar...they're just outward instead of inward focused. - so another answer to your questions - we have to be sure we're not just creating a more "missional looking" traditional community.
4. As for seasonal differences? no, I actually don't think that holds water - - -at least if we're building our communities properly. Any community needs to be caring for one another holistically and making sure there is room for honesty and openness in sharing. If a couple like that attended our community and left feeling that way, I would feel that we failed in creating a safe space for them and developing the relationship where they could open up about their struggles...OR, THEY chose not to express their fatigue in which case it's no one's responsibility but their own. I think that any community needs to make room for life stage changes in the way we work with people.
5. relationships with the sought need not be any more exhausting than any relationship, if it is, we are making it that way and need to step back and examine the situation
Posted 8/16/2007 8:31 PM by mamafish
Great insights. So much seems to come down to what the "m" word means...
Posted 8/16/2007 8:40 PM by Coffeedrinkinfool
My thought is almost the opposite. Being one of these people, I find the guilt comes more from being told that being an intensely missional person is essential for salvation and then changing as person from one on one to a more family oriented person. Mission changes as you grow older. I find it's when I don't have a mission mindset that I actually share Christ with people. I don't think switching churches is the guilt factor. It's the change in us that comes along with the atmosphere switch.
By the way, Mamafish, point three was amazingly well-put. I guess that's somewhat what I'm trying to say. The older you get, the easier it is to live in your faith. It's not a militaristic "Christ or Hell" kind of thing. It becomes a more solid, reassuring foundation and therefore is easier to explain.
Posted 8/16/2007 9:00 PM by Quinners
Earl - the m word hehe...
I hear a lot of institutional churches lately saying "we want to be more missional" but when I talk to them further about what they mean, all they're saying is that they want to serve the homeless and do more outreaches into the community. All that is is the bounded set model - we venture out of our safe space long enough to preach the gospel, share some love and then run back into the safe space dragging a few people along with us if they said the sinner's prayer. That's actually not what it means to live the mission.
And, if all you're doing is adding more of that to your calendar, you're going to burn people out even faster than a traditional inward focused model. So I guess I would turn the tables on you and suggest that without a bit more deconstruction, we're going to ruin people to "missional" by giving them a cheap imitation. The truth however, is that it's very very hard to transition an existing church into being truly missional and a lot of people are trying to plant "missional" churches with very little guidance on what that actually looks like...so they end up using old systems with a new facade...NOW THAT I can imagine wearing real thin real fast.
We lead a missional community. We have 2 littles, my husband has a full time "non church" job and I work part time from home as an independent contractor in graphic design and I am more free and less stressed than I have ever been in all my time in traditional bounded set model church ministry...bar none.
Posted 8/16/2007 9:21 PM by mamafish
thanks for the props quinners :)
it's so odd having my "mamafish" identity, I haven't been on xanga for a couple years now I think. hehe
Posted 8/16/2007 9:22 PM by mamafish
I'm identifying with 2 and 3 right now.
Posted 8/16/2007 11:26 PM by strawberry14
I understand the whole fatigue thing, and I think it's a matter of church support. Does this seem like the kind of thing that mostly happens whenever people take on a higher level of responsibility in ministry? Or can you consider it m-fat when you burn out from doing the same thing (i.e. leading a cell, playing drums, etc) for too long?
May 2006, I left an established Chi Alpha ministry where I was on track to being one of the two oldest lifegroup leaders; had I stuck around, she and I would have both been under three sets of pastors at that group. Instead, God decided to call me to pioneer a Chi Alpha group as a student. This meant transferring, moving my life, and starting everything from just above scratch. I had a few friends who would help me get started, but it was up to me to make sure everything that needed to get done got done.
At various points during the past year, I wished I was back at LSU, forgetting the problems I had as a leader there, mostly conscious of my problems at the time. I think the main problem (and I'm not blaming anyone for this) is that while many people encouraged me to go forward with it, all of the encouragement didn't prepare me for the problems i'd experience. I think I trumped up my expectations of waht would happen, and was pleasantly surprised when my obedience was tested.
So I think that's the biggest issue with m-fat: things are going to get harder when you take on a bigger ministry, and that's just the nature of the beast. We as a church, fellowship, denomination, Kingdom of God, or whatever, can help by being there for people when they're going through m-fat, even by anticipating it and helping to alleviate the burdens on them.
Posted 8/16/2007 11:39 PM by zechdontplay
dunno, but iteresting category you defined
Posted 8/17/2007 5:43 AM by TOWTANSUA
Wouldn't the very fact this conversation is taking place lend a bit of feeling to anyone that the missional community model of ministry, as it has played out, may not be what everything we hoped and dreamed it was? Success within these communities, no matter how much lipstick is applied, is still based on numerical growth. (Self-evident also in the fact that this convo is taking place.) We are beginning to see that, roughly ten years into this emergent movement, people are getting fatigued with it and moving into (or back into) traditional Evangelical church models. (This makes perfect sense: if a twenty-something in 1997 jumped in on the ground floor of one of these ministries and thought it was amazing, a thirty-something, married with two children around seven and four, thinks that confused and hurt twenty-somethings aren't as amazing anymore, largely because amazing-ness generally doesn't matter in middle age.)
Should we not at least seriously consider the thought that perhaps what has been created is simply another niche-market ministry, another rest area en route to regular, ol' church? First it wasn't enough to "have church", whatever that means, so we added Sunday School (back in the Mesozoic Era), then children's church, then youth groups, then campus ministries, now we have another church altogether that isn't supposed to resemble church. What kind of unintended consequences are we leaving to those trad. churches? Are we, wittingly or otherwise, saying in the fashion of an impetuous teenager, that regular church is for crotchety old people? (Unfortunately, this is probably true, but shouldn't necessarily be.)
I would also submit that point three (and, by extension, four) is the exact same argument form a Calvinist would employ in relation to a backslidden believer: that person wasn't really saved or one of the elect to begin with. If that kind of snobbish logic doesn't work for the predestination set, what makes us think it works here?
Let's not think more of our creation than we ought. Because it is still run by Christians, it is still going to end up being programmatic and modern, and those who have been around, the O.G.s of the emergent crowd, will move on when they realize that they're not young adults anymore.
Probably not the most popular opinion out here, but at least consider it.
Posted 8/17/2007 8:37 AM by bsirvio
Whether Missional Fatigue or Ministry Fatigue, I think part of the problem in my circles is Pentecostal cultural baggage. We don't want to talk about it. After all, if you're really "filled with the Spirit" then you should be a constant overcomer. I brought up some of these fatigue topics with a close personal friend in ministry and was rebuked as saying something "demonic." I also have a number of people in my church who insist that depression is only a "demonic attack" and that a Spirit-filled believer shouldn't suffer such things. The mere mention phychological realities are perceived by some as "pagan psycho-babble" and is still anathema in certain circles. I'm not sure that Missional Fatigue can be addressed without addressing Pentecostal cultural baggage at the same time. I also believe this baggage is both why Earl is so popular with some and so maligned by others.
Posted 8/17/2007 8:48 AM by sanjaymn
bsirvio - snobbish? wow. ok. in one fell swoop you managed to insult missional, me AND all calvinists...that's impressive.
What I was saying is that this sort of thing is a problem ... period. To lay blame on missional is in error. I was simply providing potential reasons and solutions for the issue. If indeed this couple was just participating in a group that had changed some externals but didn't really rip things down to the wiring then I can see how that would happen to them and one cannot say that it's because that group was "missional".
I think it's important that every church, every community prepare for these situations, that they be on guard for it and that they nurture those who need to leave for whatever reason.
Also, while I don't agree that "missional" is a seasonal thing, the SPECIFIC community very well may be a seasonal or transitional experience - - and indeed people need to be reassured that it's ok if they need to find another space.
bsirvio - you're also talking about a very narrow percentage of the "emerging church" population - believe it or not, there are HUGE NUMBERS of churches with diverse ages. The suggestion that we're all funky 20 somethings is what critics use to attack Emergent...and is not accurate. I think all new things tend to be more heavily populated with "younger adults" because we tend to be the ones willing and able to make change happen...but not all communities are like that.
I also think, as another offer of "solution", that communities need to make sure they're not standing on their own. part of missional is engaging the broader Body - networking if you will. When communities band together to provide resources one community on its own cannot, then you have the tools needed to help a variety of people.
And I can't help but think about rural communities or other countries where the buffet of churches is not so readily available. This couple would have had to work through this issue within the context of their existing community and it might have been painful and messy but I think in the end it would have made everyone stronger for it. the couple would have had to be creative with their solutions and the community would have had to admit where it failed them and reconcile that relationship. But because there are so many options in models and types of churches available, people can just move to another church. I don't think there is a fast cure for consumerism in this country but I think it's worth it to acknowledge that it's part of the problem.
Posted 8/17/2007 9:45 AM by mamafish
Mamafish: OK, first things first: Calvinists need to be insulted. :) You have to get outside of your paradigm to understand why I would read what you've written as snobbish. If you want to remain offended, fine. My intent was and is not to.
Concerning the "HUGE NUMBERS", as I have appealed to nebulous statistics, so have you. All caps alone will not convince me that there is actual cultural gentrification in missional churches, and as one who has visited more than a handful of such communities around the nation, I am not convinced that you're accurate, either. When older people start showing up, you can rest assured that there has been a level of selling out that has taken place, from a missional/postmodern/emergent point-of-view, oxymoronic as that would be. I've seen that first-hand. The older folks show up because it's the presumed new big thing, like trading in a 4Runner for a Hummer three years ago. Interestingly enough, they would tend to do the same thing if something else were presumed to be the next big thing. Otherwise, I would agree with you that younger people are naturally more experimental, but we're also painfully and idealistically naive, especially to think that what is going on is either truly innovative or revolutionary, or to say that some of these people or communities aren't that missional to begin with.
Your response concerning "solution" is noble and well-intended, but ultimately far too idealistic. Networking is exactly what the traditional Evangelical church pastor doesn't want: not from each other and certainly not from green ankle-biters such as you or me. (Cynical? You bet. With good reason.) You're absolutely right, when they say they want missional, they want yet another program or service to offer, another chest-thumping portfolio-builder. Funny thing is that many of these so-called organic communities do the exact same thing, but also offer 'networking', if one can call licit plagiarism, podcasting and an increasingly homogenized (and at the same time increasingly dissonant) emergent church culture networking.
To assume rural communities don't have religious smorgasbord is misguided. Half of my roots are in rural Southern Minnesota, the other in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (Yah-Hey!) While I won't pretend it's exactly the same as a metropolitan area, there is a plethora of churches, and they actually seem to get along most of the time, because the community rallies around the church, the church doesn't artificially create community. Perhaps we should take a hint from the blue-collar crowd outside the walls of the church. (apologies for the cliche.)
It's counter-productive to just say it's OK if they need to go somewhere else, no different than a Bible college telling one of its enrolled, "If you don't like it, you can leave." If the problems are similar in both camps, and you seem to say they are, then what exactly is the difference between typical Evangelical church and emergent church? People get bored or burned-out in both places, as you renamed Creps' term 'ministry fatigue', and the varied problems that exist in typical church are also prevalent in the e/m/pm camp. How troubling would it be if, for all the sound and fury invested in e/m/pm church culture, it was so that everything were ripped "down to the wiring" and rebuilt, only to be rebuilt the exact same way, just with different decor, canister lights and generally better coffee? You may disagree with me, but the preponderance of the evidence, coupled with this fatigue development, seems to indicate that it just might be so.
I'm not going to be the one who says traditional is better, it's clearly not, but this emergent fatigue is in my opinion evident of people who are tired, perhaps bored, from révolution a la mode. Plainly, movements cannot sustain themselves over time. Eventually fashion has to give way to form, and eventually e/m/pm insurrections, like anything else, will give up their respective spirits, like Che Guevara on the augmented chests of dependently wealthy sophisticates.
I don't know that I have a better solution, if there is one. Doesn't mean we can't try to figure it out. We just shouldn't think that that "New Kind of Christian" is really new. It, like the modern Democratic Party platform, is a repackaging of the same old, tired policy. We could use some John Nash-types, desiring a truly original idea. Don't we serve a God who, if capable of anything, is more than capable of originality?
Posted 8/17/2007 11:37 AM by bsirvio
pardon the html goof. my bad.
Posted 8/17/2007 11:38 AM by bsirvio
I'm not offended, if I were so I'd have said so :) And I think it's arrogant to suggest that calvinists need to be insulted.
I'm only going to respond to a few of your points because in many ways you just repeated what I said.
1. I'm not suggesting networking with evangelical churches, I've experienced how bad that can be. But our community networks with other communities just fine. Some are mainline, some are other emerging communities. I don't see how it's idealistic if it's being done.
2. I'm not saying a movement can sustain itself as "revolutionary" nor am I saying there isn't gentrification going on, I'm saying that living the mission is a way of life not a new church model and if communities empower, equip and encourage their people to live the mission then there shouldn't be any more of a burnout problem than in any other programatic formulaic church...in fact, there *should* be less...now, is there? in some cases apparently not as Crep's narrative shows. So it needs to be addressed.
3. rebuilding everything the same way with different fixings would be assanine so I'm not sure who would suggest such a thing. But that's exactly my point. Many pastors are trying to "be missional" by creating programs and systems and that's not what is at the heart of missional...so that right there is the problem, not missional.
I agree with you that this isn't "new" - nothing is truly new. But I disagree with your negative views about what's going on right now in the Body. I might be proved wrong some day but we're living it right now...if hind sight shows that what we were doing was in fact in vain then I will stand corrected. Our community is taking steps to prevent these things, as should every community. Much of what we do is make sure we're not just adding "stuff" to the already packed calendars of our people.
I feel some animosity from you and I'm not sure where that's coming from but please understand that I am more realistic than anyone. Ideology is not part of what I'm seeing here or discussing
Posted 8/17/2007 12:49 PM by mamafish
the mistake of many missional type ministries is that they have this boot camp mentality. we teach people how to burn out and then make them feel bad for it. i believe the problem is bad pastoring in the verbal, actually what it means sense. a pastor is a sheperd, supposed to care for the sheep. it seems to me what we are doing often times is more or less asking our flock to do nothing but reproduce all the time to make the flock larger and no energy is spent on the health of the individual.
Posted 8/17/2007 1:06 PM by jeffboone
Jeff - that would indeed be a sad state of affairs. I wouldn't appreciate a community like that either and it's something to watch for.
I think I should clarify something here. This problem is a problem of culture and our very humanness. No one is immune from it, no community of faith, no organization, no individual. It's something that absolutely MUST be addressed, no doubt about it.
So when I say it's not an issue of "missional" I would also suggest that it's not an issue of institutional church either. It's not necessarily the fault of the model inherently, it's the fault of faulty humans...and we must acknowledge that it exists, that it happens and having been in traditional and progressive ministry for quite awhile now, I have seen it, experienced it and know it all too well.
What I really hope to communicate though is that if we as leaders can guide our communities, to teach one another to live the mission in a real life holistic sense, we should be able to walk with one another in the mission and prevent this from happening or at least care for each other when it does. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure this is a "problem" so much as it is something that we process through on our journey and we need to do it together rather than running away.
Posted 8/17/2007 1:15 PM by mamafish
I know that might seem like I'm contradicting myself and I apologize if I'm being confusing or overly simplistic but I'm sort of thinking out loud as well :)
Posted 8/17/2007 1:17 PM by mamafish
mamafish, you definitely seem to have thought this all through. i think there is too many people who assume that a group of people in the same place automatically equals a community.
Posted 8/17/2007 3:20 PM by jeffboone
back to the "m" word. What does that mean? What does it mean to be on mission with God? I feel that so many of us have a very different understanding for what that means. . . hence, the huge difference in ministry expression. Hands down however, there is fatigue and most communities of faith deal with this on a continual basis.
Where is the element of the spritiual in all of this. It seems that we limit what missional means based upon our preferred context. I'm quite sure none of us would have gone the way the apostle did in teh book of Acts. . . but they were being obedient to what the Spirt told them to do. It really wasn't a crucial issue on what is "being" missional or what is "doign" mission. . .it was obedience. I think we could use some of that and allow for different expressions in the body of Christ. I don't think fatigue happens because of our models. . . it happens for many, many reasons that often times have little to do with tradtion.
I would dare say that most missional exiters leave because there is too much that is unpredictable. People who start off "journeying" with the emergent crowd soon find that they actually want something a little more set in stone. Where the journey is appealing at first, it becomes confusing when you don't have definite answers. I'm not saying either is better, though my personal preference leans toward the unknown. This unknowingness could especially be true for couples with kids. . . a journey is fun and adventurous but there is some value in knowing how your kids will be discipled week after week. Several missional people and leaders are still struggling through beliefs and theological issues. This is not bad at all, but incredibly difficult to create followers when you're not sure where you're going.
Its a tough balancing act. YOu can't wait to have all the answers before you start a missional community, yet there should be some assurance or safety net in terms of where you're headed. A journey is typically only fun if you're at least somewhat confident that you're taking the right path.
Posted 8/17/2007 3:27 PM by godiznice
goiznice - I agree with you that obedience to the Spirit is a key but everyone thinks they're obeying the Spirit ;) and that can often cause tremendous guilt and shame when things don't go as planned, so we have to be careful with that. My guess is that most of you are AoG or some variation? I think that definitely is going to shape the views you have of "doing church" and what it means to follow the Spirit.
I think you're spot on when you say that people tend to like predictability and familiarity. And I think we in the emerging church need to acknowledge that fact and prayerfully work through what our response is. We are notorious for not really liking process, we talk a lot about the journey but when it comes right down to it, we tend to see the journey as a means to the end instead of an end unto itself.
I'm not sure each community needs to offer assurance but I do think each community needs to be honest about what it is and what it isn't. Our community is a ship - we pointed ourselves in a certain direction and off we sail..we make no guarantees about ports of call or even where our destination is and we tell people from the get go that it's not for everyone.
jeffboone - absolutely right, a gathering of humans does not automatically a community make
I think that this is a very good example of what makes us disappointed. Disappointment comes when our reality doesn't match up with our expectations. It's really important to constantly examine the expectations of the individuals in our communities to make adjustments. It sounds to me like this family was experiencing a bit of disappointment because they expected something out of their "missional" community that it ultimately didn't offer.
Posted 8/17/2007 4:44 PM by mamafish
sanjaymn - I think that's a very astute observation, there definitely is "pentecostal baggage" in certain circles that can add to the sense of loss people experience when a community doesn't live up to their expectations - - something to be aware of. I'm sorry for your experiences with the "hyper charismatic" crowd :(
Posted 8/17/2007 4:47 PM by mamafish
Ah, tired old debate. I think the point should be community. The word gets used alot here, but never gets made to be the point. If one community doesn't satisfy the spiritual and/or interpersonal needs of a person/family/people group, then finding a new place isn't jumping ship. It's taking care of yourself. And I don't that emergent churches say, in effect, "if you don't like it, you can leave." I rather think they are saying, "we're doing our best here, and if it's not what fits your personal needs and/or desires, we welcome you to keep searching for a place that does." It's not an insult or pride, it's merely a statement of reality.I think what needs to be pointed out in the traditional/emergent argument needs to be that we aren't fighting a war against each other here. We're just doing what we can. I love my pastor and my church family at Church in Uptown, so I go. It's emergent. I also love my pastors and church family back home at Fargo First Assembly where my father pastors. It's more traditional. Both sides seem to work fine, and until the lines are erased, in a sense, and both sides learn to communicate with and support each other, it simply becomes more interdenominational BS.
Posted 8/17/2007 5:12 PM by Quinners
I don't think the lines need to be erased, I just think we need to do better at acknowledging the profound beauty and diversity in the Body - - in my experience, emerging communities do better at appreciating their traditional evangelical family members than the other way around. But that's just MY experience.
I think what you're saying is good - one community cannot always meet the *perceived* needs of every person all the time at each stage of life. But one must be cautious about this attitude because it can quickly become consumeristic.
Posted 8/17/2007 5:46 PM by mamafish
I guess my question back is, what's wrong with consumerism, even in a church environment (and not necessarily monetarily). Shopping around is healthy. Period.
Posted 8/17/2007 6:04 PM by Quinners
shopping around for churches is healthy? wow. ummm...I'm not really sure where to go with that. I guess I would say that our perceived needs are often not needs but selfish wants and if we focus on searching for a place that feeds our selfish wants, we will not following God's kingdom plan for His creation.
Posted 8/17/2007 6:51 PM by mamafish
Missional Fatigue
When I visit casual contemporary and traditional churches these days I’m meeting what could be called “a new kind of Christian:” believers who used to attend aggressively missional congregations elsewhere in town. Often a thirty-something couple with two or three elementary age children, these transfers sometimes seem motivated to explain to me their presence in more inwardly-focused settings. In the telling of their stories some patterns have emerged...
Stage 1: intense involvement in the ministry of a missional congregation (however defined), often as key leaders
Stage 2: weathering the financial emergencies, ministry shortfalls, and discipleship pressures that inevitably accompany this kind of enterprise
Stage 3: realizing that the stress of serving in a climate that one friend of mine called, “a miracle on the verge of a disaster every day” is never going to end
Stage 4: identifying a gracious exit strategy, often explained as the need for better children’s or teen ministry
Stage 5: transitioning to another high-quality church that is more family-focused.
Stage 6: feeling somewhat guilty over abandoning the missional scene to do more conventional church
I have absolutely zero evidence that this type of experience is widespread, but meeting several high profile examples has made me wonder if “missional fatigue” receives very little comment because of #6 above, those living with it may just not want to talk about it much.
So, if you will spot me that this “new kind of Christian” is out there, perhaps this sort of fatigue might be inherent to any form of missional ministry simply because of the burdens that it involves: minimal financial support, aggressive newcomers attempting hostile takeovers, handling lifestyle issues, and the fact that the thing has to be invented almost a day at a time. Along the way, leadership is dealing with people who don’t know the Christian “script” and will not be ready to be the Sunday School Superintendant three months after their first visit.
Seeing radical changes in the real lives of unchurched people is a wonderful thing, but dealing with it is also very draining because it involves so much more than packaged, programmatic measures. No wonder the characters on Law & Order: SVU keep mentioning that they are only allowed to serve in the unit for two years, although most of them have been around for much longer than that. Similarly, some hospitals put limits on the number of years a staff person can work in their trauma centers.
What if we thought of ministry the same way, producing some questions about Missional Fatigue:
1. Does it exist, and how widespread would you estimate it to be?
2. Is this why half or more of church planting core groups generally end up leaving the plant to return to a more established environment?
3. Could missional ministries anticipate fatigue onset and develop strategies to do something about it? What would that look like?
4. Is all of this just a normal and natural life-stage issue that revolves around the needs child-raising, perhaps leading to the conclusion that we should build this assumption in our thinking so that the fatigued don’t need to feel as if they are betraying something? See 1 Corinthians 7 on the impact on marriage on ministry, for example.
At the end of one conversation with an M-fatigue couple, I told them that their current sojourn in a mainstream church seemed like more of a seasonal than a permanent thing to me. I encouraged them to think this way and to look for opportunities to return to the “mission field” one day, perhaps when their children are older. I hope I was right.
Your thoughts?
Posted 8/16/2007 7:59 PM - email it
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Several thoughts:
1. "ministry fatigue" is abundant in any new endeavor missional or otherwise. participating in something established is much easier, which is why we always tell people that church planting is definitely not for everyone. - so to answer one question, we need to be very honest with people about the reality of this
2. I think a lot of the reason for this across the spectrum of types of churches is called "initial novelty". People get really excited about new things and dive in with with their whole selves and their whole families too fast and too strong. - so to answer another one of your questions, we have to encourage people not to do that
3. I think this might be happening in groups that appear to be missional but really more like very aggressive outreachers and social service people...which is ok but not really truly missional. So instead of living as incarnations of Jesus in daily life, people are actually adding more meetings, more gathering, more services to their calendar...they're just outward instead of inward focused. - so another answer to your questions - we have to be sure we're not just creating a more "missional looking" traditional community.
4. As for seasonal differences? no, I actually don't think that holds water - - -at least if we're building our communities properly. Any community needs to be caring for one another holistically and making sure there is room for honesty and openness in sharing. If a couple like that attended our community and left feeling that way, I would feel that we failed in creating a safe space for them and developing the relationship where they could open up about their struggles...OR, THEY chose not to express their fatigue in which case it's no one's responsibility but their own. I think that any community needs to make room for life stage changes in the way we work with people.
5. relationships with the sought need not be any more exhausting than any relationship, if it is, we are making it that way and need to step back and examine the situation
Posted 8/16/2007 8:31 PM by mamafish
Great insights. So much seems to come down to what the "m" word means...
Posted 8/16/2007 8:40 PM by Coffeedrinkinfool
My thought is almost the opposite. Being one of these people, I find the guilt comes more from being told that being an intensely missional person is essential for salvation and then changing as person from one on one to a more family oriented person. Mission changes as you grow older. I find it's when I don't have a mission mindset that I actually share Christ with people. I don't think switching churches is the guilt factor. It's the change in us that comes along with the atmosphere switch.
By the way, Mamafish, point three was amazingly well-put. I guess that's somewhat what I'm trying to say. The older you get, the easier it is to live in your faith. It's not a militaristic "Christ or Hell" kind of thing. It becomes a more solid, reassuring foundation and therefore is easier to explain.
Posted 8/16/2007 9:00 PM by Quinners
Earl - the m word hehe...
I hear a lot of institutional churches lately saying "we want to be more missional" but when I talk to them further about what they mean, all they're saying is that they want to serve the homeless and do more outreaches into the community. All that is is the bounded set model - we venture out of our safe space long enough to preach the gospel, share some love and then run back into the safe space dragging a few people along with us if they said the sinner's prayer. That's actually not what it means to live the mission.
And, if all you're doing is adding more of that to your calendar, you're going to burn people out even faster than a traditional inward focused model. So I guess I would turn the tables on you and suggest that without a bit more deconstruction, we're going to ruin people to "missional" by giving them a cheap imitation. The truth however, is that it's very very hard to transition an existing church into being truly missional and a lot of people are trying to plant "missional" churches with very little guidance on what that actually looks like...so they end up using old systems with a new facade...NOW THAT I can imagine wearing real thin real fast.
We lead a missional community. We have 2 littles, my husband has a full time "non church" job and I work part time from home as an independent contractor in graphic design and I am more free and less stressed than I have ever been in all my time in traditional bounded set model church ministry...bar none.
Posted 8/16/2007 9:21 PM by mamafish
thanks for the props quinners :)
it's so odd having my "mamafish" identity, I haven't been on xanga for a couple years now I think. hehe
Posted 8/16/2007 9:22 PM by mamafish
I'm identifying with 2 and 3 right now.
Posted 8/16/2007 11:26 PM by strawberry14
I understand the whole fatigue thing, and I think it's a matter of church support. Does this seem like the kind of thing that mostly happens whenever people take on a higher level of responsibility in ministry? Or can you consider it m-fat when you burn out from doing the same thing (i.e. leading a cell, playing drums, etc) for too long?
May 2006, I left an established Chi Alpha ministry where I was on track to being one of the two oldest lifegroup leaders; had I stuck around, she and I would have both been under three sets of pastors at that group. Instead, God decided to call me to pioneer a Chi Alpha group as a student. This meant transferring, moving my life, and starting everything from just above scratch. I had a few friends who would help me get started, but it was up to me to make sure everything that needed to get done got done.
At various points during the past year, I wished I was back at LSU, forgetting the problems I had as a leader there, mostly conscious of my problems at the time. I think the main problem (and I'm not blaming anyone for this) is that while many people encouraged me to go forward with it, all of the encouragement didn't prepare me for the problems i'd experience. I think I trumped up my expectations of waht would happen, and was pleasantly surprised when my obedience was tested.
So I think that's the biggest issue with m-fat: things are going to get harder when you take on a bigger ministry, and that's just the nature of the beast. We as a church, fellowship, denomination, Kingdom of God, or whatever, can help by being there for people when they're going through m-fat, even by anticipating it and helping to alleviate the burdens on them.
Posted 8/16/2007 11:39 PM by zechdontplay
dunno, but iteresting category you defined
Posted 8/17/2007 5:43 AM by TOWTANSUA
Wouldn't the very fact this conversation is taking place lend a bit of feeling to anyone that the missional community model of ministry, as it has played out, may not be what everything we hoped and dreamed it was? Success within these communities, no matter how much lipstick is applied, is still based on numerical growth. (Self-evident also in the fact that this convo is taking place.) We are beginning to see that, roughly ten years into this emergent movement, people are getting fatigued with it and moving into (or back into) traditional Evangelical church models. (This makes perfect sense: if a twenty-something in 1997 jumped in on the ground floor of one of these ministries and thought it was amazing, a thirty-something, married with two children around seven and four, thinks that confused and hurt twenty-somethings aren't as amazing anymore, largely because amazing-ness generally doesn't matter in middle age.)
Should we not at least seriously consider the thought that perhaps what has been created is simply another niche-market ministry, another rest area en route to regular, ol' church? First it wasn't enough to "have church", whatever that means, so we added Sunday School (back in the Mesozoic Era), then children's church, then youth groups, then campus ministries, now we have another church altogether that isn't supposed to resemble church. What kind of unintended consequences are we leaving to those trad. churches? Are we, wittingly or otherwise, saying in the fashion of an impetuous teenager, that regular church is for crotchety old people? (Unfortunately, this is probably true, but shouldn't necessarily be.)
I would also submit that point three (and, by extension, four) is the exact same argument form a Calvinist would employ in relation to a backslidden believer: that person wasn't really saved or one of the elect to begin with. If that kind of snobbish logic doesn't work for the predestination set, what makes us think it works here?
Let's not think more of our creation than we ought. Because it is still run by Christians, it is still going to end up being programmatic and modern, and those who have been around, the O.G.s of the emergent crowd, will move on when they realize that they're not young adults anymore.
Probably not the most popular opinion out here, but at least consider it.
Posted 8/17/2007 8:37 AM by bsirvio
Whether Missional Fatigue or Ministry Fatigue, I think part of the problem in my circles is Pentecostal cultural baggage. We don't want to talk about it. After all, if you're really "filled with the Spirit" then you should be a constant overcomer. I brought up some of these fatigue topics with a close personal friend in ministry and was rebuked as saying something "demonic." I also have a number of people in my church who insist that depression is only a "demonic attack" and that a Spirit-filled believer shouldn't suffer such things. The mere mention phychological realities are perceived by some as "pagan psycho-babble" and is still anathema in certain circles. I'm not sure that Missional Fatigue can be addressed without addressing Pentecostal cultural baggage at the same time. I also believe this baggage is both why Earl is so popular with some and so maligned by others.
Posted 8/17/2007 8:48 AM by sanjaymn
bsirvio - snobbish? wow. ok. in one fell swoop you managed to insult missional, me AND all calvinists...that's impressive.
What I was saying is that this sort of thing is a problem ... period. To lay blame on missional is in error. I was simply providing potential reasons and solutions for the issue. If indeed this couple was just participating in a group that had changed some externals but didn't really rip things down to the wiring then I can see how that would happen to them and one cannot say that it's because that group was "missional".
I think it's important that every church, every community prepare for these situations, that they be on guard for it and that they nurture those who need to leave for whatever reason.
Also, while I don't agree that "missional" is a seasonal thing, the SPECIFIC community very well may be a seasonal or transitional experience - - and indeed people need to be reassured that it's ok if they need to find another space.
bsirvio - you're also talking about a very narrow percentage of the "emerging church" population - believe it or not, there are HUGE NUMBERS of churches with diverse ages. The suggestion that we're all funky 20 somethings is what critics use to attack Emergent...and is not accurate. I think all new things tend to be more heavily populated with "younger adults" because we tend to be the ones willing and able to make change happen...but not all communities are like that.
I also think, as another offer of "solution", that communities need to make sure they're not standing on their own. part of missional is engaging the broader Body - networking if you will. When communities band together to provide resources one community on its own cannot, then you have the tools needed to help a variety of people.
And I can't help but think about rural communities or other countries where the buffet of churches is not so readily available. This couple would have had to work through this issue within the context of their existing community and it might have been painful and messy but I think in the end it would have made everyone stronger for it. the couple would have had to be creative with their solutions and the community would have had to admit where it failed them and reconcile that relationship. But because there are so many options in models and types of churches available, people can just move to another church. I don't think there is a fast cure for consumerism in this country but I think it's worth it to acknowledge that it's part of the problem.
Posted 8/17/2007 9:45 AM by mamafish
Mamafish: OK, first things first: Calvinists need to be insulted. :) You have to get outside of your paradigm to understand why I would read what you've written as snobbish. If you want to remain offended, fine. My intent was and is not to.
Concerning the "HUGE NUMBERS", as I have appealed to nebulous statistics, so have you. All caps alone will not convince me that there is actual cultural gentrification in missional churches, and as one who has visited more than a handful of such communities around the nation, I am not convinced that you're accurate, either. When older people start showing up, you can rest assured that there has been a level of selling out that has taken place, from a missional/postmodern/emergent point-of-view, oxymoronic as that would be. I've seen that first-hand. The older folks show up because it's the presumed new big thing, like trading in a 4Runner for a Hummer three years ago. Interestingly enough, they would tend to do the same thing if something else were presumed to be the next big thing. Otherwise, I would agree with you that younger people are naturally more experimental, but we're also painfully and idealistically naive, especially to think that what is going on is either truly innovative or revolutionary, or to say that some of these people or communities aren't that missional to begin with.
Your response concerning "solution" is noble and well-intended, but ultimately far too idealistic. Networking is exactly what the traditional Evangelical church pastor doesn't want: not from each other and certainly not from green ankle-biters such as you or me. (Cynical? You bet. With good reason.) You're absolutely right, when they say they want missional, they want yet another program or service to offer, another chest-thumping portfolio-builder. Funny thing is that many of these so-called organic communities do the exact same thing, but also offer 'networking', if one can call licit plagiarism, podcasting and an increasingly homogenized (and at the same time increasingly dissonant) emergent church culture networking.
To assume rural communities don't have religious smorgasbord is misguided. Half of my roots are in rural Southern Minnesota, the other in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (Yah-Hey!) While I won't pretend it's exactly the same as a metropolitan area, there is a plethora of churches, and they actually seem to get along most of the time, because the community rallies around the church, the church doesn't artificially create community. Perhaps we should take a hint from the blue-collar crowd outside the walls of the church. (apologies for the cliche.)
It's counter-productive to just say it's OK if they need to go somewhere else, no different than a Bible college telling one of its enrolled, "If you don't like it, you can leave." If the problems are similar in both camps, and you seem to say they are, then what exactly is the difference between typical Evangelical church and emergent church? People get bored or burned-out in both places, as you renamed Creps' term 'ministry fatigue', and the varied problems that exist in typical church are also prevalent in the e/m/pm camp. How troubling would it be if, for all the sound and fury invested in e/m/pm church culture, it was so that everything were ripped "down to the wiring" and rebuilt, only to be rebuilt the exact same way, just with different decor, canister lights and generally better coffee? You may disagree with me, but the preponderance of the evidence, coupled with this fatigue development, seems to indicate that it just might be so.
I'm not going to be the one who says traditional is better, it's clearly not, but this emergent fatigue is in my opinion evident of people who are tired, perhaps bored, from révolution a la mode. Plainly, movements cannot sustain themselves over time. Eventually fashion has to give way to form, and eventually e/m/pm insurrections, like anything else, will give up their respective spirits, like Che Guevara on the augmented chests of dependently wealthy sophisticates.
I don't know that I have a better solution, if there is one. Doesn't mean we can't try to figure it out. We just shouldn't think that that "New Kind of Christian" is really new. It, like the modern Democratic Party platform, is a repackaging of the same old, tired policy. We could use some John Nash-types, desiring a truly original idea. Don't we serve a God who, if capable of anything, is more than capable of originality?
Posted 8/17/2007 11:37 AM by bsirvio
pardon the html goof. my bad.
Posted 8/17/2007 11:38 AM by bsirvio
I'm not offended, if I were so I'd have said so :) And I think it's arrogant to suggest that calvinists need to be insulted.
I'm only going to respond to a few of your points because in many ways you just repeated what I said.
1. I'm not suggesting networking with evangelical churches, I've experienced how bad that can be. But our community networks with other communities just fine. Some are mainline, some are other emerging communities. I don't see how it's idealistic if it's being done.
2. I'm not saying a movement can sustain itself as "revolutionary" nor am I saying there isn't gentrification going on, I'm saying that living the mission is a way of life not a new church model and if communities empower, equip and encourage their people to live the mission then there shouldn't be any more of a burnout problem than in any other programatic formulaic church...in fact, there *should* be less...now, is there? in some cases apparently not as Crep's narrative shows. So it needs to be addressed.
3. rebuilding everything the same way with different fixings would be assanine so I'm not sure who would suggest such a thing. But that's exactly my point. Many pastors are trying to "be missional" by creating programs and systems and that's not what is at the heart of missional...so that right there is the problem, not missional.
I agree with you that this isn't "new" - nothing is truly new. But I disagree with your negative views about what's going on right now in the Body. I might be proved wrong some day but we're living it right now...if hind sight shows that what we were doing was in fact in vain then I will stand corrected. Our community is taking steps to prevent these things, as should every community. Much of what we do is make sure we're not just adding "stuff" to the already packed calendars of our people.
I feel some animosity from you and I'm not sure where that's coming from but please understand that I am more realistic than anyone. Ideology is not part of what I'm seeing here or discussing
Posted 8/17/2007 12:49 PM by mamafish
the mistake of many missional type ministries is that they have this boot camp mentality. we teach people how to burn out and then make them feel bad for it. i believe the problem is bad pastoring in the verbal, actually what it means sense. a pastor is a sheperd, supposed to care for the sheep. it seems to me what we are doing often times is more or less asking our flock to do nothing but reproduce all the time to make the flock larger and no energy is spent on the health of the individual.
Posted 8/17/2007 1:06 PM by jeffboone
Jeff - that would indeed be a sad state of affairs. I wouldn't appreciate a community like that either and it's something to watch for.
I think I should clarify something here. This problem is a problem of culture and our very humanness. No one is immune from it, no community of faith, no organization, no individual. It's something that absolutely MUST be addressed, no doubt about it.
So when I say it's not an issue of "missional" I would also suggest that it's not an issue of institutional church either. It's not necessarily the fault of the model inherently, it's the fault of faulty humans...and we must acknowledge that it exists, that it happens and having been in traditional and progressive ministry for quite awhile now, I have seen it, experienced it and know it all too well.
What I really hope to communicate though is that if we as leaders can guide our communities, to teach one another to live the mission in a real life holistic sense, we should be able to walk with one another in the mission and prevent this from happening or at least care for each other when it does. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure this is a "problem" so much as it is something that we process through on our journey and we need to do it together rather than running away.
Posted 8/17/2007 1:15 PM by mamafish
I know that might seem like I'm contradicting myself and I apologize if I'm being confusing or overly simplistic but I'm sort of thinking out loud as well :)
Posted 8/17/2007 1:17 PM by mamafish
mamafish, you definitely seem to have thought this all through. i think there is too many people who assume that a group of people in the same place automatically equals a community.
Posted 8/17/2007 3:20 PM by jeffboone
back to the "m" word. What does that mean? What does it mean to be on mission with God? I feel that so many of us have a very different understanding for what that means. . . hence, the huge difference in ministry expression. Hands down however, there is fatigue and most communities of faith deal with this on a continual basis.
Where is the element of the spritiual in all of this. It seems that we limit what missional means based upon our preferred context. I'm quite sure none of us would have gone the way the apostle did in teh book of Acts. . . but they were being obedient to what the Spirt told them to do. It really wasn't a crucial issue on what is "being" missional or what is "doign" mission. . .it was obedience. I think we could use some of that and allow for different expressions in the body of Christ. I don't think fatigue happens because of our models. . . it happens for many, many reasons that often times have little to do with tradtion.
I would dare say that most missional exiters leave because there is too much that is unpredictable. People who start off "journeying" with the emergent crowd soon find that they actually want something a little more set in stone. Where the journey is appealing at first, it becomes confusing when you don't have definite answers. I'm not saying either is better, though my personal preference leans toward the unknown. This unknowingness could especially be true for couples with kids. . . a journey is fun and adventurous but there is some value in knowing how your kids will be discipled week after week. Several missional people and leaders are still struggling through beliefs and theological issues. This is not bad at all, but incredibly difficult to create followers when you're not sure where you're going.
Its a tough balancing act. YOu can't wait to have all the answers before you start a missional community, yet there should be some assurance or safety net in terms of where you're headed. A journey is typically only fun if you're at least somewhat confident that you're taking the right path.
Posted 8/17/2007 3:27 PM by godiznice
goiznice - I agree with you that obedience to the Spirit is a key but everyone thinks they're obeying the Spirit ;) and that can often cause tremendous guilt and shame when things don't go as planned, so we have to be careful with that. My guess is that most of you are AoG or some variation? I think that definitely is going to shape the views you have of "doing church" and what it means to follow the Spirit.
I think you're spot on when you say that people tend to like predictability and familiarity. And I think we in the emerging church need to acknowledge that fact and prayerfully work through what our response is. We are notorious for not really liking process, we talk a lot about the journey but when it comes right down to it, we tend to see the journey as a means to the end instead of an end unto itself.
I'm not sure each community needs to offer assurance but I do think each community needs to be honest about what it is and what it isn't. Our community is a ship - we pointed ourselves in a certain direction and off we sail..we make no guarantees about ports of call or even where our destination is and we tell people from the get go that it's not for everyone.
jeffboone - absolutely right, a gathering of humans does not automatically a community make
I think that this is a very good example of what makes us disappointed. Disappointment comes when our reality doesn't match up with our expectations. It's really important to constantly examine the expectations of the individuals in our communities to make adjustments. It sounds to me like this family was experiencing a bit of disappointment because they expected something out of their "missional" community that it ultimately didn't offer.
Posted 8/17/2007 4:44 PM by mamafish
sanjaymn - I think that's a very astute observation, there definitely is "pentecostal baggage" in certain circles that can add to the sense of loss people experience when a community doesn't live up to their expectations - - something to be aware of. I'm sorry for your experiences with the "hyper charismatic" crowd :(
Posted 8/17/2007 4:47 PM by mamafish
Ah, tired old debate. I think the point should be community. The word gets used alot here, but never gets made to be the point. If one community doesn't satisfy the spiritual and/or interpersonal needs of a person/family/people group, then finding a new place isn't jumping ship. It's taking care of yourself. And I don't that emergent churches say, in effect, "if you don't like it, you can leave." I rather think they are saying, "we're doing our best here, and if it's not what fits your personal needs and/or desires, we welcome you to keep searching for a place that does." It's not an insult or pride, it's merely a statement of reality.I think what needs to be pointed out in the traditional/emergent argument needs to be that we aren't fighting a war against each other here. We're just doing what we can. I love my pastor and my church family at Church in Uptown, so I go. It's emergent. I also love my pastors and church family back home at Fargo First Assembly where my father pastors. It's more traditional. Both sides seem to work fine, and until the lines are erased, in a sense, and both sides learn to communicate with and support each other, it simply becomes more interdenominational BS.
Posted 8/17/2007 5:12 PM by Quinners
I don't think the lines need to be erased, I just think we need to do better at acknowledging the profound beauty and diversity in the Body - - in my experience, emerging communities do better at appreciating their traditional evangelical family members than the other way around. But that's just MY experience.
I think what you're saying is good - one community cannot always meet the *perceived* needs of every person all the time at each stage of life. But one must be cautious about this attitude because it can quickly become consumeristic.
Posted 8/17/2007 5:46 PM by mamafish
I guess my question back is, what's wrong with consumerism, even in a church environment (and not necessarily monetarily). Shopping around is healthy. Period.
Posted 8/17/2007 6:04 PM by Quinners
shopping around for churches is healthy? wow. ummm...I'm not really sure where to go with that. I guess I would say that our perceived needs are often not needs but selfish wants and if we focus on searching for a place that feeds our selfish wants, we will not following God's kingdom plan for His creation.
Posted 8/17/2007 6:51 PM by mamafish
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