Leading in an Era of Upheaval
Chris Backert
Apr 27, 2023

Shortly after the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, a friend who has spent years working in Disaster Relief in Recovery remarked to me that they expected a major vocational transition among ministry leaders in the years following. 

The basis for the prediction was their experience that 50% of pastors in an area hit by a major disaster often moved to a new location in the ensuing years. The theory was that at least one out of every two ministry leaders simply could not absorb the impact of ministering through such a period of intensity.

Of course, the circumstances of the last few years are enhanced by the fact that the “disaster” has been prolonged, and the implications have been much more extensive and all-encompassing. Each and every day the cultural shifts that were initiated in the last few years have become more apparent and they present significant challenges to the church. 

Leading during such periods requires certain characteristics that are not necessarily essential in other seasons.  As I have both observed the last few years and considered the ones ahead, there are three characteristics of church leaders that will likely rise in importance in the days to come.

  •  Tenacity

I cut my teeth in ministry in the area of church planting.  If there is a handful of defining characteristics that make a fruitful church planter, tenacity is certainly among them. Simply put, you must have a willingness not to give up, to keep going, to keep fighting, to stay afloat, and to stay faith-filled. Now, tenacity is not the same as resilience. Resilience has been a much-discussed aspect of leadership over the last few years, but it has a major distinction in dimension. Resilience implies a capacity to hold your ground and not give up. In juxtaposition, tenacity is the will to keep moving forward in the midst of our resilience. 

Having planted multiple churches myself, and having coached and catalyzed dozens of others, it has been my overwhelming experience that a tenacious love for the gospel and the power it can have in people’s lives is a requirement for not only surviving but thriving through the difficult and challenging obstacles of starting something from nothing. That same tenacity can also flow over into our will to keep taking new ground (or not conceding ground) in our efforts to bring to life a new community of faith. 

  •   Conviction

For most of my career in ministry, I have cast a skeptical glance toward those that would make comments like “One day we might have to choose between going to jail and following Jesus.” I can remember when Andrew Jones first made that comment in the early 2000s; such a thing seemed implausible to me. However, in the year 2023, such comments, while still seeming a stretch, no longer feel like the leap they would have even been in 2019. Perhaps because of the political polarization in our nation, the co-opting of the church by ultra-right ideologies, or the unilateral activism based on secular progressive thinking, now even basic Orthodox beliefs and practices held by generous centrist-type evangelicals seem to be at odds with the social power structures of the day. Some church leaders have tended toward a posture of “relaxing” their previously held convictions in response. I see this particularly in areas related to human sexuality, but also related to core Christological beliefs.  Just before Easter, I read a post by an Asbury Seminary graduate who was musing on the prospect of hope for those who did not enter the kingdom of God during their human living experience. Such views of course are not new as they are not far off from the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. However, what is striking is the lifting up of such beliefs as an apologetic to the wider world as a “backdoor” for historic Christian views on salvation.  While there may indeed be a “backdoor” into the kingdom based on what we know about the abundant and confounding grace of God revealed in Jesus, as Dallas Willard would say, “it is surely not the gospel.” We should hold forth the gospel because the gospel is what we can have confidence in, the “backdoor” is merely a hopeful conjecture even if it is based on a heart of love.  The church of the future that will be in existence will be in existence because of the gospel and nothing else and it is our responsibility to hold to Orthodoxy with conviction.  After all, if church history teaches us anything, it is that Orthodoxy prevails. 

  • Faith

The church leader of the future will quite simply need faith. This is not a day of ministry for the faint of heart.  Even if we can’t recall it ourselves, we’ve heard plenty of stories about pastors who served on hospital boards, as the trustees of colleges, as advisors to mayors, and in other positions of influence and prestige in communities. When I first moved to Richmond, Virginia in the mid-2000s, the major local paper still gave out an award for “pastor of the year.” The role of the pastor in any community has always taken a certain level of faith, but for the most part, pastoral ministry over the last several decades has not required the “God providing, unless God acts” kind of faith we’ve been told stories about. For sure, every Christian leader has likely had some experience in their calling and career where God simply had to come through and they had to step out in faith, trusting that God would act on their behalf. But in the days to come I expect that kind of faith will be an ongoing, at least annual reality in some form or fashion. It is likely that we will experience more stories of pastoral ministry similar to the era of the frontier period in North America than the Post World War II period that has shaped so much of our ministry context and imagination. In truth, we will grow in our faith because we will need to see God act in power and provision more than we are currently accustomed to. 

Tenacity.

Conviction.

Faith.

This is a short list and so much more will be required. Yet without these, whatever practical ministry skills we need or other elements of character and Christian formation that is required will be lost without these essential foundations. 

How It Is Now Is Not How It Will Always Be

By Bob Hyatt • 20 Mar, 2024
One of the main tricks in life, I believe, is not to extrapolate current conditions and circumstances off into the future. However, that’s exactly the tendency we have as humans, and especially, I’ve discovered, as ministry leaders. We look at things now and think they will always be that way. We long to see landmarks in the road, mileposts that tell us either we have now reached the pinnacle, the place we always dreamed of being (even if that place is only “stability”), or conversely, the bottom has fallen out and now is the time to bail out. But the mileposts are merely markers on the journey, telling us where we are now, promising nothing of the journey ahead. And so, when things are good, we see nothing but success and good times stretching out in front of us. In the depths of despair, during the most challenging times of life and ministry we feel as though the darkness has become the new normal. The reality is much more complex: there are always better times ahead, and worse ones as well. During those dark times, when ministry becomes more of a weight than a joy, I tell myself, “whatever is happening now will not keep happening forever.” Those words have kept me through relational breaks in our staff that seemed unfixable, through budget woes when we didn’t think we were going to meet payroll, even a time when our community lost a third of its members because we had let a beloved pastor go. In this way I have found hope. In the same way, during the successful times when we were growing, budget was bigger than ever, and when new people were engaging with the church seemingly every week I continued to tell myself, “what is happening now will not keep happening forever.” In this way I have found a measure of humility. There’s another way to read this mantra as well, one that encourages us not to miss what is happening right now as we overly focus on where we’d like to be or what we’d like to see happen. The challenge of ministry, like the challenge of life in general, is to be present to what’s happening now . Too many single people miss the joys of singleness longing to be married. Too many young married couples miss the joys of the early years without children because they long to be parents. Too many parents of young children miss the joys of the infant years, longing for the days when their children are more independent, less dependent on them for everything. And on it goes. In the same way we in ministry can miss the joys of a small, close community by looking at larger communities and wishing we had their resources and influence. We can miss the inherent learning and even joy of being shoulder to shoulder in community with others through challenging times because the difficulties and pain we are experiencing mask the ways in which we are being brought together, the ways in which we are being formed and the invaluable things we are learning. In life, and in ministry, remember: How it is now is not how it will always be. Learn to appreciate how things are now, but also take comfort in the fact that if things are difficult, there are better days ahead. Stay humble because no success is forever. Stay hopeful because, in Christ, no failure is permanent.

Exciting Announcement- Ecclesia is Joining Ascent!

By Chris Backert • 19 Feb, 2024
I’m writing to share some exciting and important news with you that we believe will be significant for Ecclesia in the days ahead! For the last few years, I have been engaged with other church and network leaders across the US and Canada about forming a new “connection” for the church in North America. The heart of the effort is around unifying, amplifying, and multiplying the kind of Christian witness that Ecclesia represents, for the sake of the gospel, over the next few decades. This new effort is called The Ascent Movement, and within the last 12 months, its momentum has picked up increasing speed. A few months ago, I was asked by the council of Ascent if I would help spearhead the development of the network in its next phase. I agreed to accept that task. One of the core goals of Ascent is to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with groups like Ecclesia so that we can do more together than we could in isolation. In many ways, it will function as a “network of networks” like Ecclesia functions as a “network of churches”. In addition to ministries like Ecclesia, there are also seminaries, mission agencies, and other ministry support organizations that are joining Ascent in these early days. For the last several months the Ecclesia board has been discerning whether or not Ecclesia would officially enter into a partnership affiliation with Ascent. We unanimously affirmed that decision at our recent board meeting. Since Ascent is in its early phases of formation, more information on the benefits and opportunities of this new partnership will be ongoing. However, we are happy to share some of the aspects of this new affiliation that we find compelling and will not only bless Ecclesia, but also all of the churches within Ecclesia. First, given the size of Ecclesia, there have always been areas of ministry that we believe are important, but toward which we have not had the scale to accomplish or contribute. Among these are concrete efforts around - increasing the witness of the Hispanic church in North America - supporting mission expansion to less-resourced parts of North America - increasing opportunities for disaster relief and response - and mobilizing prayer networks. Further, there are also specific and tangible benefits that are made possible through this partnership for any Ecclesia Churches. Some of these include things like - discounted tuition costs to Truett Seminary for any Ecclesia leader or member serving an Ecclesia Church. - discounted rate in utilizing the services of Chemistry Staffing for future hiring - access to a church-based missionary sending ministry for those Ecclesia Churches engaged globally, and more! Lastly, there is a specific aspect to this partnership affiliation that is particularly helpful to Ecclesia. Ascent has agreed to partner with Ecclesia over the next year to expand our church planting and multiplication reach in a way that benefits both Ecclesia and Ascent. Practically, this looks like Ascent investing a little over $1,000/month into Ecclesia over this next year and together working toward a set of mutually beneficial goals. As I think about this opportunity within the current moment of our network, it seems right for multiple reasons beyond the purely practical. At our Ecclesia board meeting in late 2022, we established a path for individual affiliation within Ecclesia to make concrete space for leaders who are outside ministry contexts that allow for our core congregational affiliation. The heart of this decision was a desire to increase the kinds of relationships that Ecclesia has within our scope of ministry. The decision to affiliate with Ascent is similar. Also, as I shared at our Ecclesia Gathering in January, this decision fits within the Core DNA of Ecclesia. When I look back at the founding of our network, three aspects were central then and have carried forward. First, our desire to extend the gospel to increasingly post-Christian, or more challenging, settings and groups of people. Second, a desire to exemplify a Christian witness aligned with the theological and missiological direction of affirmations like the Capetown Commitment. Third, our desire to provide a relationally rich journey of friendship for the churches and leaders who are part of our family. When I consider the affiliation with Ascent, we share in common those first two Core DNA. As for the 3rd foundational aspect of our network, I believe the time has come where Ecclesia itself needs “friends for the journey” in the same way that Ecclesia has provided a context of friendship for those within our community. On the other side of COVID, it’s clear that ministry in the days ahead is more exciting, while also more challenging and complex. We believe we need a greater community to be the most faithful to the gospel that we can. You can go to www.ascentmovement.org to get a quick glimpse of its vision. The current website is a placeholder for a more thorough site coming later this Spring. Ecclesia, of course, will have a seat at the table in its formation. We have also provided a one-page overview of Ascent on the attached document. We will keep you updated on this exciting development. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. - Chris
Share by: