To Push or Not To Push

Rev. Joshua Patty
Regional Minister and President


This summer, I’ve been pondering God’s greatest hopes for our time right now. In many ways, it seems to me that the pandemic has created a need to clarify what the church is and how it lives in this world. Also, the pressures and trauma of the past 18 months have created needs in people’s lives to which our faith provides the best answers.

The problem is that these two things create different impulses. On the one hand, we likely have a once in a generation opportunity to adapt ministry in ways that can be a faith home for people who have turned away from (or been turned away from) the church, such as digital natives and people who value diversity of ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and more. And, in a world always exploring new ways to connect, we can expand the ways people connect in the church.

On the other hand, most people -- some active in faith, some not -- need space and time to grieve and heal from the trauma of the past 12 months. Often, they need to tell us what they need… after they’ve been invited into safe space where they admit some of their hurts and needs.

So here’s a question that I still cannot answer. How much, as church leaders, should we be pushing for change in the church? After all, the pandemic has created a context where people seem more willing to adapt. But, as we know from caring for people who are grieving the loss of loved ones, our best decisions are not usually made from the depths of grief. In those situations, we often advise people to embrace the space needed for healing -- and we likely will do this repeatedly in the coming months.

Maybe honoring this tension is a good guide for our ministry in the coming months. We will invite people to lament and confess brokenness and seek God’s compassion and healing. In doing so, we won’t push too hard for change. We will also recognize that this is fertile ground prepared by God for new growth in the church. We will not let the space needed for grief deter us from imagining the changes we can make to more fully be the church in this age. We won’t let grief hold us back too much from becoming this new church.