Resources and Comments in Response to “Gone Fishing”
Beverly and George Thompson, authors of “Gone Fishing” (the January 23, 2012 Alban Weekly, adapted from their book, Grace for the Journey: Practices and Possibilities for In-Between Times), draw on the post-resurrection story of Jesus’s words with his disciples to illustrate the potential of transformational change. Just as Jesus counseled these fishermen to cast their nets deeply from another side of the boat, we’re counseled to examine more deeply the truths about the cultures that shape our congregational life. And just as the biblical story of Jesus’s counsel reveals that the disciples didn’t know the whole story of who they were, “congregations typically do not pay attention to the whole story of who they are.”
The Thompsons urge pastors and congregations to look beyond the “artifacts” and “espoused values” of their churches and to examine their “submerged beliefs.” These beliefs may be rarely spoken aloud, but they form “the place where your congregation’s energy rests.”
While an entire congregation may not wish to engage in this level of cultural “fishing,” a small group of dedicated members willing to ask, “What will happen to our church if we keep on doing what we have done over and over again?” can move forward the process of discovery and transition.
What resources might support this process? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, please consider these items annotated in the Congregational Resource Guide: How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems; Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church from the Inside Out; and Behold I Do a New Thing: Transforming Communities of Faith.
What are your stories and ideas on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you.
Church makes too much of this made-up “in between” time. In between what? It’s all just time. Transition is constant. People come and go. Leaders come and go. The people of church who stay active in the same place know this better than pastors whose “calls” lead them to new communities every few years.
When a matriarch or patriarch of a church community dies, it’s more transitional than when a pastor takes a new job. When tragedy strikes in a community, it’s powerfully transitional. No major study or analysis is done at these pivotal times . . and yet this is when the full foundational belief system of a congregation becomes apparent. It’s also when the full belief system of the denomination becomes apparent.
The congregation’s “call” is to be where they are, to serve God with the blessings God has bestowed upon them — time, talent, possessions. Call them artifacts, culture or foundational beliefs, they are all symbols of God’s love.
Too often church leadership enjoys dealing with the artifacts and culture (every day church life). When the foundational beliefs — always purring along noticed or not — must rev the engine, then all the analysis starts. The church may be labeled “in crisis” when it is simply (pardon the change of metaphor) fishing on the other side.
“Submerged values” are faith. The foundational faith of a community is powerful . . . tremendously so. Tune the engine. Fuel it. But tinker at your own risk.
I feel the connection with your own “punch line got tenuous: “to understand who he was and the new thing he was calling them to do.” We may not be able to tell “how” the presence of Christ calls us to cast on the other side, nor make that presence real, but without the centrality of that presence we make the Gospel narrative into another multi-step plan.