Re-Engaging the De-Churched: Four Strategies

Re-Engaging the De-Churched: Four Strategies August 25, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 6.59.49 PMIn their book Church Refugees, Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope sketch four reasons why some active Christians become the Dones:

They wanted community.. .and got judgment.

They wanted to affect the life of the church.. .and got bureaucracy.

They wanted conversation.. .and got doctrine.

They wanted meaningful engagement with the world… and got moral prescription.

Their book however is not designed for those who want to be mad at the church; it’s not designed for the Dones to say “See how good we are.”  Instead, this book assures the church refugees that they have been heard and recommends to pastors and leaders and churches and all those who care about the Dones four strategies for re-engaging the de-churched, the church refugees, the Dones.

Here are the four strategies with their subpoints affixed.

1. Invite participation—with limits.

First, large bureaucracies can’t possibly centralize true innovation.

Second, an organization that isn’t failing often isn’t succeeding ever.

Third, the biggest asset of a truly strong and flourishing organization is its people, not a person.

2. Undermine bureaucracy.

Exploding Deadlines—This simple strategy puts end dates on some programs or staff functions that would otherwise exist in perpetuity. From the outset, some of the work of the church is designed to be projectbased, not program-based. When the project ends, the church moves on to something else.

First, it lets them know that they shouldn’t expect church leaders to do everything.

Second, exploding deadlines let people know there are ways for them to truly impact the life of the church.

Finally, exploding deadlines keep the mission of the church front and center in the congregation’s consciousness.

3. Be truly relational.

The Dones consistently said that they see a role for both service and relationship in the church. The problem, from their perspective, is that the church doesn’t often move past the realm of service into relationship despite what the dechurched see as a core message from Jesus to live in solidarity with those in need….

The answer may lie in the principles of an approach to community development called Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). This approach to strengthening communities and neighborhoods focuses on identifying and leveraging the strengths that currently exist in a community rather than focusing on its deficits or problems.

The ABCD approach is inherently relational. It isn’t possible to do a true inventory of assets or begin to mobilize people around their assets unless people are in relationship with one another. Of course, all the dynamics that come with relationships are at work here as well. So the process may be time-consuming and messy with little measurable outcome in the shortrun. However, the potential for long-term payoff is enormous.

4. Impact your community…and be impacted.

When I cover this topic in my classes at the University of Northern Colorado, I ask my students to take part in a simple exercise.

I ask them to close their eyes; then I play the sound of a police siren. Then, without consulting one another, they write down the first things that came to mind when they heard the sound. The responses are extremely varied. Students describe feelings of fear, pride, annoyance, and concern, to name a few. They recall stories of harassment, being helped by police officers, dreams of working in law enforcement, and stories of family members who do. They talk about how they hated living next to a police station when their own children were young because the sirens used to wake them up. They even tap into larger discourses about current events that involve the police on a statewide or national level.

The lesson for my students is that a group s overall understanding of an issue is deepened and expanded by hearing a multiplicity of perspectives. They come to realize that none of their thoughts, stories, or experiences is more or less true than another.


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