One of the privileges of my role as Director of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary is that I get to meet with stewardship leaders from a variety of ministries across the church. In one week, I might connect with leaders from a 200-year old ELCA congregation who are considering how they might care for their historic building, the director of a social enterprise who is looking for funding sources that align with their mission, a seminary student starting a new church in their hometown and looking for another job to work alongside this ministry role, lay leaders feeling called to take on a broader leadership role in worship and congregational life as their church is between calls, and faithful disciples feeling called to connect with their neighbors in new ways. The Spirit is at work, the church is alive, and there is no one-size-fits-all model. Standing on the balcony, it’s easy to see that there are many and various plants growing in God’s garden.
If your only experience of church is with a more traditional one that meets in a building on Sunday morning for worship and fellowship, you may be unaware of these other models that are emerging. That’s why I interviewed the Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile and the Rev. Dr. Blair Pogue, who recently wrote a book called: Embracing the Mixed Ecology: Inherited and New Forms of Christian Community Flourishing Together. Despite my varied conversations each week, this book opened my imagination to even more possibilities for the church today and I know it will do the same for you!
Grace: To begin, what is “the mixed ecology”?
Dwight: The mixed ecology is a way of thinking about multiple expressions of Christian community–from traditional congregations to emerging and experimental forms–coexisting and thriving together to reach the variety of people in a particular context. In increasingly post-Christian societies in the West, traditional institutional churches are disconnected from many neighbors. We need a variety of forms of church working together to connect with those neighbors, not just one.
Grace: In the book you focus less on traditional churches and instead on new forms of Christian community. What are some of these new forms?
Dwight: Church plants, fresh expressions, megachurches, microchurches, and digital church. Church plants have always been part of the church’s missionary landscape, but in today’s world we need more and a greater variety of them. Fresh expressions of church are simple, neighborhood-based experimental communities engaging people who are unlikely to show up at worship, starting instead with listening, loving, and forming community. Megachurches are an important part of the American church scene as half of all American churchgoers are in the largest 10% of congregations. Microchurches are home or neighborhood based, typically lay-led communities gathered around simple spiritual practices. Digital church can take many forms but is vital in a culture where so much of life is lived online.
Grace: You share that the mixed ecology can exist not only in the church at large but also within a single faith community. Can you share an example of a community where both traditional and new forms of Christian community are flourishing?
Blair: The only Episcopal congregation in the city of St. Cloud, Minnesota does traditional worship and other activities, but a few of their people started a laundry love ministry to connect with neighbors who weren’t likely to come to their services. The laundry love ministry includes not only free laundry at a local laundromat, but also food, fellowship, and prayer. This in turn led to “Bread and Blessings,” a gathering over a meal for prayer and spiritual conversations in a public room at the local library. All of these are part of St. John’s Church, but they are reaching different audiences in different ways.
Grace: Why is it important for stewardship leaders in congregations to be aware of the mixed ecology? What new skills might contemporary stewardship leaders need to cultivate as they live into this reality?
Dwight: The business models for these various ministries differ quite a bit. In many fresh expressions, church plants, and microchurches that are reaching new believers, it can take time for people to understand and live into the spiritual practice of giving. Some (such as the laundry love example above) are connecting with people who don’t have a lot of financial resources to share. So partnerships, missional enterprises (where there is revenue generated by sales, such as at a cafe, that cover expenses), and other approaches beyond member tithes and offerings are key. Churches (whether traditional inherited congregations or megachurches) that have a lot of financial resources can support and underwrite experimental Christian communities on the edges. The vision of a mixed ecology is that these ministries see each other as partners working together in mission in their contexts, not competitors.
Grace: Particularly thinking about the new forms of Christian community that are emerging, what does stewardship look like in these communities? What new challenges and opportunities do they bring for stewardship teaching as well as church funding?
Blair: Many new forms of Christian community flourish when they don’t have the same kind of heavy institutional maintenance expectations as traditional congregations. For instance, many are led by unpaid or multi-vocational lay leaders or clergy who don’t expect to receive their livelihood from the ministry. They often don’t need a dedicated building, or if they use one, that building is also utilized for other community purposes that can generate revenue and connections with neighbors. While resource-intensive church planting models can work well in some circumstances, when a large team from an existing church is able to begin and support a new plant or redevelopment, many of today’s new Christian communities are intentionally lighter, leaner, and more agile. This takes the pressure off attracting enough people to pay a pastor, staff, and building, and allows for greater freedom to discern what God wants the community to become.
While the mixed ecology is diverse, stewardship ministry continues to be vitally important. From figuring out a sustainable way forward to exploring new income sources to recognizing all that God has entrusted to our care, stewardship leaders have unique gifts to bring as we tend to the soil of the many and varied ministries growing in God’s garden. You can find out more about the mixed ecology in Blair and Dwight’s book. Use the code MIXED20 for 20% off.
