How to Take Your Next Faithful Step Video Series
Senior Director of Faith+Lead Dr. Alicia Granholm walks you through a
simple framework for responding to the changes in the church and the world.
Video 1: Follow God into a faithful future
Understand the challenges facing the church today so that you can be more hopeful, closer to God, and clearer on your next faithful steps.
Video 2: Core tasks and spiritual practices
Deepen your connection with God through the five core tasks and breakthrough spiritual practices so that God can transform you and your community.
Video 3: Four key pivots for effective ministry in today’s evolving culture
Discover four pivotal shifts that can guide your congregation or faith community toward embracing a faithful future.
Video 4: Take your next faithful step with even more clarity
It’s not about fixing what’s broken in the church; it’s finding the tools you need to love and lead in the way of Jesus.
Video 1
Church & Culture
Video 2
5 Core Tasks
Video 3
4 Key Pivots
Video 4
Your Next Faithful Step
Have a question or comment?
Leave it below for the Live Q&A webinar
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Our church is in a fairly upper class neighborhood. Does the “walk through” neighborhoods still apply or should we walk other neighborhoods in our community?
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Another thought provoking video. Thank you. In our area, I see congregations working in silos – desperately trying to make “everything work, just like it did before.” That model is not sustainable.
Our church is making the pivot from clergy led – lay supported to lay led – clergy supported. In addition, we are talking with 2 other congregations about shared ministry opportunities. However, our current ideology of lay led – clergy supported doesn’t equate with the other congregations ideology of clergy led -lay supported. How do we move forward into this new model when plainly, other congregations don’t realize what is happening or understand the new terms.
Given the shortage of ordained clergy, decreased finances within the congregation and lack of understanding with in the church we will struggle to avoid holy closure.
Appreciate your insight-
This is such an important question, Roxie! We’ll see how we can address it in the webinar on Monday.
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Hi Carol, thank you for telling us! We just updated the PDF, so please refresh your browser and you should be able to print it out fine now.
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The love of many christians have wax cold because the so call Christian leaders have failed to lead faithfully. But in the midst of all these turbulence the true lovers of God should continue pressing forward -reconciling and restoring communities or neighbors to Jesus Christ for the night cometh when no man can work again.
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I think it is over simplistic to say that Christian churches are in a decline because all volunteer organizations are in a decline. Christianity as an institution has a problematic and destructive history. Until we deal with that. the church and it’s people will continue to die.
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I think our congregation will embrace the action of the tasks and become excited to connect and share within our church first and then become braver and connect with others in our community.
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Community would be different. I think our members will be more excited about their faith and love of neighbors.
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Yes, video 4 will be available tomorrow!
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Great video very thought provoking! Our congregation is exploring a lay led clergy supported model of ministry. We have a severe shortage of available rostered clergy to fill the vacancies in the 9 area congregations.
How this model or using a SAM fit into this discussion?
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This is a GREAT question. We definitely see SAMs or locally authorized ministers falling under Pivot 4: from clergy-led / lay-supported to lay-led / clergy-supported ministry, and something that will only increase in frequency over time!
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I’ve been appreciative of what I’ve heard and agree with the premise, but my congregation demographic is mostly seniors and tired. Not sure where to find the energy to “pivot” at this point. As with others we are primarily in survival mode with attention focused on deferred maintenance, how to support a pastor, etc.
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This isn’t an uncommon situation, and it’s hard. We’re so thankful you’re here!
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I believe this would fit in the “Posture” and perhaps “Focus” pivot, but I’ve appreciated this named shift–We used to say “God’s church has a mission,” but now we honor this named shift “God’s mission has a church.” For our Vitality Initiative that we lead in our synod, we expand that by saying, “God’s mission has a church with each congregation having its own unique vocation.”
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The four key pivots certainly make sense in addressing the needs of the community surrounding our church today. I’m thinking it will be important to make gains along a broken front to achieve successes in making the pivots where opportunities open up. Identifying the opportunities will require discernment.
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For 29 years of rural ministry, I mourned the fact that pastors and congregations functioned essentially in silos, each doing the same thing, independently, each with their own limited resources, with the possible exception of special worship services and/or ministry outreach carried out by a ministerial association. Sadly, having moved now to an urban congregation, I find the same to be true here. Listening to this first video (once I got through the seemingly endless introduction) I was profoundly aware of the limitations this puts on the effectiveness of any missional framework. Pastors increasingly feel isolated and alone. Inviting us to participate in yet another new thing without incorporating a sense of community is, for me, yet another invitation to despair. The only way I made it through my D.. Min. in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary, was through the encouragement of and partnership with eleven other students in our cohort. Currently I have a ministry coach and a mental health counselor, and I will be meeting with the synod’s DEM next week. None of these are talking with each other, nor will be ever be in the same room together. I can’t help but wonder what might happen if they were, or if the various pastors viewing this series could talk with each other, not on a screen but in the same room. Our church council has purchased and is supposed to be reading “When the Church Stops Working,” which, I suspect,, is a major resource for this series. Even getting them to commit the time to discussing it could be a challenge. Currently they are focused on trying to find ways to fund some major building repairs, pay for the ongoing costs of ministry, and, above all avoid the move to “holy closure.”
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Dear John,
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this series and share your contributions. Your reflection, I truly believe, may be the case for many who hope and strive for challenging conversations to be had and for something meaningful to come forth. We appreciate you and your ministry and hope you will return for video 4.
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Hi Bryan, thanks for letting us know. If you click on Video 3 icon in the righthand sidebar, it will load the proper video. In the meantime, we’ll work on getting the feature video updated so Video 3 is showing when you load the page. Thanks for letting us know!
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Hi Nancy, sorry to hear that you’re having difficulty printing. If you can send an email at faithlead@luthersem.edu with the type of computer you’re using and operating system, that would be helpful.
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ty for these videos and workbook. I wholeheartedly agree. My experience in the congregation as a pastor is that many people are living in survival mode – going to work, raising kids, caring for aging parents, exhausted physically and emotionally. If they have any spare time they just want to numb themselves. I find connecting with God (in a variety of ways via Spiritual practices and friendships) but I don’t feel very effective in helping others find the practices that fill them up. They like to come on Sundays for their “weekly fuel” – but don’t want to do much else.
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Thanks for sharing, S — so true. I appreciate your honesty and also your willingness to show up in spite of the many things that call us to disengage. Glad that you are here!
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I began attending another Lutheran church about 5 years ago, and observed a very unwelcoming atmosphere, a distinct opposition to change, yet the younger generations are leaving and going elsewhere. The older generation opposes anything new, and the younger ones go to nondenominational churches that are indeed teaching the Word of God. The older generation fails to understand their role in this divisiveness.
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Alicia outlined the five core tasks very effectively. They seem like really big steps for many people in my congregation who are starting to understand the need to reach out to the community in order to love our neighbors but many are still clinging to the idea of a private faith. They have difficulty talking about faith with others.
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Thanks for watching and responding! Your congregation experience may raise some important questions. Feel free to add any if you’d like.
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Please do share the registration page with everyone and anyone you’d like to experience these conversations, so they can view the videos too: faithlead.org/faithfulstep !
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I am the chairman of our Stewardship Committee. We are a small ELCA congregation of mostly retired people in the Phoenix Metro area. Most of us are on fixed income. Our committee, which has been inactive since 2020, is tasked with developing new ways to improve contributions. Do you see our issue having a solution in this series? I’ve watched video 1 and am starting number 2.
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This video series is a good place to start, because stewardship is intertwined with our understanding of what the church is about and how to respond to current challenges. You’ll hear Alicia talk about moving from fixing to curiosity too, which is a difficult pivot to make. I’d also highly recommend another Faith+Lead resource, the Center for Stewardship Leaders’ research project called Funding Forward about creative funding sources and how they are often tied to a renewed sense of mission and connection to the community. Here’s an ebook summarizing their findings: https://faithlead.org/ebooks/funding-forward-research-project/
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Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this series and comment. We will bring this question to the live Q&A on Monday as we believe others would benefit from hearing our response as well!
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As a volunteer in a Southern Baptist Country Club church, your video is spot on. We spent a lot of time on programs for members and isolating from our community, I believe we need to reach out to our communities. We are currently searching for a new Pastor, I will keep these videos in mind. Thank you
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What excites me most about this is that THIS is absolutely spot on! I did my D.Min Congregational Mission and Leadership at Luther from 2012-2017, and I am thrilled at what has evolved. SOLID RESEARCH is essential, and it is absolutely true that the spiritual practices alongside the deep listening to God, congregation, and community brings absolutely clarity. We have been engaged in work like this since my studies and we continue to keep ourselves aligned, AND VITALITY comes! The spirituality of our congregation, love of neighbor, and contagious joy are boundless!!!! Keep it up Faith+Lead!!!! THANK you for these terrifically made videos!
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We are so thankful that you took the time to watch and respond. It brings great joy that we have your support and excitement in this journey of continual curiosity. If you have any questions, please add them, and we would love to help. Thank you so much!
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I have 2 thoughts:
1. I felt I was watching one of those online promotional commercials talking about a health issue and the type of diet that can resolve the issue. The commercial video spends 90% of the time talking what’s wrong and then 10% of the time on the “solution.” What Dr. Granholm said in the first 6-7 minutes, can be said in 1 minute.
2. According to Dr. Alicia Granholm, God is creating and healing and what we need to do is to follow and join in the work. The congregation leaders don’t have to spend all the time creating new programs.
But it is still up to the pastor or clergy to show people a different way of being church. This is changing the culture or ethos or mentality of the congregation, and I am sure many pastors and clergy have been doing this for a long time.What I do appreciate about video 1 is that it makes something I believe in explicit – building relationships with our neighbors, go out and meet our neighbors.
When we walk or drive around our neighborhood, not only do we have to see where God is, also where God is absent.-
I agree that the first part of the video spent a lot of time setting up the series. If we weren’t already “sold” on the premise, we wouldn’t have signed up to watch the videos. I actually said out loud: “Just get on with it!”
I felt what was said once she got into the “meat” of the topic was important and relevant to where I’ve felt the church moving for a long time without sacrificing what the Church is and is called to be.
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Do you ever wonder about the growing impact of atheism in our world today? It is a topic that deserves our attention and consideration. Have we taken the time to consider the implications of this trend? Let’s explore this further and gain a deeper understanding of its potential impact.
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Thanks for your comment! You’re right, it does deserve our attention and consideration. Definitely something worth spending some time thinking deeply about.
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I only want to challenge in love. As I so often get frustrated when people evaluate me as if they are a consumer, I believe that it is easy for me to do that same when I view ministry tools, etc. I am curious if we have adopted that unfortunate response and should challenge ourselves with responses that we hope to receive from our parishioners. Maybe our modeling to break out of consumeristic behaviors would help.
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A key take-away for me is the question, Does the Church Matter?” If a survey were to be conducted on the street, I suspect that most people would answer, “no”. Perhaps the Church could “pivot” (if I understand the use of the word), to a place where the Church not only matters, but is critical to the world’s well-being, which it is.
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Video one she talks the promotion too long without telling us the content of what she is promoting.. At seven minutes I have not learned much of anything.
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Thanks for your feedback. There’s plenty of ideas to engage within the video, so feel free to download the workbook and skip ahead to catch the details that intrigue you. (Also, you can adjust the playback speed to 1.5x if you’re short on time!) Thanks for letting us know!
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I really liked the way Alicia addressed and clarified the issue and provided a clear structure to move forward.
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My appeal is the same as Liza Doolittle, “Show Me”.
Alicia is very animated and engaging presenter – and maybe this will occur in the forthcoming videos – I could use some examples or illustrations of what she is offering.-
This is a great question! The workbook for today gives some concrete info and has prompts to reflect on how this connects to your community. You’ll see more of that in each day’s video to help you connect the theological commitments and pivots to your actual context. Let us know your specific questions for your community! Alicia and some of our team will do a live Q&A webinar, and the goal is to address specific questions. So, as the days of the series go by, add your questions here in the chat. 🙂
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