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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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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