October 25 and 26th

1. October 24 and 25, 2016
Unglued:Lake Erie COM
Rev. Sarah Robbins and Rev. Susan Rothenberg

2. Where Are
You Right
Now?

6. Our Time Together
Tuesday Night
Life Cycles of Congregations
The Theology Behind The Work
Evening Worship
Wednesday Morning
Morning Worship
Overview of Adaptive Change and The Unglued Process
Animal Farm Conversation
The Value of Asking the Right Questions (Appreciative Inquiry)
Wednesday Afternoon
Unglued COM – What’s Next in Lake Erie?
Closing Worship

8. Walter Brueggemann

9. “How will you grow our church?”

10. Growing = Surviving
✤ Not enough people
✤ Not enough money
✤ Can’t afford “real”pastor like
we used to (full time)
✤ The building is too expensive
✤ Need young families
✤ We’re tired/old/worn-out,
depressed
✤ Mostly depressed
✤ Our neighborhood has
changed

11. A Logic of Survival vs
The Logic of the Cross

12. “There is something that needs to happen to
the PCUSA and to Christianity. And that
something is the gospel. The gospel needs to
happen to us. The gospel needs to push us
beyond the habits of the past, beyond the logic
of survival–it needs to push us beyond the fear
of perishing to embrace the logic of the cross.
This something that pushes us on is the
conviction…that Jesus was right, that death is
not what ultimately defines us, that resurrection
is real. What pushes us on and will determine
our strategy going forward is nothing less than
the gospel–we are being saved.” — William Stacy
Johnson

13. Many churches today are stuck in an endless
cycle, asking the wrong question about the wrong
problem.
✤ “How can we grow?” is the wrong question
✤ “How can we grow?” is about butts, budgets and
buildings
✤ “How can we grow?” is about anxiety, not
faithfulness. A scarcity mindset isn’t biblical
✤ “How can we grow?” is about living as ones who
are perishing instead of those being saved

14. Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes
reminds us that we’re most blessed
when the bottom falls out from under
us.
You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.
With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most
dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the
One most dear to you.
(Matthew 5:3-4— The Message)

15. Closing Worship

17. Call To Worship
Gift us, O God, with divine imagination.
Mold us with holy intention.
Change us with your compassion.
Release us from our fears.
Break our stubborn habits.
Pry our idols out of our anxious
hands.
Destroy all within us that is not your will.
Live through us, today, always.

18. Unison Prayer
Merciful God, weary from efforts to change our
own lives, we hand ourselves over to you. You
are the only One who can center us firmly, rooting
us in this moment, mindful of our potential. Your
hands hold us with warmth and you eyes see us
with imagination. We can feel ourselves
beginning to turn with the energy of your
purpose. Weighty is your love for us, yet with
lightness of heart we feel ourselves transforming,
rising, and opening up to your grace. Let us
become vessels of your own design. In Christ, we
pray. Amen.

19. 2 Corinthians 4.1, 7-12
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are
engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart….But
we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be
made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to
God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in
every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven
to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down,
but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the
death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be
made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are
always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that
the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal
flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

20. Reflection: Smashing Our Clay Pots,
Ungluing The Treasure

21. Unison Prayer
Let us begin this task of breaking open our lives in
the service of our God.
Let us build something new from the fragments of
these broken times in our church and our world;
Let us cry out for those who have no voice;
Let us work with what we have,
to help bring healing, justice and mercy
to those whose lives are filled with fear and
suffering;
and know that God is with us, even in the dark of
doubt.
Here are the broken pieces, God.
We trust that you will use them to renew in us a right
spirit. Amen.

22. Benediction

23. Morning Worship

24. The Unglued Church In Pittsburgh

25. “The future is not a result of choices among
alternate paths offered by the present,
but a place that is created;
created first in the mind and will,
created next in activity.
The future is not someplace we are going,
but one we are creating.”
—John Schaar

26. Does this sound familiar?
Many churches are stuck in anxious
conversations that always seem to be
centered on the same struggles playing
in a seemingly endless loop - not
enough money, not enough members,
too big of a building, and a too small
mission vision.

27. Pittsburgh Presbytery
✤ 146 worshipping communities in Allegheny County with
approximately 30,000 members
✤ Nearly 60 congregations with membership less than
100
✤ Since 2003, only 5 of those congregations have grown
✤ Since 2003, only 16 churches of any size have grown
Source: Research Services, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)

28. What if…?
​…our presbyteries and their
commissions/committees were
proactive (instead of reactive) in
helping congregations address the
cultural tsunami facing all
churches?

29. The End of “The Way We’ve
Always Done It”
Presbyteries and their congregations (pastors and
elders alike) respond to congregational issues and
needs with time proven “technical” responses
(sometimes disguised as crisis management) that may
not be effective.
Adaptive change is a way of examining the
PCUSA’s current situation from new
perspectives that encourage fresh thinking and
discovery of options that might not otherwise have
been considered

30. How do we get break the cycle
and become “unstuck?”

31. What’s the real problem?

32. The “Real” Problem
✤ The world has changed and change is constant
✤ Culture no longer values going to church or being a
member of a church
✤ Faith needs to be connected to daily lives beyond
Sunday morning
✤ Lack of interest in “religion,” but still a longing for
faith/Jesus

33. As long as we think the problem is low
attendance or giving, then the only possible
response is to do what we’ve always done,
except do it better.
What we do is fundamentally the same, yet
we somehow expect different results.

34. Adaptive vs. Technical Change
✤ What’s the difference?
✤ What mix of change are we now
facing?
✤ How do we engage the hard work of
adaptive change?

35. Examples of Technical vs.
Adaptive
✤ Taking meds to lower blood pressure vs.
making lifestyle changes
✤ Implementing electronic systems for medications
vs. encouraging nurses and pharmacists to
challenge doctors’ dubious prescriptions
✤ Spraining your ankle vs. losing your leg

36. Technical Problems vs
Adaptive Challenges
Technical Challenges Adaptive Challenges
Easy to identify Hard to identify, easy to deny
Lend themselves to cut and dried
solutions
Require changes in values,
beliefs, roles and relationships
(messy)
Authority can often solve it Stakeholders have to solve it
Requires small changes in
organization
Causes large, complex change
People are often receptive to
change
People strongly resist change
Solutions can be easily
implemented
“Solutions” require
experimentation and take a long
time

37. Should We Look for Best
Practices?
✤ When faced with technical change, best
practices are your friends
✤ When faced with adaptive change, best
practices can be your nemeses
✤ Engaging adaptive change requires you to pay
close attention to your particular context

38. The Unglued Church Team
✤ Rev. Ayana Teter, Associate Pastor in Pittsburgh
Presbytery (staff)
✤ Rev. Sarah Robbins
✤ Rev. Susan Rothenberg

39. Our starting assumptions
✤ Some churches have the
capacity to
adapt/reinvent/restart and need
assistance
✤ Some churches do not have the
capacity to reinvent/restart; can
they die with dignity and plant
seeds for new
ministries/mission?
✤ Some churches will stubbornly
choose to do nothing and will
not change no matter what; our
polity lets them do that
✤ There’s no “one size fits all.”
The work will be contextual and
specific for each congregation
✤ Every church will have to
engage in the work of adaptive
change at some point in its
lifecycle
✤ This work is crucial, not just for
our presbytery, but for
denomination

40. Our considerations
✤ Some churches are
suspicious of presbytery
✤ Earlier program to “right
size” in presbytery
generated conflict
✤ Program can’t be seen
as “presbytery staff-
driven”
✤ No agenda other than
openness and
faithfulness to Spirit,
congregations and
communities
✤ Not a program only for
“struggling” churches;
not a sneaky means to
force church closure

41. Our goals
✤ Build capacity within the presbytery by developing a
bench of “Adaptive Change leaders” among teaching
and ruling elders in the presbytery, much as we have a
bench of interim pastors
✤ Help congregations and pastors adopt new ways of
thinking adaptively instead of reverting to technical
solutions

42. Our goals
✤ Develop a model of faithful “hospice care” for churches
at the end of their lifecycle, including called “chaplains”
who are honored in their pastoral work
✤ Influence the presbytery system with adaptive thinking
at all levels
✤ Provide a process that can be helpful to
congregations/governing bodies in the wider
denomination

43. Other goals/questions
✤ Where will the money come from to fund new ministries and
mission? Our assets are hidden/trapped in buildings and
endowments, many of which are held by
small/declining/depressed congregations. Be in partnership with
NCD/1001
✤ Can we find a better model for closing churches before the
congregation’s assets are depleted or in disrepair?
✤ Can we get upstream so that congregations have the opportunity
to define their own legacy and receive excellent pastoral care for
the saints who remain (honor the “withering vine”)

44. The Unglued Process
Assessing
Equipping
Incubating

45. Resources/Partners
✤ Presbyterian Mission
Agency
✤ $50,00 grant from
PCUSA Office of Mission
Program grants
(Congregational
Transformation)
✤ Outside consultants
✤ New Beginnings
✤ Adaptive Change
Apprentices (9 RE’s and
TE’s)
✤ Each participating
church paid $2500 for
New Beginnings
assessment

46. Assessing
New Beginnings
✤ Facility/building review
✤ Financial review
✤ Community “windshield tour”
✤ Historical review and appreciative inquiry

47. Equipping
✤ Training of adaptive change apprentices to work with
congregations in partnership with outside consultants
✤ Build a bench of skilled adaptive change pastor/elders
within presbytery

48. Incubating
✤ Help churches experiment with ideas
for new/legacy ministries in
partnership with NCD and mission
groups
✤ Give space for churches to share
ideas, experiments, successes and
failures

49. ✤ Built upon conclusions/observations from New
Beginnings — coming to terms with issues otherwise
ignored by many congregations
✤ Focused on training church leadership to use adaptive
thinking to begin imagining a different future story for
the congregation
✤ Used tools provided by consultants to shift thinking
from technical solutions to adaptive thinking
Working with the Churches

50. Assessment
✤ What is the energy level of this
leadership/congregation?
✤ What is the financial outlook for this congregation?
✤ What is the spiritual capacity/depth of this
congregation?
Build consensus for adaptive change around these issues

51. Narrowing the Options
Option Energy Money Faith
Age in place Low Low Low
Restart/reinvent High High High
Rent building/use income to survive Medium Med/High Low
Sell building/lease sanctuary Low Low Low/Med
Sell building/nest with neighbor Medium Low High
Sell building/merge High Low High
Sell building/plant legacy/dissolve Low Low High
Sell building/lease space/plant legacy High Low High
Dissolve/give property to presbytery Low Low Low

52. What Worked?
✤ Gathering churches together is key to help church
leaders/pastors feel less alone in their struggles and more
connected to presbytery
✤ We now have a bench of trained adaptive change leaders in
our presbytery to work with churches undergoing transition
✤ Growing awareness in the presbytery of need for adaptive
change instead of reliance on technical solutions and “best
practices.”More long-term/creative thinking about closing
churches and financial implications

53. What Did We Learn?
✤ Adaptive change is hard, long-term process resisted by
congregations who are locked in “survival” logic
✤ People love their buildings, programs, traditions, and
pastors; in some cases, more than Jesus
✤ How to measure spiritual capacity/maturity? Lots of
“cultural Christians” in our pews. Need deep faith in
order to undergo discernment process that leads to
deep, often disruptive changes

54. A Year Later…
✤ Some churches are still stuck, and do not want to change
because it’s too hard, but are asking better questions
✤ Some churches are making the shift from denying death
to focusing on legacy as a model moving forward
✤ Some have made the shift from “we go to church” to
“being the church” way of believing and thinking
✤ Of the eight (8) Unglued Churches, five (5) have
undergone a change in pastoral leadership

55. Unglued Church 2.0
Assessment
✤ Partnership with Presbyterian Foundation “Project
Regeneration”
✤ Using “MissionInsite” tool together with on-site conversations
with community stakeholders
✤ Adapting “Starting New Worshipping Communities” from 1001
for better understanding of spiritual pose/depth of
congregation

56. Animal Farm Exercise

57. Sacred Cow
What do we treat
as that which
cannot be
"messed with" in
our presbytery?

58. Elephant In The Room
What issues need to be acknowledged and discussed that we
are afraid to tackle?

59. What distractions are keeping us from moving
forward?

60. Dinosaur
What is extinct
or needs to die
in order for us
to move
forward?

61. Roadkill
Are we willing to
name and
embrace our epic
failures in the
past?

63. Asking the Right Questions

64. Appreciative Inquiry
✤ Appreciative Inquiry questions have been helpful with
small groups, with councils that are discerning next
steps, with congregation members who are
contemplating new ministries, and with churches in
need of self-reflection and assessment.
✤ These questions can be used as a prompt for
conversation, as an opening devotional time for
meetings, or given as a questionnaire for members to
ponder before gathering together.

65. Sample Questions
✤ Think back on your entire experience at this (church,
committee, council) and name a time when you felt the most
engaged, alive and committed.
✤ When you consider all of your experiences at this (church,
committee, council), what has contributed most to your
spiritual life?
✤ Tell about a time when you were most proud of your
association with this (church, committee, council).

66. ✤ What do you think is the single, most important, life-
giving characteristic of (church, committee, council)?
When we are at our best, what are we doing?
✤ The Apostle Paul speaks of spiritual gifts — what gifts
do you share with the (church, committee, council)?
✤ Now, consider gifts you do not share. Are there gifts
that you do not share because opportunities do not
exist?
✤ What motivates you to (worship at the church,
participate in this committee or council)?

67. ✤ Complete this sentence with one of the two choices
(everyone should vote for one – no “half votes” are
allowed!) “Our (church, committee, council) is …”
a.Rigid or Flexible?
b.Status Quo or Mission-oriented?
c.Fearful or Courageous?
d.Thriving or Getting by?
✤ If we define a relational group of people as a group of
people who gather at times other than Sunday morning, for
the purpose of prayer, study or fellowship on a weekly
basis, let’s make a list of groups in your (church,
presbytery, community) that fit that description.

68. ✤ What does this (church, committee, council) do to prepare
teachers, elders, and other leaders in the Church?
✤ What are the ministry opportunities begging for your
attention in this area?
✤ If your (church were to close, your committee to stop
meeting, you council cease to exist) what would be the one
thing people in the community or congregation would miss
most?

69. COM Unglued
Pittsburgh Presbytery Initiatives

70. In Pittsburgh Presbytery
✤ COM will be using some of the tools from the Unglued
Church to assist “churches in transition” — one of the
very few times that congregations are required to “deal”
with presbytery
✤ Will be asking different questions about “vitality” and
“sustainability”

71. Points of Contact
Pastoral/Staff Transition
✤ Church must be in contact with COM – provides an
opportunity
✤ Discernment about leadership, past and present, asking the
“why?” of mission and ministry
✤ “Unglued”as model for mission study, particularly in absence
of interim or trained transitional pastor
✤ Opportunity to review mission, finances, programs
✤ New ways of thinking about pastoral leadership –what kind
of pastor does this church really need?

72. Points of Contact
Financial/Property Issues
✤ Part-time pastoral leadership/temporary supply,
CRE’s or non-Presbyterian leadership – often
leading indications of stress
✤ Stop paying per capita or cut/eliminate spending
on mission and programs
✤ Issues with deferred maintenance on the church
property

73. Points of Contact
✤ Congregational Health
✤ In visits with sessions/pastors, you may observe congregations
who have become inwardly focused due to leadership fatigue,
aging membership, a disconnect between church members and
the community they serve, or a lack of missional outreach beyond
Sunday morning worship.
✤ You may see congregations who have become solely focused on
“survival,”
✤ Some churches need a season of deep spiritual discernment so
they may once again focus on The Great Commission and its call
to give up our lives for the sake of the Gospel.

74. Points of Contact
✤ Conflicts
✤ Stressed congregations often find themselves stuck in
ongoing internal conflicts
✤ Many conflicts are rooted in the “stress points” noted
above – money, property, missional priorities,
leadership fatigue, pastoral conflicts, etc., — which
drain the energy of pastors and congregations.
✤ Frustrated that the familiar patterns of technical “fixes”
no longer work as they used to “back in the day”

75. What’s Next in Lake Erie?

76. Closing Worship

77. Call to Worship
God, we are those who exalt your name above the
heavens.
Your name means grace and peace and wonder
to all who speak it in faith and love.
You have chosen to use weak and broken
vessels to be your eyes and hands and feet in
this world.
Let us enter together this time of prayer and
reflection, thankful that God meets us right where
we are, as individual disciples and as communities
of faith.

78. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 (NRSV)
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear
that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come
from us.
We are afflicted in every way,
but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of
Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we
are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life
of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.

79. Date
Reflection: Becoming Adaptively
Unglued

80. Unison Prayer
It seems, Holy One, that more often than not you pass your
glory through the ordinary, the fragile, the imperfect.
In this, Creator, we are honored – and also humbled.
You ask us to mirror grace, love and faithfulness to the world –
the very grace, love and faithfulness eloquently displayed in
Jesus Christ.
Through him, you promise to give us all we need to live deep
and holy lives in our families, our communities, and in this
world.
We give you all thanks and praise for walking with us as we
become unglued.
We trust that what we will become a new creation that is
molded by the Spirit.
We will love one another as you have first loved us. Amen.

81. Benediction