Maybe it isn’t getting enough sunlight? We’d better cut down the trees over there to get rid of the afternoon shade. 

This drought is a real problem. Time to install a sprinkler system. 

The pH of the soil is off. Let’s hire the team of agronomists to come and take a look. 

The crop isn’t yielding. Next year we’ll budget for the more expensive seed. 

***

“We still need volunteers for this Sunday. Please consider serving.”

“I know a full year commitment is a lot. Would you consider half the year?”

“It’s time to dig deep and think about how God is calling you to serve the church. We need you.”

***

I’ve been asked several times in the last few months what I perceive to be the biggest challenges facing churches right now. And I always find myself wondering if people ask out of genuine curiosity — a wonderment about what the bigger landscape looks like these days. Or if they ask because they want to know if they are alone — if their own challenges are theirs alone to carry. It’s probably both. 

Of course, there are easy macro-level answers to give here. Many — not isolated to the Reformed tradition alone — are facing denominational/ecclesiastical challenges that trickle down into individual churches like a painfully sticky sap that sucks up energy and attention, leaving behind a mess. US politics has become a hotbed for church conflict as pastors and parishioners engage in an awkward dance of avoidance and appeasement, navigating a dance floor of new landmines every week. There’s the pastor shortage, the nones and dones, the deconstructors, aging building infrastructures, less prioritization on Christian education, and the list goes on and on. 

But somewhere between the macro and the micro issues lies a challenge that I believe is rooting itself deeper and deeper into our ministry soils, producing crops that we no longer recognize nor can sustain. The lack of volunteers. 

Post-COVID-19, I repeatedly hear from church leaders who are exasperated by the lack of volunteers for their church’s ministries. Roles that were once easily (and joyfully) staffed now require multiple emails, a series of phone calls, and maybe an in-person ask during the fellowship hour. While all areas of church life suffer, the most pronounced holes seem to be children/youth ministries and worship leadership. Of course, some of this is a natural result of people moving away, changing churches, or an unforeseen life circumstance.

And hear me say this is not true across the board for every church — if this is not your current reality, then great! But what has piqued my curiosity as I’ve listened to stories is the fact that for many, the “soil” itself has changed. Commitment and capacity are lower than they used to be. Staffed positions are cutting back on FTE. The need might not even be as high as it was a few years ago. And yet, we continue to work the soil in the same way, insisting it produce. We churn it up and plant our “this is how we’ve always done it” seeds, we invest in some new fertilizer (curriculum or software), we quickly nip the weeds of doubt or fear, discard the rocks of “no,” and we work the soil until it starts to grow. 

Perhaps your mind has already turned towards the fall ministry launch coming in September. Your staff has a meeting scheduled to talk about it. You’re making lists and gearing up for the asks. There has to be a way to tend the soil in just the right way during this growing season to get it to produce well in the fall. We just have to work the soil. 

We’ve just entered into the liturgical season called “ordinary” time. We largely think of this in terms of the weeks of summer break; where ministry is quiet, vacations are taken, and attendance is lighter. But this “Green” season is one that is intended to cultivate growth within us. We count the days and the weeks as part of the spiritual practice of marking time — allowing ourselves to be shaped by rhythms of slowness and the deep work of growing something within. 

My mind has drifted regularly to the short passage in Exodus 23 where Yahweh commands the people to let the land lie unplowed and unused in the seventh year. Let the field lie fallow. It wasn’t because everyone had given up on the land. It wasn’t because they had surplus bounty and didn’t need the crop that could have grown. It was both an act of trust in the Master Gardener, and a way of tending to the weary who gathered and received what came up organically. Trust, rest, care.

What would happen if before any plans were made for next year, you as a leader spent some intentional moments doing a rogation walk around your ministry fields. Walk the boundaries of the children’s ministry wing and the worship closet. Notice the soil of the coffee kitchen and classrooms. Listen for the echoes of joy in those spaces, but also the sighs of weary workers. 

Friends, it’s been six years since the Covid-19 pandemic. In those six years, you’ve worked the soil of dreams and losses, expectations and assumptions. You’ve adapted, improvised, uprooted, and replanted. As this seventh year approaches, where might the land need to lie fallow? Not as failure, but as formative for your people. Not as resignation, but as a resolution to the patient work of the Master Gardener among you. Where might the field be yearning to produce something that will only come if space is made to allow it to grow. 

Take a rogation walk this summer. You might just discover a patch of holy ground, waiting to be left untouched.

 

 Header photo by Konstantinos Papadopoulos on Unsplash
Boots photo by Fidel Fernando on Unsplash