A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 7 – The People of the Way

1.  Steinke begins by noting that “movement” is connected to both learning and mission.  “Movement is a significant part of both biblical content and spiritual living.”  He illustrates this with examples from Old and New Testaments, as well as The Apostles’ Creed.  Citing Sydney Carter, “The resurrection narratives depict a God who is constantly on the move, energetic, revealing here, now.”  He stresses that we can live our Christian lives in one of three ways: inertly, reluctantly or freely.”

How have you experienced each of these three?  Where do you find yourself right now?

2.  “William Bridges, a consultant on transition management, says change is an event. Our experience of the change is transition. He cites three movements—endings, the neutral zone, and beginnings—in the transition experience:

“All we know is that periodically, some situation or event deflects us from the path that we thought we were on, and, in so doing, ends the life-chapter we were in. In order to continue our journey, we are forced to let go of the way we got that far. Having let go, we find ourselves in the wilderness for a time, and until we have lived out that time can we come back around to a new beginning.”

We face the temptations of avoiding change and adopting the “additive fallacy,” which copes by adding more of this or that to the equation. 

What makes it difficult for us to accept and navigate our “tumbling” through the neutral zone experiences of life?

3.  “The process of ripening may be as or more important than the outcome or production, such as data or numbers.

 Meaningful, lasting outcomes are the result of the journey and the learning that takes place. Maybe a word of caution should be stamped on all programs: “Not transferable.” Transition time, especially the neutral zone experience, is life’s curriculum. Being on the path opens new insight; being on the path, not the steps one takes, is the very condition necessary for learning. Tumbling is disruptive but equally instructive.

Steinke continues: “Churches need to remember that no handbook is available on freelancing mission. Only by going out, being there, and seeing from a fresh angle will the process lead to learning. Discovering how to respond to shifts and changes is the learning. Self-confidence is a byproduct. But growth is in the struggle, the push, and the journey. Churches in decline need to look beyond the BIG RESULT and become the people of the way—tumble and all.”

Where do you find yourself tumbling these days?  Where is St. Mark tumbling as people of the way…and how are we managing the journey?

4.  Finally, Steinke shares Friedman’s creation story involving survival versus adventure…stability versus mobility.  Movement favors one and not the other.  The door is set open.  Let’s conclude with Steinke’s final questions:

“Are we a people of the way or in the way?  Are you ready to explore the neighborhood?”

A Door Set Open, By Peter Seinke

A Door Set Open

Chapter 6 – Joining God’s New Creation

1.  Steinke’s introduction to this chapter is both humorous and quite serious…contrasting the wide gap between biblical and confessional understanding of resurrection with that of often-misguided popular religion.  Steinke wisely draws upon the guidance of N.T. Wright in such matters.

What does “the resurrection of the body” mean for us individually, as well as for creation itself?  How does a “soulectomy” completely miss the boat?

2.  By using Plato’s cave allegory, Steinke stresses that we’re in for a huge surprise…namely, that “the biblical final destination is…not merely heaven.  It is a new heaven and a new earth.  All creation has a future.”

What does this mean, not only for the ways we might experience new life in the future, but also for the ways we might experience new life right now?  How does such hope change and shape our present attitudes and agendas?

3.  Review & discuss the implications of these statements:

- With the resurrection of Jesus, everything changes.

- Easter’s grand promise is a newly embodied person in a renewed world.

- Easter is about God’s new creation and the calling of believers to be agents of the kingdom.  Christians are called to embody the hope that the God of promise offers.

- The Christian physicist John Polkinghorne remarked that hope is not a mood but a commitment to action.  Its character implies that whatever we hope for we will be prepared to work for, thus bringing it about as we are able.

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 5 – The Making of a Mission Culture

1.   The church’s mission is a huge piece to digest…easier said than done!  Steinke initiates this discussion with the need to know what direction one is headed…to have a destination…an orientation.  He then moves into a discussion of “mission drift,” limping along without a focus…an apparent affliction of many congregations today.  Look again at Steinke’s list of drifting symptoms…

Can you recall examples where you felt the church was in the midst of such “drifting?”

2.  “Mission is the nature and purpose of the church, not some list of qualifiers.  Because God has a mission, a church arises.  Apart from mission, the church is meaningless.  The mission has churches.” 

How do these statements compare with the perception of the average church member today?  Where might there be agreement or disagreement? 

3.  Steinke notes how issues of survival challenge us to examine our self-understanding as people of God, asking:  Who are we?  What is God calling us to be? 

How has St. Mark changed over the past two decades, and how do we understand our mission today?

4.  “If the gospel isn’t transforming you,” N.T. Wright asks, “how do you know that it will transform anything else?”  “People who work for a clear mission in the church and for the wider world need to be experiencing transformation in their own lives.”

How do we learn to tend to this focus in fresh ways, especially when we’ve been a part of the church for so long?

5.  “Again and again, we have to explore why we come together.  Congregations need to continue to review who they are and how they will respond.”  Let’s try on Steinke’s follow-up questions for size:

What are we trying to be?  What is our calling at this time and in this place?  Can we make a difference?  Is there a purpose for our presence?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 4 – The Challenge of Change

1.  Steinke begins with a difficult and poignant question, “How will the church find leaders for emotional systems caught in a rising tide of change?”  He then discusses the relationship between change and emotionality, noting that, “Change will touch off a burst of emotional energy.”  “People in the church can make the same wrong assumptions as some economists…we think that if we make a few sensible changes, harmony will hold.  But animal spirits find their way into any system.”  Steinke illustrates these animal spirits with the example of the misguided senior pastor and the various reactions within the congregation.

Where did this pastor err grievously?  Where did the congregation err grievously?  (Yes, stuff like this really happens!)

2.  Change is hard for everyone, especially congregations. 

“Now, suddenly, with steep changes happening in our society, congregations have to ask themselves whether they are responding to a world that no longer exists and whether they have the sort of leadership required to shift to new understanding and practices. Surely, the priestly work is always needed, but now, especially now, clergy may need to become advocates for adaptive change.”

“Ask yourselves—does your congregation need a more prophetic ministry?  Do you need a more visionary type of ministry?”

3.  Rightly so, Steinke casts doubt upon the myriad invitations to participate in transformational leadership training seminars.  (I get several of these each week in the mail and promptly round-file them!)  “Transformation is a process. It may take five years, a generation, or perhaps even forty wilderness years to see its effects. Early in the process it isn’t possible to tell how transformed a church might become. So impatient and anxious, well-intended change agents turn a decade into an hour.”

Why is our religious culture so gullibly transfixed by such transformation magic…and what is the antidote?

4.  Steinke notes that the success rate for a turnaround church is about one in four.  “People can squelch urgency by dragging out possible negative results and impending doom. If leaders want to
implement change, they are placed under suspicion. With fear hovering in the community, the coalition of change agents that needs to develop doesn’t know how to get started, or they prefer add-ons rather than substantive changes. The challenge of change for a congregation on a steady downward slope is precisely to redefine and redirect its mission.”  As Kathleen Norris states, “Their challenge is to go on living thankfully, contributing liberally, and living graciously.”

How does this last statement serve to guide St. Mark and other congregations toward effective mission?  How does each of these three responses positively redirect our energy and efforts toward change?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 3 – So That You May Hope Again

1.  Steinke’s stated intention in this chapter is to “look at hope in the context of God’s people in exile, a time of dislocation and near despair, like ours.”  To that end, we receive an excellent, although truncated, biblical history lesson.  The Babylonian captivity is paramount to Jewish history, as demonstrated by the deep involvement of its prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. 

In review, what series of circumstances led to this predicament and how did the exiles learn to find hope in the midst of exile?

2.  Steinke points out the necessity of dialectical thinking here, citing Brueggemann that, “In a broken world, hope and lament are partners.  Hope does not need to silence the rumbling of crisis to be hope.”  Steinke adds that, “The paradoxical nature of faith as exile and homecoming defines the Christian in the world.”

How to you relate to these statements?

3.  Church leaders today likewise face the temptations of denial, despair, and magic.  Take time to examine how each of these temptations poses a threat to the health and vitality of today’s congregations and church leaders.

4.  “To many, religion is a good thing, as long as it provides personal comfort and meets individual needs. Consequently, they want the church to double the offer—to give them not only a message of salvation but also the elements of a benefits plan, such as self-improvement methods, life-coping skills, satisfaction enhancement, and stress reduction.” 

How does this “double offer” expectation lead to the dark side, namely…the three temptations of denial, despair, and magic?  How can the church communicate and extend genuine hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ in today’s shifting culture?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 2 – Emotional Systems & the New Anxiety

1.  Boy, am I ever familiar with this chapter’s material!  And if you’ve spent some portion of your adult life ensconced in church life (i.e., politics), chances are, you are, too.  We’re right at home with this discussion involving emotions and anxiety.  Steinke describes congregations as “emotional systems”…quite prepared to engage in self-deceit, when threatened.

“When the challenge of change confronts a congregation, members’ survival brains surely will excite their emotional forces. Supervised by the amygdala (the anxiety alarm in the brain), a rapid line of defense takes over in threatening situations. The amygdala functions to protect an organism by:

• appraising danger and acting faster than consciousness,

• operating apart from awareness,

• eliminating any set of options that might delay action,

• generalizing for rapid reaction,

• pairing an outside threat with any previous thought, feeling, or prior experience.”

What situations or circumstances might evoke such responses?

2.  Steinke then discusses homeostasis, “to function in the same way,” hanging on to the familiar.  Must be a Lutheran thing!  This “persistence of form,” as Friedman defines it, can be explained by: A) emotional barriers, B) imaginative gridlock, and C) resistance.  (My, my, my…where should we begin?)

A.  “An artificial limit born of mythology and preserved by anxiety.”  Why are churches susceptible to emotional barriers?    What promotes their popularity and duration?

B.  “Friedman’s second concept involves human survival instincts. During anxious periods, what is most needed—imagination—is most unavailable. Reacting supersedes thoughtfulness. Anxiety locks up the imagination and misplaces the key.”  Again, what are some examples that come to mind?

C.  “Emotional resistance to change is powerful. In our minds is this formula: Stability equals safety. The amygdala is keyed to suddenness and newness, for either could be threatening. Since the amygdala is ready to react if something is strange, new, or novel, resistance serves as a defensive action, usually apparent in sabotaging behavior. Friedman called dealing with resistance ‘the key to the kingdom.’ Minimal reaction to the resisting positions of others, whether exhibited in apathy or aggression, is “the key.

If the leader stays the course without compromising, abandoning, or corrupting the goal, good outcomes, though not guaranteed, are more apt to happen.”

Where have you seen such leadership demonstrated wisely and effectively for the good of the congregation?

3.  “A natural response of any emotional system is to return to its previous state when challenged and strained. After the initial steps toward change, a leader will therefore encounter resistance, mostly from those who are emotionally invested. As Friedman noted, such resistance is predictable: ‘Most theories of leadership recognize the problem of mistakes, but there is a deeper systemic phenomenon that occurs when leaders do precisely what they are supposed to do—lead.’ People who can differentiate well—act maturely—will arouse anxiety in less mature people.

“The ensuing sabotage is sometimes organized and sometimes just mindless opposition. The challenge to the leader is to self-regulate in the midst of anxious reactivity. Being focused on principle and direction, the leader does not get caught up on rash behaviors or cruel comments. As a last resort, reactors will demonize the leader.”  (Would this a good time to recruit new Council members?!) 

Like every pastor of 30 years in the trenches, I could write a book on this subject…and it’s not pretty.  I see and hear efforts of sabotage all the time…some of it unintentional, and much of it quite intentional (but never admitted).

How can pastors & congregations work to counter sabotage?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 1 – There Once Was a World

1.  In many ways, Peter Steinke picks up where Douglas John Hall left off…namely, the sad but inevitable demise of American mainline churches.  Steinke assigns this change to a confluence of factors, noting the sea change is external or contextual. 

For purposes of discussion, let’s review/discuss each of these factors or forces briefly:

- Postmodern Philosophy

- Dogmatic Atheism

- Supermodernity

- Science and Religion

- The Neuro Society

- The Ghost of Gnosticism

- Therapeutic Dominance

2.  Steinke notes that the cultural response in spiritual things has shifted away from churches, which are challenged by the astonishing pace of change in the world.  Steinke believes this constitutes a rich opportunity for the church.  God has set the door open to the future, arriving in the person of Jesus Christ. 

Where is all this “dislocation” taking us as Christians today?

What new “opportunities” for mission do you envision before us?