Where the Rubber Hits the Road – Making Discipleship Concrete
Why the Church is not a gas station for people who long for the good old days
The article was already published yesterday in the (German) Catholic newspaper “Die Tagespost”.
Church people generally still think Christendom. In practice they assume a world that no longer exists. Today, being a Christian is one option among many. My fellow Canadian, the philosopher Charles Taylor, calls this optionalization. This megatrend alone has paralyzed us as a Church, left us unprepared. In Europe we preserve century old structures, procedures and institutions that are simply going their own way. These institutions needed managers and administrators or, to put it more ecclesiastically, shepherds. Shepherds that tend to look after the sheep that are there. But they were neither trained nor prepared to reach sheep that have wandered off or have never been part of the flock.
Only around four percent of Catholics in Germany practice their faith and attend mass. For 96 percent, the Church no longer has any meaning, although they still describe themselves as Catholic. In Vienna, the proportion of practicing young Catholics is estimated to be less than one percent. If we don’t learn to let one sheep graze quietly while we go look for the 99, we can soon shut down.
Even Mission was turned inward in Christendom countries during Christendom times: the so called “Volksmissionen” (where an outside priest would come into a parish and preach several days of “parish mission.” People came to us of their own accord. There were no other options, the very question of it would have been absurd. There was no need to make a big distinction about what to do, it was clear: First Communion classes, Catholic school, Catholic youth group, confirmation classes. People thought in terms of programs rather than steps. Accompanying people on a path of discipleship was much less necessary (with the exception perhaps of spiritual direction), because the entire environment and surroundings helped form disciples. All of this has fundamentally changed.
The challenge of creating a paradigm shift is very difficult. Why? Because it could be argued that the Western world finds itself in an ecclesial climate that we have not really had since Constantine, i.e. for 1700 years. In this situation, I would like to propose three priorities for missionary pastoral work – even if I must limit myself in this article to the first of these: empowering visionary leadership, enabling relevant experiences of faith, substantiating discipleship.
A fundamental remark in the beginning: prayer is the foundation on which all pastoral activity must be built. Everything we do is a drop in the ocean if the Lord does not show up. Real fruitfulness for the kingdom of God can only arise where people pray. This also applies to each of the priorities just mentioned.
Empowering visionary leadership
Most of the Churches that come to us at the John Paul II Center in Vienna seeking inspiration and help have no vision. They often don’t even understand what we are talking about. They think in terms of „how do we manage to run the confirmation course“ and „how do we organize the Christmas market this year?“ They think in terms of the a Christendom Church. In times of Christendom, the homily focuses strongly on the conversion of behavior. In a climate where the basic narrative of Christianity is not questioned, conversion tends to focus on morals. Which brings with it the danger of reducing faith to morality: „Be a good person!“ Yes, fine, but enough atheists are “good people” as well.
If in Christendom times preaching was strongly linked to morality, today it first and foremost requires „vision casting“. To take up an idea from the American priest Msgr. James Shea: We must learn to retell the human drama and the Christian narrative. Otherwise, most of our statements will make no sense at all to modern ears, will seem absurd or even dangerous. For example, if one does not understand the sacramental world view, that we live in a visible and an invisible world at the same time, that the visible is the bearer of a deeper message, that all of creation tells the story of God, that even what I do with my body sexually or how I treat a homeless person can let the glory of God shine forth or become an anti-sacrament, a kind of sacrilege, then I need not even begin to talk about issues like the Real Presence, sexual morality, women’s priesthood or the Church.
But we also need vision in another sense. In a time of optionalization, we need a clear institutional vision. Where do we want to go? The vision can and should be prayed for on our knees. But we need it. Optionalization means having options. People will opt for our offer if they know where we want to go and are convinced of it. A vision is an image of the future that triggers enthusiasm. And we are not doing anyone any favors with a watered-down claim to the gospel. As the saying goes: a Church that thinks like the world, talks like the world, looks like the world is not necessary for the world.
A clear vision has several advantages: Vision creates a sense of belonging and personal responsibility. I am part of it because I want to be, because there is a shared vision, which is what I have opted for in freedom. That used to be our big mistake in Vienna, for example. „We help the priests with their projects.“ But it’s not about the laity helping the pastor with his things. It’s about the Lord’s cause, which has become our common cause, for which we have all decided, to which we have all committed. This also means a new empowerment of the laity. If you want to control everything, you will not raise up leaders. Where one entrusts real responsibility, leaders are built up. If you don’t do this, then you create an unhealthy priest-laity divide (clericalism), where the priest often unconsciously even promotes a consumer culture by handing out „spiritual“ and other „products“ to a passive laity, with fatal consequences.
A student once told me: „I think people come to the John Paul II Center because of the community. But they stay because you give them responsibility, believe in them and empower them.“
However, this empowerment of the laity will fail if the meta-narrative mentioned above is not understood. Without this, it will only be about power dynamics between laity and priests, a blurring and even negation of mutual roles. Instead of empowering the laity to let the light of the Gospel shine in the secular space (one of the great concerns of the Second Vatican Council), it will be about lay people playing priests and priests playing lay people, about mutual internal power games, about circling around themselves. An organization, no matter which one, that only revolves around itself and does not remember why it is in the world and what its mission is, will become sick.
Vision creates criteria for prioritization.
If something is not in line with the vision, why do it? Our version of the basic mission of the Church „Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations“ (cf. Mt 28:19) is: „We want to inspire people who are far away for Jesus Christ and his Church, empower them to become missionary disciples and help other (parish) communities to do the same.“ Or in short: „Forming apostles to transform the world“ – not that we will quickly change the world tomorrow. This short sentence does not say it all. But this sentence gives clarity and makes it easier to communicate what we are about: to focus on people and steps of discipleship instead of „how do I get as many people as possible to events?“; a focus on personal responsibility, empowerment and leadership instead of Christian consumerism, a focus on mission instead of circling around ourselves, a big “no!” to the thousands of distractions and events and occupations that keep us from our actual mission.
Visionary leadership helps to endure the tension
Enduring the tension: World, but not of the world. Pope Benedict XVI further developed the idea of „unity of tension“ taken up by Romano Guardini. The tension between the Church and the modern world must be endured. Withdrawing into a separate world leads to a loss of missionary power, because in practice it denies the reality of the Incarnation and the real work of the Risen Lord in the here and now. But it also denies the brokenness of the world, the fact that we cannot simply build heaven now.
Faith, where it has been healthy, has always worked into the world of the present. Otherwise, it lapses into sectarianism and utopian ideas that are not entirely dissimilar to certain neo-Marxist currents. The Church must not shrink into a gas station for people longing for the good old days, but must remain focused on the new evangelization. „The safest thing is a ship in the harbor. But that’s not what it’s built for.“ (John Augustus Shedd)
The vision determines the methods, not the other way around
Strategies are developed to realize a vision. There is a tendency that over time the strategies no longer serve the vision at all, but that the preservation of the strategy, program or method becomes the vision. A school is started to help young people mature as responsible Christians. Over time, this is forgotten. And then it becomes a matter of keeping the school alive as an institution without asking whether it helps young people to mature as responsible Christians at all.
„Marry your vision, date your strategy – Some people love their strategies more than the people themselves.“ (Andy Stanley)
It’s about helping people to follow Jesus, not maintaining structures. It is said that one of the most difficult tasks in the world is to kill a program in a Catholic parish – you have always done this or that. If we think like this, we are not fulfilling our mission. We must not allow for „sacred cows“ in our pastoral work. The Church will still exist at the end of time, but our way of preparing for confirmation or our youth program probably not. Perhaps we should bury the program before then.
Visionary leadership emphasizes culture more than strategy
„Culture eats strategy for breakfast.“ (Peter Drucker) Culture must therefore take precedence over strategy. By „culture“ we mean the values that are actually lived. As a Church, I can resolve, for example, to become more missional and develop strategies to achieve this. But that won’t work if the majority of members don’t have at least one person in their lives that they mourn because he or she doesn’t know the Lord. If the culture is healthy, then the leader can let go of control. This promotes leadership and multiplies ministry.
Vision should arise from prayer
You can’t build a wave, but you can learn to surf it (an idea from Rick Warren). For years in Vienna we have tried to build a wave, telling God what to bless instead of looking at what He is blessing and how we can join in. A true synodal way always has prayer at its center. Prayer is needed to enter into a „spiritual conversation“ in order to discern: What waves is God building right now and how can we learn to surf them?
Even if this should not be absolutized, it was generally the case that discernment as a spiritual process was practiced more on a personal level in Christendom times. It was less necessary on an institutional level because it was clear what needed to be done. This is fundamentally different today. We have to constantly ask ourselves whether what we are doing is still serving the vision of inspiring people for Jesus and accompanying them on a journey of discipleship.
I’m thinking of an organization in a German-speaking city that 15 years ago was the prime example of youth ministry. Today you hear almost nothing about it. The willingness to listen to what vision God has at the moment and what waves he is building has become more important today.
At the beginning, I mentioned three priorities for becoming a missionary Church. I have focused exclusively on the topic of „vision“ here. I need to know where I want to go before I start running. The other two priorities, „enabling relevant faith experiences“ and „empowering and accompanying missionary discipleship“, are just as important. Missional Church: how do we get there? Some people don’t ask themselves this question because they can’t see that it could be done any other way. They somehow accept the downfall. Or they lie to themselves. For me, the experience of traveling in other countries is interesting. Many people wonder what is wrong with the Germans. Or when you hear from the World Synod that German was not even one of the five official languages. Or when a bishop from Africa asks: „You have no more vocations, no more people in the Church and you want to tell us how to organize the Church?“ We are losing more and more relevance here in terms of the global Church. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing for our humility. Because pride is always the harbinger of doom. But if we love the Lord, if people are important to us, if we care about the Church, then we need to wake up.
„Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations“ (Mt 28:19) This was the beginning of the apostolic era. You can imagine how the apostles gathered for their first „evangelization committee meeting“. The current situation is ascertained: Bishops: 11. Priests, the same number. Deacons: 0. Candidates for the priesthood: 0. Christian believers: around 100. Religious: 0. Trained theologians: 0. Schools and universities: 0. Social institutions: 0. Contact with influential people: virtually none. Money: very little. Written gospels: 0. Church buildings: 0. Experience in foreign missions: 0. Social attitude towards us: ignorant to hostile.
This is roughly how James Shea presents it in his book „From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age“. He continues: „If the apostles had thought in terms of a popular Church and judged their situation from the standpoint of the strength of existing Christian institutions, they would have been overwhelmed by discouragement as they faced difficulties in all areas: vocational, financial, catechetical, educational and numerical. But they were not discouraged, they were full of joy and hope.“
