Hot Takes are a dime a dozen.

I’ve got one I keep repeating in conversations.

The average church in revitalization isn’t in an adaptive moment.

Adaptive change and challenges have been a raging conversation for over a decade. Since then, it has turned into a talking point for the evangelical world as well. Marty Linksy and Ronald Heifetz, two Harvard scholars, created the model in the 90’s. My mainline tribe picked it up in the late 2010’s with Tod Bolsinger’s book Canoeing the Mountains.

I like the framework of technical vs. adaptive. It is tremendously helpful.

In short, a technical challenge is one in which you know the answers to the questions you are asking. Often, they are a simple “if this, then that” type of thing. Sometimes you might have to find the answers…but they are out there.

An adaptive challenge is one in which the right questions aren’t even known. It is a liminal space and often one of disorientation. To get there, a person or organization needs to rewrite its narrative. It reframes how it will operate in the future.

I’ll repeat my hot take

The average church in revitalization isn’t in an adaptive moment.

In my work, serving 250+ churches and having dozens of conversations each month about normal-size church sustainability and revitalization, I’ve changed my tone on adaptive challenges. You see, I love the model. It makes sense. And in 2020-2021 (and 2023/2024 for all flavors of Methodism), it gave a way forward for local church health conversations.

What I am currently discovering, amidst years of work and content assuming an adaptive situation, is that many normal-size churches are actually in a technical challenge.

• The want and need new people, but they don’t have any formal system to follow-up with them. They also struggle with relational evangelism and connecting to their communities in meaningful ways.

• They face financial challenges, but the church doesn't look at most of the numbers until the end of the year. They rarely communicate with people who are giving.

• They want to work on congregational engagement, but don’t use tools like a database to accurately know who is in the church. This one is critical. Modern databases are the absolute hub of ministry management and the springboard for congregational engagement.

• They know communication matters, but still rely on paper and word of mouth, rather than understanding the power of email and texting services.

The actual adaptive challenge inside of this is convincing leaders they are in a technical space.

Some might say these are technological barriers. Plenty of churches understand and desire more modern technology in worship. However, they can be reluctant to use it for ministry organization and strategy. I'll contend that learning how to use technology for communication and organization is worth it. This isn't about technology either. It's about knowing how to grow in the 21st century. We help churches track new visitors and engagement. I find many of these churches see a 1st time guest, but they never come back.

What does this space exactly look like? I’m still investigating it.

I’m working through how powerful critical conversations are at the beginning of a vitality journey. These are intentional conversations. Without the intentionality, it is easy to fall into the same patterns of emotions, anxiety, and nostalgia. The adaptive discovery means an awakening to a different operating dynamic.

This is what I do know, after pouring hundreds of hours into my significant dataset. Most churches now are at a size they haven’t been at in decades. The last growth burst many churches have had was decades ago. The pastors and the congregation have never experienced significant growth. It is a forgotten skill. And, it is a technical one.

The space of the critical conversation for a church to realize it needs to learn new things is one of the biggest impacts I know of.

This thought will continue to grow, but my hot take is one I will stand on.

Chad