The Rediscovery of Meaning: Things I Would Say if I Were Still a Pastor With a Pulpit
The “post” pandemic phenomena of quiet quitting, church-leaving, and the great-resignation
We went back to a Sunday morning church service again. It had been a minute. Or months.
We restarted attending before the Omicron wave of the pandemic (what I lovingly refer to this as the pandemic’s Wordle phase).
We stopped as cases in our area started rising. Again.
Our return wasn’t as uncomfortable as my mind was leading me to believe it would be.
Some church-familiar things.
Music, singing, preaching.
But there was a lot of unfamiliar and a bit of weird.
I knew one song and maybe about 3 people.
Our church had moved on without us while we were away.
As they should have.
The most interesting phenomenon was, contrary to what I hear trending on Twitter, the number of young people in attendance was high. There were a lot of young Millennials and Zoomers. I was in an over-50 minority group. That seemed like a positive. With the ongoing news of younger generations leaving the Church, it should thrill my local church we have as many sticking around as there seems to be. Even more significantly, they were taking part: singing and playing in the band, and visibly taking part in the service.
Post-pandemic reshuffling in our society is real, and it covers a lot more than the space of religion.
Many people have changed jobs. A bunch more have changed their perspective of “hustle.” The glorification of “hustle culture” is fading from pop culture. The “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” are real. Social science is a complex subject. The qualifying factors in the global workforce reshuffling and the ongoing exodus from organized religion are subjects social scientists will study for years to come.
As someone with a theology degree who does business training, returning to a local church service brings up some significant theological issues that apply across our society. Here was my primary thought while driving home after the return of the Andersons to church: I don’t know how long those kids will continue with the current expression of church.
And I frankly don’t care.
Now — hear me out. Don’t throw me under the bus, yet.
If we’ve learned anything over the past three years of pandemic living, expressions of church (and work) are fleeting.
They look different at every age.
They look different in every culture.
Our modern conception of religious expression is recent, when looking at history’s long haul.
Today, we are in an akimbo of the cultural stream, where change is inevitable because it’s happening before our eyes.
Church and business are experiencing these shifts.
In the past 100 years, the American Church has motivated people to church attendance with:
- Guilt.
- Electric Lights.
- Music and entertainment.
- Fear of hell.
- Children and youth programming.
- Preaching personalities.
- Vast variety of gimmicks.
Similarly, the American workplace has motivated people to go to work with:
- A paycheck.
- Insurance.
- A pension.
- A nap room.
- Open offices.
- Vacation
- Fitness centers.
- Dogs (Bring-your-pet-to-work-day is a thing).
If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, surely we’ve learned that incentivizing behavior at superficial levels doesn’t last. I will not stay at a conventional Church service or a workplace for blow-up toys and nap rooms.
While I don’t care whether the young people I saw on my return-to-church Sunday stick with traditional church — I deeply care that those kids find purpose and meaning.
I have similar thoughts about shifts in the workplace.
So what if people “quiet quit”?
I don't care that a lot of people are quitting jobs they don't find life-giving.
Pundits and social commentators — and a lot of business owners — are talking the talking point: “nO oNe WAntS to wErK NEmoRe.”
That’s the wrong take.
If we are to frame this in the box of pejorative generalizations, I’d say it like this:
No one wants meaningless work.
No one wants meaningless spirituality, either.
Meaning is an important place where church and business intersect.
Our world is in yet another stage of upheaval. It’s tough to quantify the chaos we are experiencing, because history is the story of constant change and revolution. From ancient migrations to better hunting grounds in the stone ages, to the rise and fall of empires, to global wars starting and ending. The pandemic, Putin, mass-shootings, weird global politics, the repercussions of climate change — the time that we’re in right now is a challenge we have to figure out.
The thing I believe we (the Church, along with employers) can provide is a sense of meaning and belonging despite the dismantling of the world. We can bring meaning and healing to coming generations. I believe most of the modern church in America is failing at this.
In simpler times (or at least so I thought), I was once a pastor. Now I am a business and nonprofit consultant with a theology degree. If I were still a pastor, there are three core elements of spirituality that I would never stop talking about. (And still don’t, I just don’t have a pulpit anymore.) Meaning is here.
Our core spirituality should be “meaning in exile”.
This world will never be what we hope for.
In this life, we will never be fully at home here.
Yet, there is incredible beauty here that will make us feel at home. This world is also being recreated and redeemed because of the resurrection of Jesus. Until that day, we are exiles.
One of the most deceptively dangerous teachings I’ve ever come across is “the Gospel is an escape route to heaven.” That is unequivocally false.
The Gospel is “good news” because God, through Christ, is coming to sort out the incredible mess we’ve got ourselves into.
That’s going to happen.
In the meantime, we wait.
Proper Christian theology eliminates the sacred/secular divide.
We must stop practicing an extra-Biblical dualism.
I believe this means we need to stop thinking about things like ordination and clergy. Regular people should run the Church. “Lay people”, so to speak. It shouldn’t be strange when businesses are led by people with theology degrees.
The Gospel eliminates the sacred and the secular. It gives the potential for all of life to be holy.
This means:
Legitimize (seek Kingdom in) every meaningful occupation.
Jesus said quite clearly,
“But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you, as well.”
This means looking around every corner and behind every vocation asking, “Where is Kingdom here? Let me see it. Let me find it.” Your work means something, whether you run a multi-billion dollar business, or work as a store clerk or a babysitter. Seek the Kingdom and the consequences of the Kingdom in everything.
This also means:
Stop discipling people in the Church to be good Church members.
Disciple people to be good neighbors, employers, employees, world citizens, students, humans. And while we’re at it, could we also stop trying to disciple people with sermons? That’s not how Jesus did it. We need to stop trying.
I know this point well. I used to say, “If you want to be discipled, come to my church and sit under my teaching.”
That was arrogant, wrong, and ineffective.
Discipleship is being with people. It’s the hard and messy work of dealing with their lives. It’s being a part of the construction, the deconstruction, the decluttering, and the rebuilding. We need better examples of discipleship than what I ever gave back in the day.
Hope is our greatest asset.
The goal of redemption is bigger than my personal salvation from sin so that I can go to heaven when I die. The goal of redemption is the renewal of all things.
Until the day comes when that will be complete, we are a part of this “Kingdom Seeking”.
I’m still figuring this out.
I still don’t know what Church looks like for us.
But I know I want to be a vessel of hope and meaning in an age of exile.
Note: I use the term “post-pandemic” loosely. Most of the world is acting as if we’re done. The reality is there are still many people who die of COVID-19 every week. This is something important to remember.
A brief bibliography: Two books have influenced my thinking about this article.
- Exiles on Mission by Paul S. Williams
- Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright I highly recommend reading both.
What are your thoughts?
Let me know in the comments aspects you think are important to an exilic spirituality.
What does this mean to you?
Are you a ministry or business leader interested in exploring how to discover meaning in work and ministry —
while helping others to do the same?
Join a Growability® Collaborative.
New ones are forming now. Connect with me if your are interested!
