COVID and the faithful risks pastors have taken

In 2013, I launched a group called the Church Lab, based in Austin, Texas. By that time I had served as a pastor in a church plant and in a struggling traditional church. I’d been a “secret shopper” for a denomination, visiting churches and writing up my experiences with suggestions for how they could be more welcoming. I’d also been a program director at a seminary. In all those roles, I saw an urgent need for experimental ministry work to help the church find her way in the future.

I started the Church Lab as a place for testing out some possible solutions to the snowballing exodus from congregational life that was already well under way. But soon I realized that we needed to reach out to pastors, too, not just congregants or those trying to grow spiritually outside church environments. I saw how badly pastors needed encouragement from a community of their peers to take the risks that would be necessary to transform their congregations. I began to design programs to help pastors anchor themselves spiritually in a time of dizzying transitions.

I have now worked with four cohorts of 20 pastors, from a variety of denominations and locations and with a spectrum of congregational challenges. I’d provide pastoral care to them while they discerned alongside their colleagues from diverse contexts. Walking together in a supportive community, they would watch each other grow, take risks, succeed, and fail (though I consider it  “failing up”; failure always leads to surprising new opportunities). They would face challenges together and work toward creative solutions.