The Speed of Change
by Eric Spivey
An elderly church member told me recently, “Pastor, I’m too old for this change.” I get it. I feel too old, too.
Our inability to keep up with the speed of change fatigues us and our churches. Andrew Root in his book, The Congregation in the Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life (2021), calls depression “an ailment of speed, the feeling of not being able to keep up.”
Our churches can have all we need – budgets, facilities, people – and still feel depressed with the changes happening around us. Depression only gets magnified when resources become limited, and we learn the solutions require… more change.
I discovered Andrew Root’s trilogy of books on Ministry in a Secular Age during the pandemic. A professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary, Dr. Root engages in a conversation with Charles
Taylor’s book A Secular Age (2007) over the scope of his three books. His books have oriented me to the swirling cultural moments happening around us and the challenges they present.
The Congregation in the Secular Age is the last of the three books (faith formation and the role of the pastor in the secular age are covered in the first two). One of its first chapter titles spoke directly to me: “The church and the depressing speed of change.” “Yes,” I said to myself, as I scanned the pages, “this has been my experience as pastor for the past 10 years.”
Constant change has surrounded me. Over my years as pastor, technology, congregational life, society, relationships, and even theological understandings have all shifted underneath me. It exhausts me to remember all the changes my churches and I have journeyed through.
And the changes are only coming faster. I don’t know about you, but I am tired. I guess that’s why I am drawn to Root’s works. He describes my ministry environment. And he offers me glimpses of hope. “Resonance reverses alienation’s toxin… in our relationships and connections of resonance we sense something eternal in time.”
So, here I stand, my feet planted in the 2020’s. My church needs me this year, not last year or five years ago, facing today’s changes. Root’s glimpses of hope provide me if not a roadmap, at least a direction to point myself and the church.
Over the next few months, I will engage in a conversation with Root’s Ministry in the Secular Age books through a series of articles in our Pinnacle newsletter. I look forward to learning more as we share this journey as pastor in the Secular Age. I invite you to pick up the books and join me.