A Review of Circle of Hope (book)
by Bill Ireland
Eliza Griswold’s latest book, Circle of Hope, calls attention to many of the thorny issues confronting congregations these days. Setting appropriate boundaries for former pastors. Renewing vision. Coping with COVID. Fostering healthy staff relationships. Having conversations about race and gender identity. Struggling to communicate. Preserving community. Virtually every congregation has to grapple with one or more of these concerns at some point in their history.
Griswold chronicles how the Circle of Hope church in Philadelphia Pennsylvania eventually dissolved after wrestling with these issues. By means of “immersive journalism” Griswold sits us down in a front row seat where we get to observe Ben, Julie, Rachel, and Jonny close up as they strive to move the church forward following the retirement of the church’s founders, Rod and Gwen White. We are privy to many of their conversations and private reflections, as well as conversations between members themselves.
Rod and Gwen began Circle of Hope as an alternative to the popular conservative evangelical approach to church planting that took hold in the 1980’s. They eschewed many of the principles of the church growth movement and sought to create a diverse community centered on scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
From the beginning, the church came together in small cell groups of no more than ten people. The idea was to build friendships and relationships based on a common desire to follow Jesus rather than by the identity markers of class, race, gender orientation and the like. The goal was to create a “community without hierarchy.” Living into this vision, the church indeed became a circle of hope.
Nevertheless, the struggles over “what next?” began when the Whites stepped back from their leadership role and Ben, Julie, Rachel, and Jonny came to the fore. Although friends, these four struggled with how best to lead the church. Sadly, over time the tensions between them deepened, and their relationships unraveled. These four worked hard to keep the church together but ultimately, they could not find a constructive way forward.
Circle of Hope is a timely book, but it is a hard read. By that I mean although well written, it’s like looking into a mirror in which we can see our own congregations and the challenges they face. Whatever the issue, Griswold’s account gives us a taste of how difficult it can be to address them. She shows that being a pastor these days is both hard work and hazardous duty. Nothing about ministry is easy. Nevertheless, Griswold captures the hopeful and poignant nature of ministry by recounting how Julie, one of the pastors she’d been involved with in the creation of the book, showed up at her father’s funeral. Julie’s presence was totally unexpected, and Griswold says, “I hadn’t imagined her visiting my world, and yet there she was, mourning the loss of a man she’d never met, as this, among so many unseen acts of service, is what a pastor does.”
Despite the chronicle of heartache at the center of the book, Circle of Hope reminds us that whatever our job title as minister, we are called to step into the worlds of other people and serve them there. And we are called to lead our congregations to do the same.
Eliza Griswold, Circle of Hope (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)