By Chris Aho
Do you remember those Head and Shoulders shampoo commercials from the 1980s? A woman points out her friend’s dandruff and encourages her to use the shampoo.
Her friend, confused, asks, “How do you know all this? You don’t have dandruff.” The woman responds, “Exactly.”
The implication is that her scalp is healthy because of the regular good practices in which she engages and not just because of a single significant intervention. The same is true for our congregations.
Over the last three years, people have asked me:
- What is the “Thriving Congregations” initiative?
- Why is it necessary?
- Is it useful for congregations already thriving or only for those that are not?
- And why does my congregation need it?
These are all questions worth asking and, in a way, answered by that Head and Shoulders commercial. The Thriving Congregations Initiative exists to help churches engage in faithful practices that lead to desired results. In a sense, Thriving Congregations works like that dandruff shampoo— start using it and you will get the results you want. Or, if you’d prefer a scriptural analogy, engaging in the work of a Thriving Congregations Learning Community is akin to what Noah started to work on, long before the rains came.
During a recent World Communion Sunday service, Pastor Will Heyward of Mount Jefferson Presbyterian Church in West Jefferson, N.C. remarked, “Noah didn’t wait until it started raining to build the ark.” While I’m sure Pastor Heyward is not the first person to make that observation, it struck a chord with me that day. It was a helpful distillation of what CBF’s Thriving Congregations Initiative aims to be: work as preparation for what lies ahead—especially for what we may not yet see.
As congregations face an increasingly changing world, we believe thriving requires more than setting goals or fantasizing about resurrecting yesterday. We believe our congregational dreams are realized by faithfully growing and developing with the recommended Thriving Traits on a regular basis.
At its best, the work of the Thriving Congregations Initiative encourages us to engage in faithful practices and to embody the Thriving Traits before we experience disorienting events that force change (like a flood or perhaps, dandruff at a job interview). Congregations can engage with these Thriving Traits now or they can wait until later, but ultimately the path to thriving requires active engagement in these traits.
Another way to think about this is in terms of one’s personal health. As we age, we tend to gather a set of specialists and “-ologists” to help keep our bodies functioning well. I am certainly of an age where my own annual physical results in the imposition of a series of subtle practices designed to push back significant health interventions. The doc says, “Cut back on the coffee for your blood pressure, the fried foods for your cholesterol and lift some weights for your skeletal health.” If I engage in these practices, I might be able to delay experiencing a significantly dire event.
So when it comes to health, we can see a nutritionist, a personal trainer or an “-ologist.” But the hope is that employing the trainer and refining the diet help push back the need for that “-ologist” as long as possible, right?
For the church, the work of CBF’s Thriving Congregations seeks to delay that “-ologist” visit through healthy, faithful, intentional traits and practices. In this way, a Thriving Congregational approach is akin to preventative medicine or strength and conditioning: we do the work now to be healthier later. So, the question we face as congregational leaders is, can we make time to engage in good habits now, or will we wait until a radical intervention becomes necessary?
All around us, the world is changing rapidly. If recent history has taught us anything, it’s that tomorrow is unlikely to look like yesterday. To thrive amid change, we need more than drastic interventions. We need practices that serve as preparation for what’s to come. In 2024 and beyond. The best way to build an ark is not necessarily to gather blueprints while buying a field and lumber. In like manner, as congregations, we need to engage in thriving traits and faithful practices to be at our best. Moving through the world in this way might help prepare us for what’s next. And what we know about what’s next is that it just might require helping our neighbors through a flood, even if there isn’t any rain.
Chris Aho is the director of the Thriving Churches Initiative and works to discover and design ways to cultivate the conditions for thriving within CBF congregations. CBF’s Thriving Congregations Initiative exists to equip congregational leaders with tools and strategies necessary to move towards transformation and thriving in their unique congregational context. Learn more about Thriving Congregations here.