The Congregational Consulting Group, organized in 2014 by former consultants of the Alban Institute, is a network of independent consultants. We publish PERSPECTIVES for Congregational Leaders—thoughts on topics of interest to leaders of congregations and other purpose-driven organizations. — Dan Hotchkiss, editor
John Wimberly 
If ever there was an election with a clear message to the mainline churches, it has been the election of November 2024. To me, the message is: Church, get back to your core competencies, core mission, core message. Young people, especially, are already trying to improve the world. They need our help creating a theological and spiritual foundation for work they are already doing!
While many people seek out like-minded gatherings to avoid conflict, my experience as a consultant over the last 14 years tells me there is a large marketplace of people who prefer gatherings of people with diverse viewpoints who can discuss issues without screaming at each other. By creating diverse congregations, we have an opportunity to lead society out of its current polarized condition, rather than reflecting it ourselves.
I’ve been conducting focus groups with laity and clergy across the US for the past decade. A major topic is the clergy’s lack of trust in their denominations, the denominations’ lack of trust in their clergy and laity, and lay people’s lack of trust in both their clergy and denominations. Distrust is having a corrosive impact on church life today. It is at a much higher level today than it was when I first started doing focus groups.
Too many congregations, presbyteries, dioceses, conferences, etc. spend enormous amounts of energy studying, debating, amending, revising, discussing, pondering decisions rather than making decisions. It is one of the reasons the millennials and Gen Zers don’t want to get involved in the church: They want to change the world, not discuss it to death. We need to demand that leaders make decisions.
The congregations where I work as a consultant show a surprising, almost shocking openness to change. Over most of my fourteen years as a consultant, I’ve seen many Boomers with their heels dug in against change in congregations where they worship. I see promise in the possibility that we might try new things, some of which might work!
Many congregations and judicatories make do today with smaller staffs than they had ten years ago. How are they doing? Where I’m working, I would say, “Not always well.” Members want the same or even more “services” in the past from a smaller staff. They say, “We can do more with less.”
I don’t know about you, but my experience with “Let’s do more with less” is not positive. This is the hard truth: When we have less, we generally do less. How can we do more with a smaller staff? Too few admit the obvious, painful reality: We can’t. But we can focus the resources we do have on meeting the most pressing needs we see around us now.
In my fifty years of ministry, I have never seen so many opportunities for the church and clergy as I see today. Indeed, I am jealous of those of you who have the opportunity to pastor in the current environment. My belief in the opportunities in no way discounts or downplays the huge challenges to ministry today. I detailed some of those challenges in Part 1 of this two-part piece. But in this time of instability, the church is ready for innovation.