Everywhere You Look

Discovering the Church Right Where You Are

Tim Soerens

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780830841967
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

What's the point of the church anyway?The emerging generation is opting out of the church in large numbers. They're embarrassed at how the church is portrayed in the media and dismayed at what appears to be their options for participation. Is church really necessary anymore in our day? Is it even possible?Tim Soerens sees this unsettled state of affairs as an extraordinary opportunity: the church, he says, is on the edge of a new possibility at the very moment so much of it feels like it's falling apart. In his extensive travels in all kinds of neighborhoods, Soerens has seen the beginnings of this movement firsthand. In Everywhere You Look, he lays out practical, actionable steps for building collaborative communities in any neighborhood.Here is a vision of the church grounded in a grassroots movement of ordinary people living out what it means to be the church in their everyday lives. Read this book—and join the movement.

CHAPTER ONE

THE MOVEMENT OR
THE MELTDOWN

Claudette Colvin doesn’t have any museums or holidays named after her, but she should. You’ve undoubtedly heard of Rosa Parks, the young woman who was ruthlessly dragged off a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give her seat to a white person. What many people don’t know is that nine months earlier the same thing happened to Claudette. On March 15, 1955, on her way home from high school, fifteen-year-old Claudette took a seat on a bus in Montgomery. When the bus driver told her to give her seat to a white person, she refused. Within minutes her books were flying in the air; two police officers put her in handcuffs and started to drag her off the bus. Without fighting back or cussing, she kept telling everyone who would listen that sitting on the bus was her constitutional right, but that didn’t keep her from ending up in the adult jail at the police station. While in lockup, she prayed the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 over and over, all the while hoping her family and neighbors would somehow discover she was there. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to call anyone. Thankfully, her schoolmates who were also on the bus spread the word around the neighborhood.

Mary Ann Colvin, Claudette’s mom, was a maid who took care of three other children in their neighborhood. Once word spread of what had happened to Claudette, a few nearby girls scurried over to watch the kids while Mary Ann frantically thought about how to get to the police station. She hastily called Claudette’s pastor, the Reverend H. H. Johnson, who had a car, and together they raced to the police station. Rev. Johnson was able to bail out Claudette and told her, “Claudette, I’m so proud of you. Everyone prays for freedom. We’ve all been praying and praying. But you’re different—you want your answer the next morning. And I think you just brought the revolution to Montgomery.”1

Most people don’t know Claudette’s name, but that doesn’t change the fact that her grit and resolve cultivated the soil for moments like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King’s legendary speeches, and the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1963. She is an icon to me because her courage was on display at the moment before the movement. She knew she had the support of her family and neighborhood, but she couldn’t have known at the time that her courageous action would multiply throughout the country into an unstoppable movement. It took tremendous grit not to give up her seat. With all of the stares and contempt on that bus, she must have felt completely alone—but she knew she was not alone.

History has a way of remembering the icons, the ones who seemingly spark a movement from thin air, but of course this is never the case. There is no isolated genius. We should keep celebrating the major breakthroughs of history: Rosa Parks’ arrest, the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. King, the passing of landmark legislation. It’s pretty standard to remember major historical movements by marking the day or celebrating the person who embodies that final climactic moment of victory. But increasingly I find myself even more inspired by what happened before the breakthrough. What are the common themes of these crucial moments before the movement? Might there be clues for us to discern whether something much larger is happening around us today?

I’m not a historian, but it seems to me that before any major movement, before any history-making transition, a few common traits emerge. Right before most movements, the following almost always occur:

• ✦ People are afraid to ask out loud big, important questions.
• ✦ Polarization and a sense of nostalgia escalate.
• ✦ Disconnected grassroots experiments take place on the margins.

Before the movement there are sustained moments when all feels lost, when something feels impossibly broken, when confusion and fragmentation seem to be the norm. A hazy cloud of anxiety seems to pervade the lives of more and more everyday people. We want to know if we’re the only ones asking these questions, having these doubts, longing for reasons to hope.

Does this sound familiar? Are we closer to a breakthrough movement or have we just begun the meltdown? In most of the headlines about the church right now, it feels a lot more like we are approaching a meltdown.

Beneath the surface of our perplexing cultural moment, Christians from all sorts of backgrounds are wondering what is going on. A creeping suspicion has been growing for years that maybe things are getting worse. Polarization is exploding, isolation is pervasive, and this is all happening as the new millennial generation, with a historically poor attitude toward institutions, is coming of age. There is well-documented and understandable suspicion of large corporations, exhaustion from our polarized national government, and lack of participation in associations. It can feel like we are in the midst of a great unraveling or, as writer George Packer calls it, “the unwinding.”2 In this era of confusion many of our institutions are tempted by former glories of the past rather than risking a bold new future. This is true of many of our churches as well.

As more and more everyday people struggle to hope, those of us following Jesus must ask, How do we embody news that is so good it draws the attention and longing of our neighbors? At the moment when so many of our neighbors seem to be most in need of a local church, do we have the imagination and clarity of vision to answer the ancient call to be the people of God who are blessed to be a blessing (see Genesis 12:2-3)?

The truth is that at the very moment when the strong social fabric of love and care is so desperately needed, we most often hear that the church is dying. It seems like every month a new celebrity pastor flames out. We read about congregations that appear more aligned with a particular political party than the redemptive story of God. We drive by dozens of church buildings that are empty or have been ignored for decades. No wonder a growing industry of books and conferences on post-Christian America fearfully predicts the death of the church as we know it. I believe many of these forecasts to be true, but I increasingly find myself captivated by a simple idea. What if our inherited imagination of what the church should be is dying while the Spirit is stirring up something new?

We are either in the moment before the meltdown or a new movement. This book is a guide to see what’s possible and to build momentum toward a movement I believe is already underway. I’m convinced that God is asking us to embrace this season as an unprecedented opportunity. At a time when everything seems to be getting more confusing, clarity is emerging for how we can be the church in our everyday lives together.

We won’t yet read about these growing experiments from the headlines. We can’t get there from the normal pathways. But if we join together in planting our feet on the ground, I think we just might see a history-making opportunity to join God in transforming how everyday people experience the church. More than changing what we do, we first need to change how we see. I have personally witnessed ordinary heroes like Claudette Colvin in just about every neighborhood I’ve had the honor of exploring. Thousands of courageous Christians are trying new things, taking new risks, and answering the ancient call to be God’s people on behalf of others. But if we are going to have the eyes to see them, we must question our default settings in how we pay attention to God at work in our everyday lives and how we have been conditioned to view the church as a timebound and static event.

The Secret on the Street

Along with some incredible colleagues, I’ve been privileged to spend the past ten years in hundreds of neighborhoods listening to stories of hope. I’ve sat in dark pubs late at night and in bright kitchens at the crack of dawn. Over the years I’ve slept on more couches than I care to count. My travels have taken me to gritty urban neighborhoods, cozy suburban towns, and tranquil rural villages. I’ve talked to trust-fund hipsters, Black Lives Matter activists, self-described rednecks, accomplished scholars in their eighties, and idealistic teenagers. Hopeful stories of transformation are popping up everywhere as ordinary people discern what it could mean to be the church in everyday life. A groundswell of momentum is gaining traction just in time to counter our cultural moment of fragmentation and confusion.

If you doubt me, I can’t blame you. After all, religious journalists won’t cover most of these stories because they don’t know where to look. Most pastors won’t see it because they’re focused on their own congregations. To witness what’s actually happening, we need to walk a few streets, ask plenty of questions, and be on the lookout for what God is doing in our everyday lives. If we look at the headlines, all we see is meltdown; when we get on the street it feels more like a movement.

We are at a tipping point for the church, at least for the church in North America. In all sorts of environments, when I have asked people about what the church or its purpose is, I’ve gotten such diverse answers that I wonder if the practical imagination of the church is essentially up for grabs. On the one hand, millions of mostly young people are giving up on the church. It just doesn’t make sense to them, and as a result they are placing their attention, hope, and time where they believe more change can happen. On the other hand is a movement that sounds an awful lot like “Make the Church Great Again.” But, both of these impulses make a profound mistake in asking questions about the church before asking questions about what God is doing. Ironically, the more obsessively we focus on the church, the harder it is to focus on God, who is making all things new and is active in our everyday lives.

When I say the experience of church is up for grabs, I’m not talking about how we feel when we attend a Sunday gathering. I’m talking about how everyday people imagine what the church is all about. From conservative evangelical churches in small Midwestern towns to mainline churches in bustling San Francisco, from two hundred-year-old establishments in New York to two-month-old church plants in New Mexico, a crucial question is rising: Rather than occasionally attend a service, how do we become the visible body of Christ in our everyday lives? I’m convinced God is prompting us to ask this question as well.

We are being shaken up to follow God into a bold new future where our faith guides our entire lives. It shapes our neighborhoods, cultivates an entirely new imagination for how we live, and draws us together when everything else seems to be tearing us apart.

How Movements Happen

Those who don’t believe this transformation is possible might be in the majority. But let’s consider how movements usually happen. First, the movements that matter almost always feel impossible until they aren’t. Here’s what I mean: the reason we don’t believe change can happen is not that we don’t want it and usually not because we fear something new, but because we believe that we are alone. We feel like we are the slightly crazy ones. We can see a path forward, but we don’t think it’s going to be possible to get there on our own. So we continue on as best we can. We know there must be something more but can’t quite name it. Maybe we try some new experiments and learn from them. Often, we feel like we are on to something but wonder if we can keep going. Most of the time it feels like our families, our institutions, or even our circle of friends don’t quite get it. But we carry on until one of two options presents itself. The first is to simply give up. The experiments stop; we conclude we had some great ideas and strong convictions, but we just can’t keep going. It’s time to fold. The cards were not in our favor. This is incredibly sad and always carries with it a sense of resignation, a tinge of bitterness, and constant second-guessing. We tell ourselves we tried, which is all we can do. It’s the end, and we need to face reality. Maybe the cynics were right.

But sometimes when we are pushing toward something new we receive the gift of a new connection, and it changes everything.

It can feel like winning the lottery. It’s a little disorienting because of how common and ordinary it actually is, but immediately we feel the possibility of transformation. We meet someone who has a common conviction and has courageously stepped into an experiment of their own. When we meet them, it feels like magic. Maybe we aren’t so crazy after all. Maybe there is something to this! Maybe we are on the front end of a long line of innovators. As it relates to our dreams for the church, maybe God is actually doing something. Maybe seeds of discontent and desire have been planted throughout the world, and we are now starting to see the seedlings emerge from the broken soil. All of this leads to a key principle at the heart of this book: movements happen when people who thought they were alone discover they are not.

This principle is true in nearly every major revolution, every major transition, perhaps every significant moment that changes history. We think it’s impossible because we think we are alone, but everything changes when we realize that’s not true. That same desire within us to follow Jesus with our whole life, to love our actual neighbors, and to belong to a team of people in our everyday lives guided by the Great Commandment to love God and our neighbors is shared by millions. This longing might be completely unique in a particular context but is actually shared by a mostly invisible movement that hasn’t been connected. What if this desire is being nurtured and cultivated by the living Spirit of God, but we all think we are alone? What if we are surrounded by ordinary saints whose deepest desire for their lives is to answer the prayer “your kingdom come, in my neighborhood as it is in heaven,” but we all feel like Claudette Colvin—alone on a bus?

The Good News of Church Decline

We just might be in the early days of a reformation that will one day be written about in history books. And even if this doesn’t transpire, at least we should know we are not alone. Please keep in mind that if the same driving desire within us—the fraying thread of hope that feels like it’s splitting and popping with every passing day—is connected with others, it has the potential to be a strong, rich, colorful fabric of love and care in our neighborhoods. The strength of what is possible ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Walter Brueggemann
• 1 The Movement or the Meltdown
• 2 The Big Why
• 3 The Magic of Paying Attention
• 4 The Megachurch Next Door
• 5 The Parish Is the Unit of Change
• 6 The Same Team
• 7 Learning from Local Heroes
• 8 Already Here
• Postscript: Without Ceasing
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Praise for Everywhere You Look
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright