We Do Not Lose Heart: Missional Leadership in Dying Congregations
Abstract
Reading this paper will not show you how to save your dying congregation, nor will it help you euthanize it. This project likens missional leadership to a hospice intervention: in the face of an adaptive challenge, the pastor creates an environment in which the congregation can find the support, confidence, and encouragement it needs. This pragmatic action research project utilized a transformative mixed method design to impact missional pastors serving in dying congregations in the Montana Synod of the ELCA. The primary intervention model was a missional search conference. Biblical lenses included 2 Corinthians 4 and Matthew 25:31-46. Theological lenses were the leadership of the Holy Spirit and missional ecclesiology.