Truett program helps churches prepare for the future

WACO—Dustin Benac believes the church has a future, and he wants to help congregations get ready for it.

As director and cofounder of the Program for the Future Church at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, Benac seeks to help congregational leaders begin preparation now for the next steps they need to take in ministry.

“We are unapologetically pro-church,” Benac said. “And I say ‘we’ intentionally. This is collaborative work.”

A collaborative approach that values partnerships and seeks ways to “join in what God is already doing to mend a fractured world” is one of the core values of the Program for the Future Church, he noted.

Benac identified four other guiding values:

• Conjunctive imagination—Looking for “and” approaches to challenges that seem to lend themselves to “either/or” responses.
• Convening—Gathering church leaders, community leaders and thought leaders for “catalytic conversations.”
• Context—Recognizing the “local wisdom of faith communities” as the program seeks to conduct its research and develop resources.
• Creative—Fostering imagination, encouraging innovation and sharing best practices.

Benac readily acknowledges the challenges churches face—particularly in light of a global pandemic, political division and economic uncertainty.

“However, there also is the opportunity for innovation, creativity and the ongoing work of the Spirit,” he said.

Helping churches become adaptive

Benac, author of Adaptive Church: Collaboration and Community in a Changing World, hopes the Program for the Future Church helps congregations and their leaders become less reactive and more adaptive.

“The reactive approach looks at circumstances as problems to be solved. It’s about crisis management and alleviating the immediate pain,” he explained.

“The adaptive church takes a more thoughtful and creative response. It sees a challenge as an opportunity for creative possibility.”

An adaptive church draws on the resources and wisdom of the larger Christian tradition—not just its own experience—and reaches out in partnerships to the larger community of faith, he noted.

But it also intimately knows its local context and shapes its ministries to fit that context, he added.

“Ministry is place-based,” Benac said. “The adaptive church takes the time to listen. It takes risks, recognizing the reality of failure. But it is guided by hope.”

The book grew out of Benac’s research of churches in the Pacific Northwest—an area characterized by creative and resilient religious entrepreneurship in the midst of a largely secular society.

“The church there might be seen as occupying a marginal position socially, but it is vital in terms of creativity and innovation. It’s operating on the margins of society, but there is energy on the edges,” he said.

A focus on nurturing creative, collaborative and resilient church leaders is one of the pillars of the Program for the Future Church, he noted.

Other pillars are:

• Youth and emerging adults—Understand the culture and context of the next generation, while helping explore their questions and ideas.
• Pedagogy—Nurture best practices in teaching and learning and help ministry leaders develop learning communities that are creative, participatory, story-driven, dialogical and holistic.
• Lived Experience—Foster “sacred space, faithful presence and compassionate witness in relation to the lived experience of people of faith,” paying particular attention to the intersection of mental and spiritual health.

Truett announced the Program for the Future Church’s launch in July 2021. A little more than a year ago, Baylor received a $1 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to help the program build its infrastructure and accelerate its work.

In addition to spending several months listening to church leaders and soliciting their ideas, the Program for the Future Church has begun to develop resources.

Where to Start: A Guide for Faith Leaders on Shifting Ground is available as a free downloadable PDF document with links to additional resources. The Program for the Future Church developed the guide in partnership with the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, Vandersall Collective and RootedGood.

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Benac will talk about “Pioneering Practices for an Adaptive Church” in a free Jan. 18 webinar sponsored by the Christian Missions Society. To register, click here.