LibraryScenariosWhen faith communities avoid difficult conversations about decline
Scenario

When faith communities avoid difficult conversations about decline

Our church is hemorrhaging young families and the leadership keeps insisting it's a cultural problem while some of us think it's because we've stopped making room for real questions. We're having meetings about declining attendance but not talking about why people are walking away.

Rumi
Online
The coach is replying

More people experience this than they realize.

What we've seen

A community chooses the comfort of familiar explanations over the harder work of examining whether its own rigidity drives away those it claims to love.

Ideas that help explain it
Worth thinking about

“Where Are You with Doubt as spiritual practice?”

If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.