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Turning Ourselves Inside Out: Thriving Christian Communities
Turning Ourselves Inside Out emerges from the Thriving Christian Communities Project started by the authors in 2015, as well as from a Facebook conversation where someone asked , "We always hear about the problems in our churches. When are we going to talk about the good news stories?" This got the authors How do we learn about what is exciting and what the Holy Spirit is doing? How do we broaden the conversation beyond how sad, afraid, and grumpy we often are as church people? These kinds of questions filled the authors' imaginations as they scouted out the long walking route of Camino Nova Scotia, the pilgrimage program offered by Atlantic School of Theology. The long hours walking together gave them space and peace to think more broadly about what they wanted to learn, and how to share it with the wider church. In interviews with thirty-five faith communities, the authors discovered that amid great upheaval, Christ is giving us a new church, and this book offers readers a firsthand glimpse of it. Turning Ourselves Inside Out isn't an "off the shelf" program or model. It invites readers to listen to others' experiences and then dig deep into their own and get down to the business of dreaming God's dream and making it real, right where they are. Leaders of congregations, and all who care about what God is up to in the world, need to hear these stories. They are a source of hope and courage, as God renews and revives God's people.
158 pages, Paperback
Published September 14, 2021
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March 16, 2022
Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson, PhD, Pastoral Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, Buddhism, Christian Education
Review:
Turning Ourselves Inside Out is a description of 35 thriving Christian communities that the authors, Russell Dave and Robert Fennell, researched across Canada. The authors’ assessment is that today’s contemporary western world is “VUCA – volatile uncertain, complex and ambiguous”( (Russell Dave and Robert C. Fennell, Turning Ourselves Inside Out: Thriving Christian Communities, Fortress Press, 2021, p.86). People are “running away from institutional religion” (p.28), partly because “the post-modern organized-religion-rejecting world” (p. 33) has been met with “judgmentalism, harshness and separation” by older Christians who are used to how the church normally conducted its priorities. As a result, God’s purposes in mission “become lost within the fog of the collective anxiety of the people (in a dying church) and the tyranny of the church budget” (p. 86).
To dispel that fog, the authors present Christian communities that have risen out of the ashes of near death and become transforming hubs of the Holy Spirit. They describe how many churches in the dying process hit rock-bottom and decide to open themselves to experimentation, because “what do we have to lose?” (p. 37). But the experimentation has in turn opened them to create a hopeful engagement between the gospel they embrace and the secular communities around them. For example, St. Timothy’s, is a learning community because “they are learning and practicing the spiritual life (and making) genuine efforts to be and build transformative, meaningful communities in the age of loneliness. [Another community’s similar continuous message is] “‘we are a community that follows Jesus and we are constantly learning about His way’. As one of their ministers put it, ‘we exist to enable everyday, ordinary people to walk the way of Jesus” (pp. 45, 47).
The authors describe the courage exemplified in many of these churches: “Courage is a gift given so that God’s mission in the world – God’s purposes - can be further realized” (p.83) . . .These churches have been willing to begin a risky project or initiate a change without the reassuring confidence of success (p.85). Grace Church’s understanding of God’s call has meant that “every year it seems Grace grows beyond its budget and accepts a level of expenditure larger than current financial giving”(p,35). There is “hope in what God can do” (p.41).
The stories in this book reflect a contemporary interaction with society and one sees the mixture of some New Age philosophy woven among the clear strands of Christ-centeredness in the communities described. But the stories remain God-centered and create hope and challenge for those still committed to the role of the Christian church in today’s world.
Review:
Turning Ourselves Inside Out is a description of 35 thriving Christian communities that the authors, Russell Dave and Robert Fennell, researched across Canada. The authors’ assessment is that today’s contemporary western world is “VUCA – volatile uncertain, complex and ambiguous”( (Russell Dave and Robert C. Fennell, Turning Ourselves Inside Out: Thriving Christian Communities, Fortress Press, 2021, p.86). People are “running away from institutional religion” (p.28), partly because “the post-modern organized-religion-rejecting world” (p. 33) has been met with “judgmentalism, harshness and separation” by older Christians who are used to how the church normally conducted its priorities. As a result, God’s purposes in mission “become lost within the fog of the collective anxiety of the people (in a dying church) and the tyranny of the church budget” (p. 86).
To dispel that fog, the authors present Christian communities that have risen out of the ashes of near death and become transforming hubs of the Holy Spirit. They describe how many churches in the dying process hit rock-bottom and decide to open themselves to experimentation, because “what do we have to lose?” (p. 37). But the experimentation has in turn opened them to create a hopeful engagement between the gospel they embrace and the secular communities around them. For example, St. Timothy’s, is a learning community because “they are learning and practicing the spiritual life (and making) genuine efforts to be and build transformative, meaningful communities in the age of loneliness. [Another community’s similar continuous message is] “‘we are a community that follows Jesus and we are constantly learning about His way’. As one of their ministers put it, ‘we exist to enable everyday, ordinary people to walk the way of Jesus” (pp. 45, 47).
The authors describe the courage exemplified in many of these churches: “Courage is a gift given so that God’s mission in the world – God’s purposes - can be further realized” (p.83) . . .These churches have been willing to begin a risky project or initiate a change without the reassuring confidence of success (p.85). Grace Church’s understanding of God’s call has meant that “every year it seems Grace grows beyond its budget and accepts a level of expenditure larger than current financial giving”(p,35). There is “hope in what God can do” (p.41).
The stories in this book reflect a contemporary interaction with society and one sees the mixture of some New Age philosophy woven among the clear strands of Christ-centeredness in the communities described. But the stories remain God-centered and create hope and challenge for those still committed to the role of the Christian church in today’s world.
October 4, 2021
Daye and Fennell got tired of hearing all the doom and gloom about mainline churches in decline towards death. They hunched that, if they looked and listened, they would find another story, another trajectory, in the midst of the ravages of modernity. They did and this book is an inspiring and instructive report on their learnings. It begins with a powerful metaphor of life after a raging forest fire. It’s found in the roots, in the hidden life beneath the surface destruction, in the mycelia. Daye got that image from Jim Drescher, co-founder of a retreat centre where he had gone to write. He described the mycelia as “the vast system of fungus that lives under a forest, carrying both the intelligence and the nutrients for that forest.”
Out of long-term chronic crises, such as the unraveling of much that the mainline churches took for granted for generations, new hope for new/renewed forms arises from the heritage preserved in the life of the mycelia. There are “perceivers and innovators” who name the emergency honestly and experiment with creative responses, what some are calling “traditioned innovation.” The responses documented in this book have generated thriving churches in a wide variety of settings and styles. Daye and Fennell are careful to caution that their accounts are not models to be followed, but stories to be adapted to our own crises and contexts.
They organize their findings into six character traits or virtues that they found in a delightful diversity of manifestations in all of the churches and agencies they studied. In brief, the six are:
• Saying ‘yes’ to hope;
• Being humble enough for life-long learning;
• Loving with an open heart, especially among the leadership core;
• Finding the courage to risk;
• Identifying a compelling and coherent purpose;
• Willing to give and give up things (kenosis) to change for the better.
These are not things to do as much as a culture in which all of the virtues are interacting and reinforcing each other, an ecosystem that nourishes the community to flourish in a symbiotic relationship with the flourishing of its social and spiritual environment.
Several insights about these virtues struck me as provocative for bettering Brentwood Presbyterian Church, with whom I minister.
First, I particularly like the focus on the potential of congregations as they are. This is not a book about new witnessing communities as much as it is about renewing witnessing communities. Each congregation or agency faced a crisis of survival. Their renewal often began by simply figuring out a way to survive. In that survival, then, they were able to imagine together better ways of living out the heritage of their Christian ways in hopeful and constructive ways. They realized they were already missional and said ‘yes’ to being more so in faithful, wise, and effective ways.
Second, I appreciated the recognition that individuals in the leadership teams might have been catalysts in cultivating the potential of the mycelia, but it took a team to spark and sustain the innovation and impact. It wasn’t always the clergy and it was never the clergy alone. It was many people making many contributions to new ways of with-nessing and witnessing that were fed by new hope found in the heritage.
Third, I value the push Daye and Fennell gave me to look more deeply into the organizational development wisdom of Otto Scharmer and Theory U. In brief, it’s a way of engaging in organizational change that is rooted in a respectful listening that is willing to risk going down into the ‘Ground of Being/Force Field of Divine Love’ opens minds, hearts, and wills to find new ways up into a generative co-creating and co-evolving for the well-being of all creation.
The virtues recommended in this book are at work in and through Brentwood. Our flourishing in hope, fed by our heritage, is very much a work in progress. It always will be, if we are to avoid the pitfalls of complacency in our self-righteousness that plagues so many religious institutions these days. Churches are still infected with the disease of denial. Officials at various levels of the institution think they know what is best for the future of your congregation without ever having sat down for a conversation about it with you or digging deeply enough into the soil from which you have sprung to find hope in your heritage. Let’s stop doing that and find more faithful, wise, and effective ways of collaborating with Christ in transforming our missioning. The possibilities for that happening are inspiringly and instructively presented in this book.
Many thanks to the authors, their interviewees, and the communities that supported this project for such a compelling collection of stories and possibilities to consider.
Out of long-term chronic crises, such as the unraveling of much that the mainline churches took for granted for generations, new hope for new/renewed forms arises from the heritage preserved in the life of the mycelia. There are “perceivers and innovators” who name the emergency honestly and experiment with creative responses, what some are calling “traditioned innovation.” The responses documented in this book have generated thriving churches in a wide variety of settings and styles. Daye and Fennell are careful to caution that their accounts are not models to be followed, but stories to be adapted to our own crises and contexts.
They organize their findings into six character traits or virtues that they found in a delightful diversity of manifestations in all of the churches and agencies they studied. In brief, the six are:
• Saying ‘yes’ to hope;
• Being humble enough for life-long learning;
• Loving with an open heart, especially among the leadership core;
• Finding the courage to risk;
• Identifying a compelling and coherent purpose;
• Willing to give and give up things (kenosis) to change for the better.
These are not things to do as much as a culture in which all of the virtues are interacting and reinforcing each other, an ecosystem that nourishes the community to flourish in a symbiotic relationship with the flourishing of its social and spiritual environment.
Several insights about these virtues struck me as provocative for bettering Brentwood Presbyterian Church, with whom I minister.
First, I particularly like the focus on the potential of congregations as they are. This is not a book about new witnessing communities as much as it is about renewing witnessing communities. Each congregation or agency faced a crisis of survival. Their renewal often began by simply figuring out a way to survive. In that survival, then, they were able to imagine together better ways of living out the heritage of their Christian ways in hopeful and constructive ways. They realized they were already missional and said ‘yes’ to being more so in faithful, wise, and effective ways.
Second, I appreciated the recognition that individuals in the leadership teams might have been catalysts in cultivating the potential of the mycelia, but it took a team to spark and sustain the innovation and impact. It wasn’t always the clergy and it was never the clergy alone. It was many people making many contributions to new ways of with-nessing and witnessing that were fed by new hope found in the heritage.
Third, I value the push Daye and Fennell gave me to look more deeply into the organizational development wisdom of Otto Scharmer and Theory U. In brief, it’s a way of engaging in organizational change that is rooted in a respectful listening that is willing to risk going down into the ‘Ground of Being/Force Field of Divine Love’ opens minds, hearts, and wills to find new ways up into a generative co-creating and co-evolving for the well-being of all creation.
The virtues recommended in this book are at work in and through Brentwood. Our flourishing in hope, fed by our heritage, is very much a work in progress. It always will be, if we are to avoid the pitfalls of complacency in our self-righteousness that plagues so many religious institutions these days. Churches are still infected with the disease of denial. Officials at various levels of the institution think they know what is best for the future of your congregation without ever having sat down for a conversation about it with you or digging deeply enough into the soil from which you have sprung to find hope in your heritage. Let’s stop doing that and find more faithful, wise, and effective ways of collaborating with Christ in transforming our missioning. The possibilities for that happening are inspiringly and instructively presented in this book.
Many thanks to the authors, their interviewees, and the communities that supported this project for such a compelling collection of stories and possibilities to consider.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews