“Change” is one of those words that you will find regularly on the lips of many pastors. “We need to change!”, “We need to change culture”, “ We need to change how we worship” and so on. While most of the early philosophers wanted to do away with change, finding it to be an enemy. The modern church has embarrassed change philosophy wholesale. Andrew Root’s The Congregation in a Secular Age responds to this ‘change’ crises.

Root helpfully reminds us that if we are not careful, our relentless pursuit of change can hurt us. His argument is that in the secular age, lives are constantly accelerated and the church feels that to remain relevant they have to embrace this need for speed, the need to innovate. This pressure to innovate leads to acceleration of congregation life that strips the sacred out of time. Consequently, many churches find themselves hard to keep up with the rate of change which in turn leads to burnout and depression.

To respond to this crises, Root calls us to reimage and rethink what change is and how to navigate change without giving into the idolatry of change around us.

I highly recommend this book! Pastors will find this book particularly helpful.

What time is it? It's secular time! In a three-part volume about Christian life in a secular age, author, and professor Andrew Root paints for us the challenges surrounding youth ministry; pastoral ministry; and ministry to the congregation. The first volume deals with the reasons why young people's faith had flipped from a culture of "difficult not to believe" to "difficult to believe" within 500 years. The key is to move away from talking about faith to practicing faith in love to the young ones. Root looked at the state of authenticity and how it interacts with duty-bound individuals. The second volume looks at the challenges of pastoral ministry in a secular age where the challenge is for pastors to communicate hope even to people who refuse to see any hope. Thus, the second volume aims to encourage pastors with hope through historical examples and that ministry unveils God's presence to people by helping them recognize and perceive "divine action" in their midst. From youth ministry to pastoral ministry, now author Andrew Root helps us look at congregational ministry in an age of secularism. His key thesis is this: Congregations are unable to keep up with the changing tide of cultural changes leading to burnout, depression, and a shift from sacred living to frantic behaving, from faithfulness to a "drive for vitality." The solution is to go back to the fundamentals of ecclesiology and to help local congregations do the same.

Written in three parts, Part One is where Root explains why he thinks congregations are depressed. There are several signs of such depression. One of which is the lack of willingness to go beyond mere attending Sunday services. Another sign is the lack of motivation regardless of the topics or programs introduced. Modernity's frantic speed to get things done had led to an unfortunate state of apathy and lethargy. When our identity gets tied to our accomplishments, we risk identity crisis when we fail or get fatigued. When change itself becomes an identity of the Church, we risk burnout. Even if we have over a billion dollars, time and speed would gobble up what amount of money we throw against them. Apart from the futility of fighting against time, there is also the danger of letting busyness define us. Busyness can easily lead to exhaustion, fatigue, futility, and burnout. The key to the problem is the replacement of "sacred time" with "secular time." This could come in the form of the new being perceived as better than anything old, or the faster more respected than the slow; etc. Part Two examines the problem of this secular time in greater detail. Following German social theorist Hartmut Rosa's lead, technology, social change, and our pace of life are all the causes of speeding up. Not only must the Church recognize the potency of these three sources, but she also needs to understand the complexities that arise out of their interactions. These three lead to three crises: 1) Technological acceleration; 2) Social Life Acceleration, and 3) Pace of Life acceleration. Root gives readers a fascinating treatise on how these three accelerations had impacted congregational life. Part Three helps orientate us toward addressing these. Change our perspective of time to be more critical of the way modern technology saps our energy and limited resources. Beware of turning everything into resources we want to make use of. Root notes that while sabbatical and slowing down church might seem to work at first, the root problem is not addressed. For if rest is only a subset of growth, eventually, it becomes a chicken-and-egg quagmire, where growth needs to greater need for rest; and rest only possible if a certain growth level is achieved. We need some form of "stabilization" from constant change, but that too could lead to "alienation." Other need for stabilization includes our resistance to letting time and futuristic expectations diminish our sense of identity. Root unleashes his dual dimensions of resonance to help us chart a path forward.

My Thoughts
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Andrew Root is one of the most avid observers of cultural change and social dynamics. He applies it well to the state of the congregation. On the impact of time, Root argues that while the purpose of "slow church" is correct, the solution is inadequate. I interpret that to mean that strategies to attempt to slow things down are not solving the problem, though they do slow the decay. Practical-wise, "slow church" has its merits and readers might misconstrue Root's observation as a reason to jettison such a noble initiative. Readers might want to give the author some leeway before drawing any conclusions. My key takeaway is that slowdown initiatives can only help us in a limited way. We need something better to supplement them. My thinking is that there is enough merit not just to slow down but to alter conventional thinking toward a more regulated form for stabilization. Sabbath as a rhythm works well as an institutionally sanctioned event. We are creatures of habit and once things are established in some routine or rhythm, we will learn to adapt rather than abandon the pressures of society. I make a distinction between adapting and catching up. Root is correct in observing the futility of trying to play catchup. The risk is that any stabilization activities he proposes might just be another name for the practices of slowing down or taking a Sabbath. Given such a lack of understanding of anything apart from conventional slowdown or separation of activities from secular to sacred, it will take time for laypersons to understand the significance of stabilization. After all, the more a person is steeped in secular values, the more difficult it is to think outside of that domain. That is why it is crucial to understand Root's first four chapters about the "depressed congregation." Otherwise, the rest of the book would not be meaningful.

On congregational despondency, I prefer to see it as a challenge rather than a fact. Root is spot on with regard to the effects of technology on stressing up our life expectations. That reminds me of the difference between kairos (timely) and chronos (clock) time. Instead of letting ourselves be enslaved by the latter, we need to learn how to capture the best use of time. That calls for our identity to be based on something bigger than ourselves. While it is true that busyness lends itself to fatigue and stress, many of us have come to accept that as a normal way of life. Some of us have developed strategies to deal with or to adapt to such a modern pace of life. I see Root's reminder as one that is linked directly to discernment. We need to discern the eternal from the temporal; the important over the urgent; and the necessary instead of the superfluous. If we don't discern the threat of time and technology, we might end up serving these principalities instead of subjecting them under the lordship of Christ. In that sense, I see the wisdom of Root in calling us back to childlikeness via the three movements of Matthew 18: the Resonance of Humility, Humanity, and Community.

Andrew Root's books always challenge me not just to critique culture and conventional ways, they also make me think about how the Christian faith can speak the way forward. As I ponder about the secular-sacred time divide, I cannot help but wonder if it is some form of dualism. In some ways it is. However, for the benefit of the secular mind, this kind of vocabulary might have to be used until the reality and cognitive understanding of kairos time takes root.

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has written extensively about youth ministry.

Rating: 4.75 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Baker Academic and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.1

The subtitle of this book, "Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life," captures Andrew Root's counter-cultural approach to church leadership in a time of great change. Even before the pandemic that has forced change on institutions and individuals in 2020, there was broad consensus among those who care about the Church: too much is changing outside church walls. Church leaders need to innovate, the thinking goes, and adjust to meet the needs of our new American way of life or we're going to lose people. In many congregations, covid has accelerated this pressure to create more and bigger projects.

Root shows how such thinking, while maybe exciting while creativity is flowing, ultimately drains the people, often leading to anxiety and depression. He uses writing from philosophical, sociological, theological, and historical scholars to challenge our unthinking acceptance of the "speed of modern life." He takes that scholarship and shows clear implications for a different path forward. The result is not a quick and breezy read; he made me think, and that careful reading was a joy.

This book belongs on every pastor and congregational leader's "to be read" list.