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Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry In A New Generation
Much has been written about the changing landscape the church finds itself in, and even more about the church's waning influence in our culture. From her vantage point as an under-40 pastor, Carol Howard Merritt, author of Tribal Church, moves away from the handwringing toward a discovery of what ministry in, with, and by a new generation might look like. What does the substance of hope look like right now? What does hope look like when it is framed in a new generation? Motivated by these questions, Merritt writes Reframing Hope with the understanding that we are not creating from nothing the vital ministry of the next generation. Instead, we are working through what we have, sorting out the best parts, acknowledging and healing from the worst, and reframing it all.
160 pages, Paperback
Published August 23, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 20, 2014
Rereading in a new context.
Already a known quantity in the world of post-modernism in American Christianity, Carol Howard Merritt has published her second book Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation. This is not a rehash of her previous work. Rather it builds and expands on it. In Tribal Church, Merritt was primarily concerned with "Where are the young people? What do they want?" In Reframing Hope, she emphasizes the need to stay grounded in the traditions of our mainline churches, while looking for additional ways to "be Church". She encourages us to quit obsessing about the numbers decline in our denominations and instead to "shift our focus, take into account where we have been, and imagine what God is calling us to be."
The changing currents in "technology, organizing, communication, and spirituality...deeply affect the way we minister and form community." We can make two mistakes in dealing with this societal change. We can ignore what is coming, or we can dismiss what has passed. Both of these options will lead to our eventual demise. But we have faith that God is doing something in the world right now. It is up to us to discern what that is and what our role is in bringing it about.
Merritt discusses the opportunities available to us by redistributing authority, re-forming community, reexamining the medium (electronic communications), retelling the message, reinventing activism, renewing creation, and retraditioning spirituality. Using both biblical and personal examples and stories, she leads us to look again at our world and at our churches. As a 30-something pastor in a mainline urban church, she speaks with experience and insight into the needs, wants and desires of the world around us.
This book, published by the Alban Institute, should be required reading for any church leader who is serious about discerning the church's mission and vision for the future.
Already a known quantity in the world of post-modernism in American Christianity, Carol Howard Merritt has published her second book Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation. This is not a rehash of her previous work. Rather it builds and expands on it. In Tribal Church, Merritt was primarily concerned with "Where are the young people? What do they want?" In Reframing Hope, she emphasizes the need to stay grounded in the traditions of our mainline churches, while looking for additional ways to "be Church". She encourages us to quit obsessing about the numbers decline in our denominations and instead to "shift our focus, take into account where we have been, and imagine what God is calling us to be."
The changing currents in "technology, organizing, communication, and spirituality...deeply affect the way we minister and form community." We can make two mistakes in dealing with this societal change. We can ignore what is coming, or we can dismiss what has passed. Both of these options will lead to our eventual demise. But we have faith that God is doing something in the world right now. It is up to us to discern what that is and what our role is in bringing it about.
Merritt discusses the opportunities available to us by redistributing authority, re-forming community, reexamining the medium (electronic communications), retelling the message, reinventing activism, renewing creation, and retraditioning spirituality. Using both biblical and personal examples and stories, she leads us to look again at our world and at our churches. As a 30-something pastor in a mainline urban church, she speaks with experience and insight into the needs, wants and desires of the world around us.
This book, published by the Alban Institute, should be required reading for any church leader who is serious about discerning the church's mission and vision for the future.
January 10, 2019
How quickly books about the "new" realities of culture and generation can already seem out of date! Despite that, I found this book to have many hopeful and useful ideas for staying vital and hopeful in the current reality of ministry and church work.
July 23, 2013
This was a great book for reading over lunch breaks, really, as Merritt's writing voice is incredibly easy, accessible, and clear. Also funny, which is always a bonus.
So, the thing about this is that it was written by a woman. By an under-40 woman. By an under-40 woman in the Presbyterian church. Gasp! And she never lets you forget any of these things, because she understands that hitting that target is what has created the market for her voice. I get that, but I felt rather overwhelmed by the amount of times Merritt pointed out her generation and gender ties.
There is much here at which I found myself nodding, about the way technology has redefined our concept of relationship and sacredness, about how we understand our history as people of the Church, about what it means to be in community. I felt rather lost as an old codger type when she would go into longish praise moments of all that new virtual communities and technological advances can do for the Church because, well, I just don't think it's all that great. I also felt rather lost in how often Merritt was definitely addressing like-minded Gen X/Millenials in the pastorate--a somewhat narrow audience, really.
However, there's a lot of humor and warmth here, which is great. A friend of mine loaned this to me, so his notes are all over the pages, and honestly I think I would have like this book a lot less without his running commentary probing her assertions and illustrations. He pointed out a lot of things I would have glossed over, like the many times Merritt lauds the recent return to a connection with church history but then skips over the entire Middle Ages and Renaissance when discussing what that history is; or how she urges community and transportation and innovation in a way that can be done in larger cities but not really all that well in spread-out, rural places; or how she continually delights in the accessibility of information in this technological age but doesn't really acknowledge that facts are not quite the same as truth.
It's a good little volume, it is, and it definitely spurred some interesting ideas for me about what it means to be working within or around the Church in the 21st century. But there's a huge disconnect, I think, between the folks like Merritt who are super excited about what's coming and the people like me who see how much we're ignoring in what is. But then, I would totally be sitting on my front porch, shaking my cane at kids and telling them to get off my damn lawn, if I had a porch or a lawn.
So, the thing about this is that it was written by a woman. By an under-40 woman. By an under-40 woman in the Presbyterian church. Gasp! And she never lets you forget any of these things, because she understands that hitting that target is what has created the market for her voice. I get that, but I felt rather overwhelmed by the amount of times Merritt pointed out her generation and gender ties.
There is much here at which I found myself nodding, about the way technology has redefined our concept of relationship and sacredness, about how we understand our history as people of the Church, about what it means to be in community. I felt rather lost as an old codger type when she would go into longish praise moments of all that new virtual communities and technological advances can do for the Church because, well, I just don't think it's all that great. I also felt rather lost in how often Merritt was definitely addressing like-minded Gen X/Millenials in the pastorate--a somewhat narrow audience, really.
However, there's a lot of humor and warmth here, which is great. A friend of mine loaned this to me, so his notes are all over the pages, and honestly I think I would have like this book a lot less without his running commentary probing her assertions and illustrations. He pointed out a lot of things I would have glossed over, like the many times Merritt lauds the recent return to a connection with church history but then skips over the entire Middle Ages and Renaissance when discussing what that history is; or how she urges community and transportation and innovation in a way that can be done in larger cities but not really all that well in spread-out, rural places; or how she continually delights in the accessibility of information in this technological age but doesn't really acknowledge that facts are not quite the same as truth.
It's a good little volume, it is, and it definitely spurred some interesting ideas for me about what it means to be working within or around the Church in the 21st century. But there's a huge disconnect, I think, between the folks like Merritt who are super excited about what's coming and the people like me who see how much we're ignoring in what is. But then, I would totally be sitting on my front porch, shaking my cane at kids and telling them to get off my damn lawn, if I had a porch or a lawn.
February 5, 2012
Carol Howard Merritt started her writing career as a blogger, which goes a long way toward explaining what's wrong with this book.
Not that there's anything implicitly wrong in the mind of "the blogger," or the habit of blogging, or even with the blog posts that Merritt has written. I follow many blogs, and find much wisdom, inspiration, and challenge in their pithy, Really Simply Syndicated words. But I couldn't help but feel, as I read through Reframing Hope, that I was reading a collection of a half-dozen or so blog posts that had simply been collected for the sake of convenience and marketing.
Each chapter of the book begins with a sermon-ready exposition of “the problem"—life is scary, young people are scary, technology is scary. This is the kind of “hook” that makes one want to read to the end of a blog post, after all. But though every chapter also concludes with a statement of hope—basically, “…but the church can offer hope even so”—turning the page to the next chapter lands us right back in the “trouble in the world” mode, and we have to make that arduous climb to hope yet again. The result is that the book feels simultaneously pessimistic (about the state of the world) and Polyannaish (about the power—or, more to the point, the willingness—of the church to do anything about it).
Merritt does offer examples throughout of congregations who are taking positive steps to rethink “business as usual” to offer hope in a post-modern society, but these examples seem to get lost in all the hand-wringing. What I would like to have read here—and I do believe Merritt could easily write it, were she to take a book-length view of the subject rather than stringing together blog-sized pearls—is a more in-depth, holistic exposé on those examples. “Show me how religious institutions are rethinking the status quo, maintaining their vitality, and offering hope,” I kept thinking, as I turned the page and found myself in wallow-land again. “Show me what these congregations have in common, and how they are achieving similar good in spite of, and because of, their differences. Let me see how these brave religious leaders faced inertia and fear and budget woes and made a difference!”
Merritt believes (as I do) that this can happen. But I’m afraid this book doesn’t do a good job of saying how.
Not that there's anything implicitly wrong in the mind of "the blogger," or the habit of blogging, or even with the blog posts that Merritt has written. I follow many blogs, and find much wisdom, inspiration, and challenge in their pithy, Really Simply Syndicated words. But I couldn't help but feel, as I read through Reframing Hope, that I was reading a collection of a half-dozen or so blog posts that had simply been collected for the sake of convenience and marketing.
Each chapter of the book begins with a sermon-ready exposition of “the problem"—life is scary, young people are scary, technology is scary. This is the kind of “hook” that makes one want to read to the end of a blog post, after all. But though every chapter also concludes with a statement of hope—basically, “…but the church can offer hope even so”—turning the page to the next chapter lands us right back in the “trouble in the world” mode, and we have to make that arduous climb to hope yet again. The result is that the book feels simultaneously pessimistic (about the state of the world) and Polyannaish (about the power—or, more to the point, the willingness—of the church to do anything about it).
Merritt does offer examples throughout of congregations who are taking positive steps to rethink “business as usual” to offer hope in a post-modern society, but these examples seem to get lost in all the hand-wringing. What I would like to have read here—and I do believe Merritt could easily write it, were she to take a book-length view of the subject rather than stringing together blog-sized pearls—is a more in-depth, holistic exposé on those examples. “Show me how religious institutions are rethinking the status quo, maintaining their vitality, and offering hope,” I kept thinking, as I turned the page and found myself in wallow-land again. “Show me what these congregations have in common, and how they are achieving similar good in spite of, and because of, their differences. Let me see how these brave religious leaders faced inertia and fear and budget woes and made a difference!”
Merritt believes (as I do) that this can happen. But I’m afraid this book doesn’t do a good job of saying how.
March 7, 2011
In her second book, Carol Howard Merritt lays out the case that there is hope for vital ministry in mainline churches. She asks the reader to consider how our culture has shifted, beginning with an examination of how we view authority and the ways that has changed in recent generations. She goes on to explore the way technology has changed both the medium and the message. She asks us to look at the ways activism has changed and our relationship with creation, then encourages us to look at new ways of expressing spirituality. All this can happen within the structure of our mainline churches. We don't have to abandon everything we ever had, as long as we don't also cling to the parts that no longer serve us, or God, well.
Carol continues to be a mainline answer to the anti-institutional, post-eveangelical (primarily male) authors who are part of the Emerging Church movement. Like Carol, I grew up Southern Baptist, but I am ten years older and was out of that environment before the theological clamp-downs that affected her life. We've both had the opportunity to find places where we can think freely but function within the covenants and connections of mainline denominations (in my case, UCC; in hers, PCUSA) that not only allow but encourage women in ordained ministry. I'm grateful that God made the way clear for Carol.
Carol's writing is absolutely beautiful. The final story in the book brought tears to my eyes, tears of hope for the church. I highly recommend this book and will be using it to lead a Lenten study at North Yarmouth Congregational Church.
Carol continues to be a mainline answer to the anti-institutional, post-eveangelical (primarily male) authors who are part of the Emerging Church movement. Like Carol, I grew up Southern Baptist, but I am ten years older and was out of that environment before the theological clamp-downs that affected her life. We've both had the opportunity to find places where we can think freely but function within the covenants and connections of mainline denominations (in my case, UCC; in hers, PCUSA) that not only allow but encourage women in ordained ministry. I'm grateful that God made the way clear for Carol.
Carol's writing is absolutely beautiful. The final story in the book brought tears to my eyes, tears of hope for the church. I highly recommend this book and will be using it to lead a Lenten study at North Yarmouth Congregational Church.
February 27, 2016
In this, her second book (the first being Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation), Carol Howard Merritt offers us a portal through which we can look at the church as it stands today and then begin to see a trajectory upon which a renewed and revisioned church can begin taking its journey into the future. In days of yore, we looked to the elders of the community for sage advice, but now is a time to hear valuable words of wisdom from those who are agile and adept in their participation in the turbulence that marks the present era. Leaders, like Merritt, have their finger on the pulse on the current situation and have an understanding of the way in which these changes are affecting the church as it maneuvers in the early decades of the 21st century. If we’re willing to listen, we’ll discover that these changes make for a ministry that is both more difficult and more exciting.
Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation
Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation
June 8, 2012
This book raises more questions than it answers, and that's great. I'm still mulling it all over, and because of the subject matter, I don't need her to fix all my wonders. This book reframes the millennial generation--something, as a millennial, I am ashamed to admit I needed to hear. She shifts our assumption of millennial and subsequent digital natives as pathetic tech addicts to a stance of hope. She starts by explaining why we are the way we are and what greatness will come to the kingdom through it: increased activism, increase care for creation, and increased reliance on community. I've long known that my generation has much to contribute (and already has, you're welcome for Facebook), but it's been hard to find my voice. This book helped me articulate what I've always known and has empowered me to be who I was made to be.
March 19, 2011
Merritt makes a powerful case for the future hope of the church. Rather than continuing to rework the same efforts and wondering (or damning) the lack of response, she encourages congregations of today to look how God is working in the world through technology, smaller communities, intentions and social justice in small and large scale efforts. If we can reframe our understanding of church, our ministries will be transformed and, through praying with our feet and our hands, so will our faith. Her discussions around reframing our connections to the natural world and our understanding and expectations of social media are particularly enlightening and relevant. This is a very readable book with a strong theological base and gentle, but persuasive encouragement.
May 15, 2011
I really like this author, read Tribal Church, and liked this book too. But I did not find it as compelling as the former. I'm not sure why; it might be that I read this book just after I read Almost Christian, which I'm still thinking about.
I really appreciate Carol's insights about doing genuine ministry that connects with young adults, but I'm trying to connect the frames around hope with the content of our hope: what do we hope for? Is it the same or a different hope than that of other generations of Christians? I found the last two chapters the most compelling. Will probably re-read in a couple of months and see if it strikes me differently.
I really appreciate Carol's insights about doing genuine ministry that connects with young adults, but I'm trying to connect the frames around hope with the content of our hope: what do we hope for? Is it the same or a different hope than that of other generations of Christians? I found the last two chapters the most compelling. Will probably re-read in a couple of months and see if it strikes me differently.
July 16, 2011
here's a bit from Alban on the book ~
*Hope may look different to a 25-year-old web designer than it does to a 60-year-old deacon. But it is hope nonetheless.
In Reframing Hope, Carol Howard Merritt takes a look at what ministry in, with, and by a new generation might look like. She understands that we are not creating from nothing the vital ministry of the next generation. Instead, we are working through what we have, sorting out the best parts, acknowledging and healing from the worst, and reframing it all.
*Hope may look different to a 25-year-old web designer than it does to a 60-year-old deacon. But it is hope nonetheless.
In Reframing Hope, Carol Howard Merritt takes a look at what ministry in, with, and by a new generation might look like. She understands that we are not creating from nothing the vital ministry of the next generation. Instead, we are working through what we have, sorting out the best parts, acknowledging and healing from the worst, and reframing it all.
February 15, 2011
Carol Howard Merritt weaves together the People of the Word and the People of New Media, providing an accessible introductory text for congregational leaders and elders. Some questions for discussion to reflect on her text: How does technology shape generational ways of meaning-making? How are we currently engaged in many of the old familiar activities using new tools? How do we share authentically, stay true to what is most important, and innovate to meet the new needs in our world?
August 19, 2013
I read this book as part of a workshop on Adult Faith Development, and in general I've found it useful and astute. The author's comments on our new virtual reality speak strongly to the thoughts my congregation and I have been having together for the last year or so. Her language and observations about God and Jesus don't speak to me as strongly, but I could rethink those parts in Unitarian Universalist terms and be okay with them.
August 16, 2016
It's surprising how only six years have changed how we talk about social media. I was reminded of this in reading Carol's words and gentle reminder to create new spaces for grace in the church. And yet, it seems we still need the reminder. These words still ring true.
September 16, 2010
If you're concerned about generational issues in the Church, you need to read this book. It will be part of defining the conversation for years to come.
January 16, 2014
Decent book, pretty standard for this category of literature, but some interesting ideas to think about, particularly in the area of nature and childhood.
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