Soaring Faith
by George Bullard
A Review by Dwight A. Moody
George Bullard is my friend, and he has written a book.
Over the years quite a number of my friends have written books, and if any of those books happens to be about religion, I read it. Many times I write and publish a review, right here in The Meetinghouse. For instance, Brian McLaren wrote Do I Stay Christian? , and Carl Kuhl wrote Blood Stained Pews, and Mary Alice Birdwhistell wrote Hard and Holy Work. Here’s one review of three books written by three friends!
It is not easy reviewing books written by friends, because there are times I want to write things that some people, even authors, will take as critical or negative.
Bullard is a very good thinker, an outstanding consultant, and a first class writer, all of which helps make this book a fine read. His purpose is to help congregations be all that they need to be, all that the world needs them to be. There is not a chapter in this book that did not present me with an observation, a strategy, or even just a turn of phrase that I did not highlight in some way.
Out of his many years of experience with congregations, Bullard creates a typology of churches using the words soaring, strong, stumbling, struggling, and spiritless. At any given time, a church can be described using one of those words, and over a long time, a church can be described using one or more of these words, as a church’s fortunes ebb and flow.
Bullard is careful to describe and illustrate typical ways in which a church might be strong or struggling or even spiritless. But I confess: I was not, and am not, able to confidently assess with his categories any of the 14 churches with which I have been affiliated during my life. I want to think several of those I pastored were and are soaring congregations, but I don’t know. Is that a weakness in this typology or just a slowness in my capacity to understand the material?
One thing is for sure: churches need help. I might even admit that every church of which I have been a member or minister needed help. I wasn’t always sure what kind of help, and I was frequently sure that the help they needed was something I was unable to give. That is why we have consultants like George. Thank God!
One thing I would ask (and will ask) Bullard is this: for what collection of churches on the American religious landscape can this analytic tool be useful? Most of his illustrations of churches sound similar to those in my cohort of 14. But the religious diversity of American Christianity is stunning. What goes in a Pentecostal church won’t fly so well in an Orthodox Church, and this goes for sermons and also for missional analysis. What passes for “strong” in one tradition may be written off as “spiritless” in another.
Bullard’s concern for church vitality comes at a crucial time in the religious history of the United States. The last 20-25 years has shown a stunning decline in church affiliation, including in his own Southern Baptist Convention. While reading this book, I watched two documentaries which illustrate the need for this book (and many others) as well as for consultants like Bullard: “The American Megachurch Bubble and Why its Bursting all at Once” and “The Southern Faith Implosion.” Both are posted on my Facebook page.
Data and descriptions of our cultural context like these two (and many books) illustrate that things outside the walls of our churches and homes powerfully shape congregational life, sometimes so powerfully as to nullify even the most competent and compelling leadership, organization, and missional energy. Not even the best pastor or consultant can overcome the forces at work in American life today.
There is another way to raise this issue: is it possible for a church to be what Bullard calls a “soaring church” and also a Trump church? Maybe Bullard himself will tell me how he might answer that question!
