Church Refugees: How should the church respond in times of National Crisis? What are some solutions?

How should churches respond to this time of national unrest and enlighten people?

How can we have authentic conversations using our Christian worldview. How can churches engage members to address national turmoil and be the light of the world?

I will be the first to admit that I don't have the answers but I think church refugees gets to the heart of the matter and provides some solutions:

Be aware of organizational limitations

Most churches are organizations and as Church Refugees says  we know that in organizations, power tends to be centralized, innovation is gradually diminished, and routines become cemented as the organization grows or exist over time.  after a while the entire mission of the church is to keep it going. That's the nature of the beast but awareness is the first step to change. Perhaps it's time to do as bishop Garlington says and it's time to say and do something different

I don't know what the answer is but we can't do business as usual or do church for our own ambitions. Maybe it means people getting out of insulated churches and doing the work in the community

Raise our Level of Expectations

This is going to be an extreme example but I want to get my point across.

Simply praying would not have stopped hitler.

Praying without power is just talking. It's clanging cymbals. The reason most people roll their eyes when people throw out thoughts and prayers is because that's all it is. Thinking and talking. There's no action. There's no step into the Jordan.

In the Old Testament, God was with his people when they went to war. He made miracles happen. When the people decided to do their own thing he took back his supernatural power. The whole purpose of faith is to do things you think you cannot do because the God you serve is bigger than the current circumstance. Sad to say that the God Americans show is concerned about football games, materialism, and bathrooms.

I think the level of expectation needs to be raised for the believers. They need to believe they can win with the God they serve. I also think that churches need to raise their expectations of members. This may mean letting people who are more gifted than the pastor's family members and relatives take more of an active role in the church and let them be producers and leaders.

In church refugees, the author mentions working with a pastor who said that nobody wanted to do anything except attend Sunday mornings.

The pastors of that church decided that people are too busy and that people don't care.

When asked what it was they focused on the most, it was (you guessed it) it the 90 minute Sunday morning worship. They spent 100 hours on the service The second focus was small groups at fewer than 30 hours a week.

I liked what the authors helped the pastors of this church to see.

Just as it would be unthinkable to make something in a Target, the church had made it unthinkable for congregants to make anything in their church.
If the leadership team truly wanted people to be more participatory, the church needed to be more like home, where everyone is torched to contribute.

and this is precisely what the Dechurched want.

They couldn't be more right. I remember trying to contribute but finally giving up because it was clear they weren't interested in outsiders and I could think of ways I could be more effective in the real world

Address Real Life Issues

As the situations grow more serious and dire, there are going to have to be more uncomfortable conversations and more authenticity. That's the only real way growth can happen. Otherwise you're going to be stuck with a bunch of pew warmers with dead faith and/or materialistic christians with shallow faith in the almighty Louis Vuitton and Mercedes Benz

Let people know they you care about real life issues that are important to them. I will have no qualms about supporting Lisa Bevere because of her boldness. That is who God has called us to be!

If you don't have enough courage to address real topics, then I think you should find something else to do! Faith without works is dead and a church without people is empty.