One thing is certain when it comes to any dire situation, whether in church revitalization or anything else in life: We humans thrive on hope.
Hope that things will get better. Hope that things won’t get worse. Hope that things will change. Hope that things will stay the same. Hope that this is not the beginning of the end. Hope for fresh starts.
There’s something about the energy in hope that keeps us going even when we feel like curling up on the couch with a bag of Doritos, or phoning it in and going through the motions, or running for the hills to find something that doesn’t feel quite so demanding or perilous.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
—Proverbs 13:12
Hopelessness is an illness. To keep on hoping time and again only to find yourself repeatedly disappointed feels like an illness. Like influenza of the soul.
The good news, however, is that the opposite is true: Seeing hopes become reality is like sitting underneath a shady fruit tree, enjoying its shade in the heat of the day and eating to your heart’s content.
Allow me a moment of cynicism (which I’d rather couch as honesty): Hope is great. Sure. Two thumbs up. But much of the time it just sounds like wishful thinking. Or a positive feeling. Or a fleeting emotion. None of which strikes me as at all helpful to actually change anything.
sigh (end rant)
But it turns out that real hope—not wishful thinking or uplifted emotions—has some practical oomph to it.
In her fabulous book Daring Greatly, researcher Brené Brown summarizes the work of C.R. Snyder who’s life work was spent studying hope:
Emotions play a supporting role, but hope is really a thought process made up of what Snyder calls a trilogy of goals, pathways, and agency.
—Brené Brown
She goes on to explain that “in very simple terms, hope happens when:”
- We have the ability to set realistic goals (I know where I want to go).
- We are able to figure out how to achieve those goals, including the ability to stay flexible and develop alternative routes (I know how to get there, I’m persistent, and I can tolerate disappointment and try again).
- We believe in ourselves (I can do this!).
Goals.
Pathway.
Agency.
Now there’s some material we can get our hands dirty with! How we feel about the prospective future is important, but not all important. Nor can we simply approach the future apathetically (as we Christians are prone to do), saying, “Oh, it’s just all in the Lord’s hands!” Well, yeah. But God has also placed our lives (our families, our churches, our work places, our communities, our nations) into our hands as well. We bear the responsibility of hoping and acting on behalf of the community.
So first we do this:
- Name our goals: What are our desires? Where do we want to go? Where do our daydreams take us? What seems aspirational yet also realistic?
- Commit to navigating the pathway: How might we get there? What’s the game plan? What’s the next right thing to do that heads in that direction? If something doesn’t work, what can we adjust?
- Encourage one another: I believe in you—you can do this! I believe in us—together, we’ve got what it takes! God has given us gifts and abilities to get the job done. And whatever gifts and abilities seem lacking, we can trust in his grace to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Then hope happens.