Over the course of the past year a group of clergy has gathered periodically to talk about the challenges facing our churches in the Northern Illinois Conference. We talked about clergy burnout and “zombie” churches: congregations that have no real life left. In a congregation’s life cycle these churches are often extremely small. There may be only a small group of members remaining, but they often require a lot of time and energy.  “Zombie” churches mindlessly devour resources and repeatedly wear out or even destroy pastors.  

After one of our conversations, I started googling “zombies” and discovered the word “brainbox.” This word came up in my search as an antonym to zombies. Brainbox has several meanings: it can refer to the skull protecting the brain, someone who is intelligent, or, in a computer, the microprocessor that contains all of the information necessary for a computer to function.      

This got me wondering. What if instead of focusing on trying to diagnose whether or not a church has life left, we put resources into a “brainbox”? How might things change if instead of looking for “zombies”, we looked for solutions?  

Maybe as a conference we could focus on creating ways to share our learnings, support each other, and protect innovation. What if we used our resources to create a place or a space to collect wisdom, knowledge and expertise from across our connection? Maybe we would be better able to protect our clergy and other resources from mindlessly being devoured.  

How can we build a brainbox to protect and support those doing ministry in local churches? Here are some initial ideas.

• Pray for our clergy. All of them. Those discerning their ordination. Those who have retired, as deacons, local pastors, and elders; those in extension ministries and those on leave. Let’s cover all of our clergy in prayer, that God would sustain and guide them. That their gifts and callings would be received and bear fruit. That their families would be supported and loved.  
• Lean into our connection. We have amazing and gifted clergy in NIC. We need to explore ways for us to resource each other. Ways to learn from what other clergy and churches are doing. There are a number of platforms we could use to connect on a deeper level; praying for one another and sharing learnings and experiences.  
• Support people in their unique callings. Throughout the ordination process the conference Board of Ordained Ministry guides people to discern their gifts and graces for ministry. As an annual conference, we bear witness to their ministry and vote to affirm their callings. We must also support them!

A majority of those ordained in the last 20 years entered ministry with their eyes wide open to the challenges facing the Christian church. They did not expect it to be easy or anything like what pastors did for decades. However, they did not expect the biggest challenge to be the systems and institutions that they set out to serve.  

The local church remains God’s primary way to bring salvation and transformation to the world and God is still calling people to ministry. But we must find new ways to support clergy and local congregations. We must be willing to tear apart old ways of doing things to create new and vibrant structures to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  

If you would like to be involved in further conversation about how we might move into this new season as local churches, as pastors, and as a conference, please take a moment to complete this form.