Merritt, Reframing Hope

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Carol Howard Merritt, Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation. Alban Institute, 2010.

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LifeandLeadership.com Summary

This is a sequel to Merritt’s excellent text, Tribal Church. Both address how established churches can understand and reach 20- and 30-somethings. Merrit grew up as an evangelical, but then later aligned with a mainline denomination. While not blind to the shortcomings of her faith tradition, she describes herself as a “loyal radical,” and writes this book out of deep hopefulness that the church can indeed reach the younger population and know the life that comes through inter-generational faith communities. In seven chapters, she suggests what is essential if churches are to be effective in this:

  1. Redistributing Authority – Our churches must recognize the sense of the collective that has been fueled by the social media, alongside the deeply connective longings of this generation. This entails a rejection of all authoritarian models of church leadership.
  2. Re-forming Community – This especially speaks to utilizing the new ways of connecting that are frequented by this generation.
  3. Re-examining the Medium – While appreciating what the internet contributes, there is the need to maintain face-to-face communication and avoid the “digital divide.”
  4. Re-telling the Message – She encourages churches to use the social media (Facebook, YouTube, podcasts, Twitter, and blogs, to tell their faith stories.
  5. Re-framing Activism – This capitalizes on the new generation’s passion for social justice.
  6. Renewing Creation – This involves respecting nature through conservation, creation care, environmentalism, and rethinking the way we use physical space.
  7. Retraditioning Spirituality – She suggests emphasizing a sense of God’s presence through the use of ancient spiritual practices, embodied (lived out) spirituality. She gives special attention to prayer, intuition, direction, and reordering lives.

Throughout, Merritt provides excellent insight and thoughtful questions for further discussion. Any church wanting to become more effective in reaching younger populations will benefit from this book.

From the Publisher

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.

She explores the spirit of collaboration that has grown up in our culture as the diffusion of authority continues to move toward a network of sharing resources and information. She shares the spiritual longing she sees in those of her generation and acknowledges that people will no longer settle for one-way preaching and entertaining services—they want their worship to become meaningful; they want their spirituality to lead to action. Merritt believes that if we can manage to navigate many of these important shifts, the years ahead are full of hope, but only if we recognize and welcome the changes that will come and open ourselves to what new adaptations will bring to us.

About the Author

Carol Howard Merritt has served as a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Abbeville, Louisiana, and Barrington Presbyterian Church in Barrington, Rhode Island. She is currently a pastor at Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.


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