Why We're Publishing "Holy Disruption"

Life, we all know, has its beginnings and its endings. Like the humans who create them, organizations have their beginnings, and most have their endings, too.

So it is with congregations. You don’t have to drive too far to see a church building with just a few cars in the parking lot during worship. Drive a little further, and you may pass a church building no longer serving as a worship space. I’ve seen these become a theater, a restaurant, even a B&B. But too often, those buildings sit empty, memorializing a congregation that’s passed away.

As much as we may love a congregation—the people in the pews and the pastor in the pulpit, the sacred facility that’s home to so many treasured memories, the ministries it has brought to life—the time may come for the congregation to evolve into a new form, one that may not look like the ministry we’re used to but most certainly fulfils the call to love our neighbors and care for those in need.

Stories of transformation are the heart of Holy Disruption: A Manifesto for the Future of Faith Communities by Rev. Dr. Amy Butler and Rev. Dr. Dawn Darwin Weaks. They share stories collected by Invested Faith, a ministry that helps congregations work through that transformative process, putting the congregation’s assets to supporting businesses changing unjust systems.

It's amazing how creativity blooms when the burden of maintaining a dying system is replaced with the opportunity to create something entirely new. Here are just a few of the stories in Holy Disruption:

• Repurposing buildings into vibrant nonprofit and ministry centers such as 24-hour care service.
• Creating a mobile grocery store to serve a food desert.
• Turning kitchens into faith-filled enterprises serving food trucks.
• Using sanctuaries to bridge community divides through the arts – or as a skate park!
• Creating a brewery for retired workers when their traditional social network is disrupted.

Holy Disruption isn’t prescriptive—it’s inspiring, asking questions about the needs of your community, the resources you have or can create to address that need, and how to figure out where to start.

Amy shares the story of meeting with two Texas pastors. As she shared Invested Faith’s story, “I realized that the concept of Invested Faith–that the assets of churches and individuals can be directed toward the work of faith rooted social entrepreneurs–felt adversarial to their work, almost like taking sorely needed resources away from struggling institutions. The more we talked, though, the more it became clear that Invested Faith is an idea about transformation, about what’s next, rather than a waving of the white flag and giving in to a future world absent of God’s transformational work.”

It's natural to feel that waving that white flag is admitting defeat. On the contrary, the opposite of failure is transformation. It’s getting up, dusting ourselves off, and figuring out a new approach, perhaps with a new vision for a better world.

Church transformation isn’t going to be a flash-in-the-pan concern. It’s here for the long term. Noted church researcher Ryan Burge estimates that “about a third of the country’s 350,000 Christian congregations are ‘on the brink of extinction.’”[1] That’s now, in 2025. Congregations are certainly not trending up.

Butler and Weaks encourage your congregation to make an honest assessment of your ministry and consider the possibilities within your reach. Finding the courage to say “I’ve got a crazy idea” to your church community may be a bit easier once you’ve read through Holy Disruption. The small group guide leads you through conversations that, though hard, will encourage you in new directions.

May the holy disruption you encounter inspire hope, transformation, and renewal.

Gratefully,
Brad Lyons
President & Publisher