Can churches in the 21st century stop, reverse, or prevent decline – and even become healthy, thriving congregations? Leading scholar and practitioner of congregational renewal, Michael Adam Beck, says they can. But the old cookie-cutter ways of doing church won’t cut it in today’s world. If churches are going to stop the shocking rates of pastoral burnout and exodus from the pews, they must learn to be the church with new people, in new places, and in new ways.
Rev. Dr. Michael currently serves as the co-pastor of Wildwood United Methodist Church (UMC), St Mark’s UMC, and Compassion UMC with his wife, Jill, where they direct addiction recovery programs, a jail ministry, a food pantry, an interracial unity movement, and house a faith-based inpatient treatment center. Wildwood and St Mark’s are traditional congregations AND a network of thirteen fresh expressions that gather in tattoo parlors, dog parks, salons, running tracks, community centers, burrito joints, and digital spaces.
As an infant, Michael relates that his mother was unable to care for him and his biological father is unknown to him to this day. In his earliest memories, he recalls sitting next to his grandmother on the front pew at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Ocala, FL. The pastor and the people of St. Mark’s gathered around him at his infant baptism. Together they took responsibility to surround him with “a community of love and forgiveness.” They stepped into the gap of loss in his life when his grandparents died and fed him through their never-ending potlucks. Michael shares that increasingly, most people today do not share any formative experience with the church as he did, and many feel the church has harmed them. Despite the embrace of his church, Michael ended up in a jail cell and faced a world of strange dualisms: of light and dark, of mean streets and soft sanctuary pews, of ruthless victimizers and selfless saints, of deep hunger pains and extravagant potluck spreads. This created the sense of tension he felt as an ordained elder in the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church. He treasured the church that gave him life: the pews, hymnals, candles, and all the bells and smells. He also realized that attractional forms of church are no longer connecting with most of the population.
His love runs deep for both traditional forms and fresh expressions of the church. To live in a new and thriving future, he believes we need both,” where traditional and emerging forms of the church can exist in a life-giving, symbiotic relationship.” He has written about this phenomenon as the “Blended Ecology.”
Rev. Beck relates, “Jesus took my broken life, and revitalized it. He relentlessly pursued me and rescued me from a living hell of brokenness and failure. He sent servants into my life to reach me where I was. This is part of the “why” that drives my passion for fresh expressions. I believe in a relentless seeking God who leaves the 99 to go after the one. A God who puts on flesh and moves into our neighborhood. The church is an extension of Jesus’ activity. Most of our population will never show up to our church compounds on Sunday mornings. We need to find ways to be the church with them.”
Michael guides leaders in an individual, regional, statewide, and national capacity. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at several educational institutions. He coaches entrepreneurs across the theological spectrum and has consulted with hundreds of churches, districts, denominations, networks, and dioceses. As an active ministry practitioner, he has started and developed businesses and planted missional communities most of his life. Michael has done this for over a decade while pastoring in the local church. His coaching and consulting work are not theoretical only, but experiential. He believes in maintaining a practitioner’s ethos: “I eat my own cooking and share experimental recipes.”
Michael believes churches can experience new life in the same way individuals can. In a landscape where fewer people know the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, he believes we need every church in every community engaging the mission field to awaken people to that love. Just as we must be willing to go through a journey of death and resurrection, so must our churches. The Fresh Expressions movement releases the priesthood of all believers to be a missionary force for God. It allows us to sustain the center and do missional experimentation on the edge.
Beck earned a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Semiotics and Future Studies at Portland Seminary. He’s the author of fourteen books, including Deep Roots, Wild Branches: Revitalizing the Church in the Blended Ecology; Deep & Wild: Remissioning Your Church from the Outside In, A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions; , and co-author of Contextual Intelligence: Unlocking the Ancient Secret to Mission on the Front Lines with Leonard Sweet, Fresh Expressions in a Digital Age with Rosario Picardo, as well as The 21st Century Christian: Following Jesus Where Life Happens with Michael Moynagh. His most recent books include Painting With Ashes, Fresh Expressions of the Rural Church, The Five Congregational Personality Types, and Doing Justice Together. He has also authored three eBooks, available exclusively on his website https://michaeladambeck.com.
Michael and his wife and co-pastor, Jill, have a blended family of eight children and a pug named Vader. For fun he enjoys inline speed skating and beach getaways.
Rev. Beck will be the guest speaker for The Bob & Candi Nolan Speaking Series at El Dorado First United Methodist Church on May 4 and 5. He will present a workshop on Five Congregational Types: An Ancient Pathway for Congregational Renewal in the 21st Century on Saturday, May 4 from 10 AM to 4 PM in the Hanna Building at 304 S. Jackson Street. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to the church office at 862-1341 if you would like to attend. All denominations are invited for this important presentation.
Sunday, May 5, Rev. Beck will preach at the 10:50 AM sanctuary service and will share his testimony at 5:30 PM that evening, also in the sanctuary. The First United Methodist Church sanctuary is located at 201 S. Hill Ave. Call 862-1341 for more information or view the church Facebook page.