Executive Conference Minister Stanley W. Green shares four realignments to heal and renew the Church.
Stanley W. Green is the executive conference minister of Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. Born and reared in South Africa, Stanley was part of the student movement that helped dismantle the legal apartheid system. He previously served as executive director of Mennonite Mission Network, prior to which he served as pastor, conference minister and mission executive in South Africa, Jamaica and the United States.
This article first appeared in the fall 2025 issue of Leader magazine and is republished with permission. (c) 2025 MennoMedia.
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I have a friend whose whole life and identity was shaped by the church. As a young person, he discovered freedom through an encounter with Jesus. In becoming a follower and disciple of Jesus, he found increasing joy in ever fuller surrender of his life to Jesus. He eagerly said yes to a call to share the gospel and became a teacher.
At first, he shared the conventional teaching about what it meant to follow Jesus. He claimed absolute certainty for his teachings, which tended toward exclusivity. Further study and a deepening relationship with Jesus led him to new understandings of discipleship. Embracing the changes led him to expanded compassion and greater care for marginalized people and the outcasts in our society, those whom Jesus made the focus of his ministry. He also moved in the direction of a greater commitment to justice and inclusivity that he saw modeled by Jesus. His shift left him feeling ostracized, and he felt hurt by being called an apostate. He was also troubled to see how the content of his old teachings was used to support Christian nationalism, white supremacy, misogyny, and blatant racism. This almost led him to a repudiation of his faith and a turning away from the church.
Withdrawing from hypocrisy
Sadly, his experience is not unique. Millions, young and old, have abandoned their faith and jettisoned the church as they experienced what they described as sickening hypocrisy. Observing a credibility gap between the teachings of Jesus and the posture of many churchgoers led to an acceleration of withdrawals from the church.
Dating from as far back as World War II and the Vietnam War, when “Christian” nations were seen as the purveyors of death, disillusionment and what was described as hypocrisy in the church grew. This exacerbated the trend of people leaving the church in the second half of the twentieth century. What can be done? How should we respond?
We can respond with denial. We can become defensive, or we can blame those who have left. These responses are usually self-defeating. Healing the rupture and renewing hope for the future of the church calls us, in this 500th year of Anabaptist witness, to recover a countercultural posture in relation to the trends of our times. Seeking rehabilitation and regaining our credibility have no easy alternatives. However, I believe several realignments will heal and renew us.
Four Realignments
The first thing we can and should do is to discard the notion that megachurches are necessarily faithful churches. Size does not matter. I am part of a small house church, where I relish the privilege we have of intimacy, accountability, and meaningful engagement with each other. These gifts, rather than nursing false pride in the size of our facilities or our impressive numbers, often engaged in by larger churches, are what nourish our souls.
Second, the increasing abandonment of churches is directly related to the growing abandonment of engagement with the biblical text. We humans are formed and fashioned by the narratives we embrace. Embedded in scripture are the defining narratives that shaped the discipleship of our forebears. By contrast, we are increasingly being molded by the narratives that our culture embraces — the formulas that make for success and happiness. We have allowed ourselves to be hijacked by these narratives. This is leaving us more alienated and anxious. Individually and corporately, we need to rediscover and reengage with God’s story.
Third, we would do well to reject our culture’s cuddling up to the powerful in the hope of acquiring some of that power for ourselves while forgetting the marginalized ones. This course too easily leads to the binaries of “us” and “them,” perspectives that fuel division and fragmentation and eventuate in violence. We need to rediscover Jesus’ missional charter in Luke 4:18–21, the Magnificat of Mary (Luke 1:46–55) and the description by Jesus of the coming judgment in Matthew 25:31–46 so that we can reset our faith compass and become more aligned with God’s purpose for the flourishing of all humanity.
Finally, we should discard the idea that the greatest consequence of our salvation is the securing of our eternal destiny. In “Postcards from Babylon: The Church in American Exile,” Brian Zahnd puts it this way: The church after Constantine has a long history of assuring their rich and powerful benefactors that the gospel is a spiritual message about how to go to a spiritual heaven after they die, and so they need not be concerned about the kingdom of heaven challenging their earthly privilege here and now. Rather, we must insist that God’s intent is that our salvation transforms us to become a community focused on being a foretaste and a sign of God’s reign. Through our deeds and our words, people should experience a taste of heaven here on earth. Unconditional love, unreserved compassion, equitable justice, and generous hospitality should become the hallmarks of our witness. Wouldn’t you find a church community with those hallmarks attractive rather than off-putting?
The views and opinions expressed in this blog belong to the author and are not intended to represent the views of the MC USA Executive Board or staff.