Whether we like it or not, God has flipped the script on what it means to be church. In the inherited “attraction model” of church, the primary agents of ministry have been the clergy through the programs of the institution they lead. The goal has been to attract members to join the congregation, financially support the institution, and be active in the organization’s scheduled events. This model of church has disintegrated in our lifetime. At the end of Christendom, the church is in crisis. We hear widespread laments at the decline of the institutional church and despondency among church leaders. While nostalgia for that era continues, there is no going back.

In the emerging baptismal ecclesiology, we dare to become the midwives for the diaconal church God is bringing to birth. Our relational Triune God is equipping the saints to become—again for the first time—the primary agents of the church in mission. Leaders need laser like focus on forming the Christian people for discipleship, evangelizing, and diakonia at all gatherings to prepare them for the sending. While Luther imagined a universal priesthood of believers, this church model was until now never implemented.

This paradigm shift is different from what is commonly meant by a “lay led” congregation. The main ministries of the baptized people of God are in their arenas of daily life, not in congregational programming. The role of ordained pastors remains crucial, although it requires a reorientation of the office of Word and Sacrament away from the attraction model. Pastors now focus attention on practices that form, equip, and activate the Christian people for serving neighbors in all their roles and relationships in life. What joy it brings to deeply connect faith and real life!