The Courage to Grow Up
When faith requires nerve, not nostalgia.
The Church in an Age of Anxiety
Every pastor understands what it’s like to walk into a room filled with anxiety. The air vibrates with unspoken worries — about attendance, budgets, and the future. People talk in circles, hoping that if they talk long enough, the discomfort will go away. Committees hesitate, plans fall apart, and everyone leaves feeling both tired and unchanged.
I’ve watched this scene unfold in churches of all sizes and setting. It’s not that anyone intends harm. Most people genuinely want what’s best for their church. But anxiety is contagious. It narrows vision, reduces courage, and convinces us that our main goal is to avoid loss.
When that happens, we begin asking the wrong questions. Instead of, “What is God calling us to become?” we ask, “What will prevent everyone from leaving?” Instead of, “What new life might be emerging?” we ask, “How can we go back to what we were?”
Leadership theorist Edwin Friedman once remarked on this very tendency. In the introduction to his book A Failure of Nerve, he wrote:
“The more immediate threat to the regeneration — and perhaps even the survival — of American civilization is internal, not external. It is our tendency to adapt to its immaturity.”
I believe the same applies to the Church. The real danger isn’t the secular world, generational change, or even declining attendance. The bigger threat is internal: our tendency to adapt to our own immaturity — to soothe our anxiety instead of overcoming it.
What Friedman Saw
Edwin H. Friedman was a rabbi, therapist, and leadership consultant who viewed communities as emotional systems. He understood that organizations, like families, can become anxious and reactive, and that their health depends more on emotional maturity than techniques.
When Friedman warned against “adapting to immaturity,” he was describing a cultural pattern: how leaders often give in to reactivity, confusing accommodation with compassion. In anxious systems, the loudest voice tends to win, not because it’s correct, but because others become too tired to resist. Leaders, desperate for calm, succumb to the pressure to appease instead of leading.
Friedman described this as a “failure of nerve.” It’s not about lacking intelligence, strategy, or faith, but about lacking the courage to hold steady in the face of fear. He argued that it’s this loss of nerve that prevents renewal.
In our churches, that pattern feels painfully familiar. We see it when we avoid naming truth because it might offend. We see it when nostalgia replaces mission, when protecting comfort becomes more important than pursuing the gospel. We see it when leaders, tired of conflict, mistake peacekeeping for peacemaking.
Emotional Regression in the Church
Friedman explained that anxious systems tend to regress emotionally.
You don’t have to look far to see how this occurs in congregations. When anxiety increases, people become reactive instead of reflective. We search for someone to blame rather than seeking understanding. We want quick fixes instead of patient growth. We romanticize the past instead of trusting the Spirit’s unfolding future.
In an anxious congregation, leadership meetings can feel like walking a tightrope over a river of fear. A single difficult conversation can send ripples of panic through the entire community. Someone complains, and instead of addressing the issue directly, the focus shifts to damage control, an endless cycle of trying to keep everyone happy.
Friedman would say that’s what happens when we adapt to immaturity. The system remains stuck because its leaders stay anxious. In family systems terms, anxiety always seeks homeostasis—it resists change. So instead of moving forward, the congregation circles the same issues repeatedly, like a family that has the same argument every Thanksgiving but never changes the subject.
And yet, this pattern is not a sign of failure; it’s a signal. It indicates that the Spirit is stirring. It means the system is being called to mature and grow beyond its anxiety into a deeper trust in God.
The Pastor’s Temptation: Caretaking vs. Leadership
Most pastors I know, including myself, started in ministry because we love God’s people. We want to serve, comfort, and help. But love, without the courage to support it, can become distorted.
We convince ourselves we’re “keeping the peace,” when in truth we’re avoiding conflicts that could lead to growth. We say yes when we should say not yet. We soften our words to protect feelings, even when honesty would be a more loving act.
I’ve done this more times than I can count. Early in my ministry, I believed good leadership meant being endlessly accommodating. But over time, I realized that a church led by constant accommodation will always be anxious and exhausted. It turns into a system where the leader’s energy is focused on managing feelings instead of nurturing faith.
Friedman would call that “a failure of nerve.” It’s not moral weakness, it’s emotional exhaustion. It’s what happens when leaders mistake compassion for compliance.
The truth is, leadership isn’t about making everyone comfortable. It’s about helping people grow, and growth always involves some discomfort. The role of a pastor isn’t to absorb everyone’s anxiety but to help the community learn to carry its own.
In pastoral terms, we are called to love people deeply without losing our center. That’s what Friedman called “self-differentiation.” It’s the ability to stay connected to others without being controlled by their emotions. In church life, that looks like a pastor who can listen with empathy, speak truth in love, and remain steady when others react.
Regeneration: The Spirit’s Work of Renewal
Friedman’s word ‘regeneration’ is worth pausing to consider. It’s not the same as survival. It’s not simply about keeping the lights on or maintaining the status quo. Regeneration is about renewal from within.
In biology, regeneration describes the process of a healing body restoring what has been damaged. In the realm of faith, regeneration is the work of the Spirit who breathes new life into old bones and makes the Church more alive, not by holding onto its past, but by empowering its future.
The Spirit’s renewal doesn’t rely on new programs or marketing campaigns; it depends on courage. It comes from a willingness to face the truth about who we are and who we’re becoming.
Theologically, regeneration is always a cooperative act. God doesn’t force renewal; God invites us into it. Divine grace meets human courage. The Spirit renews through leaders and communities willing to face the pain of growth. God’s future is not predetermined; it unfolds through relationship and participation. That means the Spirit’s regenerative work depends on our willingness to collaborate, to trust, and to grow.
Choosing courage over comfort creates space for renewal. When we resist anxiety’s pull and return to love’s steady rhythm, the Spirit is able to breathe freely again. Renewal starts not with a new plan, but with a new mindset.
What a Regenerative Church Looks Like
A regenerative church doesn’t need to be big, trendy, or high-tech. It must be mature, and emotionally and spiritually grounded enough to love well during anxious times.
Such a church:
Can disagree without dividing.
Can grieve without falling into despair.
Can plan without panicking.
Can follow the Spirit without requiring a guarantee.
It is a community that reflects what Friedman called a “non-anxious presence,” a posture that allows calm, clarity, and compassion to lead.
In anxious systems, fear spreads easily, but so does calmness. When leaders stay centered and refuse to mirror the chaos around them, they help others find their footing. In faith language, they reflect the peace of Christ—the deep, steady peace that is not the absence of conflict but the presence of God.
Practices for Regenerative Leadership
So how can we, as pastors and leaders, start to embody this regenerative courage? Here are four practices that have become vital in my own life and ministry.
1. Stay connected, but not controlled.
Be present with people’s pain without being consumed by it. Leadership that withdraws becomes detached; leadership that absorbs becomes drained. The balance lies in grounded empathy — the ability to love deeply while remaining centered in God.
2. Name the truth kindly.
Avoiding hard truths does not preserve unity; it delays healing. Clarity, spoken in love, is a form of grace. Jesus modeled this consistently. He told the truth, even when it was uncomfortable, but he did so with compassion and purpose.
3. Trust the process over panic.
Anxious systems seek quick fixes, but spiritual growth unfolds slowly, through prayer, perseverance, and grace. Leaders must resist the urge for instant results and trust that renewal takes root gradually, like seeds in rich soil.
4. Return to prayer and presence.
The non-anxious leader is not calm by temperament—they are calm through practice. Ground yourself daily in prayer, silence, or reflection. The ability to lead through anxiety begins in the quiet where we remember who and whose we are.
The Courage to Grow Up
Ultimately, what Friedman described as “a failure of nerve” is actually a failure of imagination. It’s the unwillingness to believe that love can still produce something new. The Church doesn’t need more programs to survive; it needs the courage to mature — to move beyond emotional reactivity and rediscover spiritual maturity.
This kind of maturity is not rigid; it’s resilient. It doesn’t come from knowing all the answers but from trusting the Spirit enough to stay faithful through the questions. It’s having the courage to disappoint people for the sake of greater integrity. It’s possessing the wisdom to wait when others push for speed. It’s showing grace to lead with hope when fear would be easier.
When we grow up this way, renewal begins, not through control, but through cooperation with God. The Spirit does what it always does: breathes new life into exhausted structures, calls forth courage from hesitant hearts, and transforms anxious gatherings into communities of peace.
A Final Word
Maybe the Spirit isn’t waiting for the Church to calm down. Maybe the Spirit is waiting for us to grow up. To trust again that courage is a form of love. To believe that peace is not passive but powerful. To remember that renewal begins when we stop managing fear and start practicing faith.