36 views of the future of church
With apologies to Hokusai
I keep seeing the future of church every time I close my eyes, because I can’t help seeing its struggle today.
And because I believe that the same small often struggling congregations that seem close to shutting their doors today actually hold the key to thriving Christian community.
We just have to use it.
I’ve never quite gotten over the shock of falling in love with the Episcopal Church, eagerly soaking up a deep education and formation in seminary while preparing for ordination to the priesthood, then bursting into congregational leadership fully expecting to thrive … in a system and organization that was on the verge of collapse.
So much of my ministry has felt like running over the edge of a cliff like a cartoon character, furiously pedaling the air. The glory of the view! The terror of the fall.
To be fair - and this is one of the things I deeply love about the mainline Christian church - we’ve used faith and grit and the Book of Common Prayer and good old-fashioned denial to get this far.
I’m 25 years into ordained life and I’m astonished at how many congregations simply refuse to give up, despite decades of issues with buildings, budget, membership, and finding clergy leadership. How many clergy are still at it despite the stress of holding up the 20th century institutional pillars that have been shaking since the year I was born (1966, if you must know).
It’s a beautiful testament to how much church actually matters to our lives.
Yet now we are truly at the tipping point. Personally, I think we are past the point where our denomination can numerically survive.
But something will.
And I find it intriguing, inspiring, and energizing to see that the church’s struggles are intensifying just as it seems like people are curious about God in their lives again.
This is the why. This is the key. We have what people need most today - Community. Hope. Peace. Love. Forgiveness. Life with Jesus.
When I look out at the view of the future of church, I see how we can get out of our own way and regain our vision of the Kingdom of God. I can see how we are already starting doing this:
Re-imagining how lay and ordained ministers serve together.
Introducing (and re-introducing) people to traditional faith practices, and how these transform our lives with God.
Using technology to build bridges between and among these things.
It's not my church
The wonderful church where I serve - St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury, NC - is 45 minutes from where I live. I’m there two Sundays a month. Some mornings I just get an early start, or the traffic’s really light (I live near Charlotte so you never know…), and I get there before anyone else has arrived. And since I’m of a ce…
I’ve decided to go full Hokusai - parroting his ‘36 Views of Mount Fuji’ - and spend the rest of the year on this blog just describing what I’m seeing.
36 views of the future of church.
Where the ‘Good Stuff’ of church is, and how we can let go of the ‘stuff’ that no longer supports our ministry.
And I’m starting right now:
View #1: Why are you here?
This is simple but not easy.
Most congregations have a mission or vision statement of some kind. It usually describes their ministry very eloquently. Yet few members of the community are familiar with it, or feel motivated by it. Lots don’t even know it exists!
Because underneath it, there’s often a felt mission. And it feels something like this: ‘we can’t let this place this die’.
Lots of congregations exist because they insist on continuing to exist.
Which in so many ways - as I mentioned - is a testament to faith. To sheer determination to not let something die.
But is it a reason to live?
Here’s what I see:
A woman who comes back to church after a long absence - hesitantly. She comes sporadically. Sits in the back pew for years. Gently declines invitations to become more involved, until one day she decides she will. Slowly. She eventually becomes a devoted member of the congregation.
I ask her what made her stay. She says, ‘this is a place I felt seen.’
This is a church that knows why it’s here.
Where do you feel and live from your true mission as a congregation? If the truly honest answer is: ‘we can’t let this place die’ - are you willing to turn the question into: how do we live?
The church where I most often worship has been asking even more difficult questions. Are we succeeding in our mission to the degree that justifies the resources we are investing? How many labor-hours are required to create faithful a worship service for God plus eighteen humans (plus however many angels if you believe in that kind of thing)? We have a $100K budget and we worship 20 people 50 times a year (to make the math easy). That's $100/member/week -- four times the national average. Membership has been flat for five years. Is it time to put a fork in it and call it done?