Creating Community - What’s The Point?

As part of our church’s effort to reach out and be present in our neighborhood, a few of us started a new running club. We put up Facebook posts and flyers to generate interest. Then, on a warm Thursday evening in late May, we were thrilled when 12 people showed up for our first group run. Since then, the club has met twice a week and brought together a couple dozen folks around this common interest. 

As the club has grown, we’ve noticed it has become more than just a group of people who run together. After we run, we take time for fellowship, building friendships, and supporting one another through the ups and downs of life. We have even discussed taking a trip to a half marathon and doing a community service project. 

In many ways, we are like a church, only without the prayers, the worship services, and the Bible studies. But we are a caring community.

Which has generated an interesting conversation in my church. Since there is no explicit faith dimension to this new club, some are hesitant to call it a ministry. Certainly, we are filling a need in this new suburban development, and it is possible that relationships built through this club could lead to new members for our church. 

But are we fulfilling our mission as a church if the social structure we create isn’t Christ-centered? 

Traditionally, Christian mission has been divided into two categories - what we might call the Matthew 25 and the Matthew 28 objectives: to care for the least of these, and to Baptize all nations in the name of Christ. 

A running club, or another type of community that a church could start, doesn’t fit either category. But perhaps in our post-Christian, individualistic, and consumeristic culture - we need to make cultivating community a third objective for the church. And not necessarily Christian community, but simply structures where neighbors can be in healthy, human, caring relationship with one another.

What an act of selfless Christ-like witness this can be! Instead of reaching out for the sake of building ourselves up, the church can reach out for the sake of building up its neighborhood. Isn't that what the Kingdom of God is truly about?

Driving To Work - A Parable For Today's Church

A man lives in a nice house in the country, just outside the city. Everyday, he wakes up at 6:30 and takes a shower and gets dressed. At 7:00 he sits down for breakfast and reads the newspaper. At 7:30, he gets in his car and drives to work, arriving on time at 8:00. This is his routine for 20 years.

Eventually, however, the city begins to grow. The country road the man lives on becomes populated with neighborhoods, apartment complexes, and shopping centers. Traffic becomes congested, and numerous stoplights are installed. The man's drive to work now takes an hour.
The man is not happy, and he complains about the new situation:

"They should not have done so much building on one road."
"They should not have installed so many stop lights."
"They should widen the road, or build a freeway."

And as he complains, the man continues with his routine. He wakes up at 6:30. He eats breakfast at 7:00. He gets in his car at 7:30. And he arrives at work at 8:30. After a while, the man's boss becomes impatient with his constant tardiness, and the man is fired.

If You're Not Failing, You're Not Trying

• Seeking to reach families who aren’t coming to their Sunday morning service, a new church plant in a rapidly developing suburb decides to hold informal outdoor worship services in a neighborhood park. Very few people attend. 

• A second career seminary student struggles in a few classes, and falls behind her schedule for graduation. Discouraged, she considers dropping out and returning to her previous career.

• A declining congregation in a small town starts a monthly Bingo night in order to meet new people and build up membership. The Bingo games are well attended, but it doesn’t lead to any new people visiting worship and joining the church.

• A pastor in a well-established urban church decides to spend time in a local coffee shop in order to meet and minister to folks outside his congregation. He puts up signs that say, “Free Prayer,” and “I’m a pastor, ask me anything.” But the only people who stop to chat are his own church members.

By traditional, numbers-based measures of success, each of these four real-life scenarios would be called failures. Goals and expectations were not reached. Worship attendance and membership did not grow. Progress was not made on achieving long-range plans and projections.

In the 21st century, however, these conventional standards need to be rethought. As I said in my first post on this topic, “Maybe success in this new era is not found in numbers, but in the willingness to try, and fail, and learn, and try again.” 

In some cases, this simply means celebrating a different kind of success than what was anticipated. The seminary student learned better study and time management skills. The small town church put on a fun and wholesome recreation activity for the community. And the urban pastor provided quality pastoral care for some of his church members and got to know them better.

In other cases, however, the failure just seems like failure. It’s hard to find any positive results that justify the time and resources invested. This was the case with that new church plant and it’s outdoor worship service, which happens to be my church. We made a huge effort, and almost nobody showed up. When this happens with a new idea or project, it’s reasonable to simply say, “Oh well. We tried, but this obviously isn’t the right direction. Let’s pull the plug.”

At least that is the reasonable response according to the old measures of success. But I was very encouraged at how my leadership responded with a new attitude. At the next meeting, no one suggested that we give up on the idea of going into the community to reach new people, or on the idea of informal, outdoor worship.

Instead, we sought deeper insight into why our idea didn’t work. We determined that advertising an event as a “worship service” is a big deterrant in this post-Christian era. Going forward, we are going to focus on what has worked for us - simple, fun events that allow us to meet people and build relationships. Then, once we have built up some community, we will explore options for designing worship and spiritual activities. Which might not work either. But we are calling this “new wineskin” a success since we have tried something new, failed at it, and are now learning and adapting.

In your ministry context, what “new winseskins” have you been creating? Have you been successful by the old numbers-based measures of success? If so, that’s wonderful! Keep doing it and share your story.

But if you have been failing by the old measures, take heart. Look for the new kind of success through perseverance, learning, and adaption. And please share your story as well.

Beyond The Protestant Work Ethic - Part 1

As we waited in the barber shop for our turn in the chair, the four of us talked about our jobs. We were all men in our 30’s and 40’s, and apparently we were all working extremely hard.

The banker was putting in 60-70 hour weeks; the construction worker had nagging aches and pains all over his body; and the traveling sales rep only got to see his family twice a month. I couldn’t help myself, and joined the competition by talking about how I hadn’t had a true day off in over a month. 

What struck me about the conversation was that we were all bragging, but not about the quality of our work or anything we had accomplished. It was simply the fact that we were working hard - too hard, in fact - and that we were making great sacrifices for ourselves and our families.

This equating of hard work with virtue is a direct result of the Protestant Work Ethic. Calvinist in its roots, this ethic came to define both the religious and economic sensibilities of American culture. The focus on hard work, discipline, and frugality went hand in hand with many significant developments such as the birth of modern capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the middle class - and with new levels of abuse and oppression of the working class.

With its mixed legacy, and with 21st century realities of greater technology and abundance, perhaps it’s time to recognize that the Protestant Work ethic has outlived its usefulness. As the four of us in the barber shop revealed, it has now become a chain that is creating a whole new type of bondage. 

At some point in the 20th century, our major economic challenge shifted. We no longer struggle to provide enough of what everyone needs. Instead, the challenge has become having enough jobs available so that everyone can earn a living. In other words, we don’t need to work long hours to survive anymore, and we do so only because we are in unnecessary competition with one another. 

It doesn’t help that we have forgotten the discipline and frugality parts of the Protestant Work Ethic, and now worship at the altar of hard work so we can participate in a runaway culture of materialism and consumerism.

I often feel the weight of these chains myself. Even as I write about the need to move past the Protestant Work Ethic, a part of me struggles with that same compulsion to stay busy. If I don’t put in at least an 8-workday, or a 50-hour workweek, I feel like I’m slacking and unworthy of my job - even if I’ve accomplished a lot and the job is going very well.

What glorious freedom is to be found in no longer feeling bound by that compulsion to always be working hard! 

How liberating would it be for that banker to be able to say at 3:00 in the afternoon, “I just did the good work of helping a couple buy a house. I’m going to leave early and take my wife out for dinner instead of working late.” 

Or if the construction worker could say, “My back is really sore this week. I’m going to take a long weekend and get healed up, so I don’t run the risk of a debilitating injury.” Or if the traveling sales rep felt free to say, “I’ve been on the road for over a week. I’m going to cancel my last two stops and go home to see my kids.”

What if we could find as much virtue in those responses as we do in, “I’ve been working so hard lately. I haven’t had a day off in I don’t know how long”? 

Unfortunately, most workers don’t enjoy such freedom. This drive to hard work is now being used to create a whole new type of underclass - rich in "stuff" but poor in the intangible things that make life worthwhile. This collective drive toward "more" creates an overall culture of idolizing work which makes its hard for individuals to break free, even when they desire to. Only when these systematic issues are addressed, and our culture as a whole is able to make a shift away from the Protestant Work Ethic, will these chains be loosened. 

We as church leaders are being called to help start this shift by freeing ourselves and our congregations from outdated expectations on success and hard work. That will be the subject of part 2 of “Beyond the Protestant Work Ethic.”

Failure Is Success

The frustration in the conference room was palpable. We were about 200 church leaders from various traditions and contexts, but almost all of us were struggling to meet expectations for growth in our ministries.  In a breakout session, we shared our experiences:

We had studied the trendy books written by the pastors of explosive megachurches - but had seen our own membership remain stagnant. We had emulated the innovative pastors who had started thriving alternative churches - but were still not drawing the “unchurched” to our churches. And we had struggled to match the legacy of that beloved former minister in our own congregation who had “brought in so many new families” - 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years in the past.

As we returned from the breakout to the larger group, the room was ready to explode with this frustration. At this conference, and at many others, we had heard preachers and speakers who were successful by these standards and who we all desperately wanted to be like. But most of us just can’t seem to replicate their success, despite our best efforts.

As the glow from the Christendom era and the post-World War II church boom 

fades, such successful leaders and their ministries are becoming a smaller and smaller piece of the larger reality. Even as their numbers might be growing, the overall picture of the church in North America is one of increasingly rapid decline that won’t be reversed. More and more of us are finding ourselves outside of the “success” bubble and feeling like failures.

That feeling finally bubbled over during the question and answer period after another speech from a successful church innovator. A man who looked to be in his mid-thirties stepped to the microphone and described the decade of work he’d done in trying to start new ministries. He’d endured a lot of ups and downs, and ultimately his ministries had not lasted.

But he was passionate in talking about what he had tried and what he had learned, and about how he wished there would be more speakers and more books published that reflect experiences like his. Then he said the words that made the frustrated room erupt in applause:

“Maybe it’s time we consider failure to be success. Not just the failure itself. Not that we just do something, it doesn’t work, and we go home feeling satisfied. But maybe success in this new era is not found in numbers, but in the willingness to try, and fail, and learn, and try again.”

After that conference, I gained a powerful new perspective on my own new church ministry - which is not succeeding by the numbers driven models of 20th century church planting - but which is succeeding at trying new ideas and discovering what works in this new post-Christian reality.  

Ultimately, a numbers-driven approach will produce a smaller and smaller bubble of “successful” churches and leaders. A “try and fail” approach leads toward redefining what the church and what Christian witness in the world will look like.

In the coming series of posts, I will dig deeper into this notion that “failure equals success” and how it is the key to embracing the new life that the Spirit is bringing forth.

The One Big Reason Church Attendance Is Declining

Sexual and child abuse scandals continue to plague the institutional church, as does ongoing oppression of LGBT people. For many, these realities confirm their desire to never attend church.

Nonetheless, I contend that the primary causes for church decline are external. It is not something we are doing wrong. Even if the church were completely free of sex scandals and LGBT oppression, we would still be struggling with this problem - because culture would still be changing in ways that discourage church attendance.

In the previous two posts, I have outlined 12 ways this cultural shift is happening. Here is one final way, one that I believe undergirds them all:

We are no longer a single, unified culture.

Many white Protestant Christians see the 1950’s as a “golden age” for the church. Membership and new church building soared. This dramatic boom was spurred not only by a robust post-War economy, but also by a remarkable uniformity of culture that featured:

1) A common popular culture - Most people watched the same TV shows and listened to the same music.

2) A common media - Most people relied on the same news sources, despite political differences.

3) A common family structure - The emergence of suburbia created a new culture of conformity. Dad works, Mom stays home with 2.5 kids and a dog. 

4) A common prosperity - A growing and robust middle class meant that the majority of white Americans could actually achieve the American Dream for the first time.
5) A common enemy - It was US vs. the USSR.
6) A common faith - Christendom culture at its peak. Being a good church member was part of being a good citizen, and vice versa. Culture supported and created space for church participation.

These uniting traits created a seamless whole of what it meant to be an American, and a remarkable period of institution building followed - for church, for government, and for other civic organizations. Most importantly, this unified culture created a powerful sense that individuals were part of something much larger than themselves. They would spend their lives working for the betterment of those larger institutions.

Of course, this unprecedented prosperity and uniformity was a function of the dominant white hetero culture of that period - a culture which was quite oppressive. Minorities faced a much different reality, and this era was marked by the painful struggle for civil rights. But in the minds of many white church folks today, this was indeed a "golden age" - and it fuels both their politics and their anxieties about church decline.

They are alarmed because American culture has changed dramatically since the 1950's:

1) Popular culture has splintered - 3 TV channels have become the endless options available on cable and the Internet. The idea of a Top 10 for music that everyone is listening to is long gone.
2) Media has become partisan - We not longer form opinions based on the same set of stories and facts. We live in completely different news realities.
3) Family structures have become diversified - Mom, Dad, 2.5 kids, and the dog is now the exception. Divorce, gay marriage, co-habitation, and more multi-generational families have altered the landscape of the "typical" household.
4) The middle class is declining - Less and less people are achieving the American Dream as wealth stratifies and young people struggle to find the success their parents enjoyed.
5) The enemy is us - In a new global order, our foreign adversaries are shifting, and we view people in our own country with different political views as our enemies.
6) Faith has diversified - It is now socially acceptable to follow another faith, or to have no faith at all.  Religious diversity (instead of uniformity) is seen as a positive.

The astounding political reality we see in the United States these days can be explained by these cultural changes. Many people view that 1950's uniformity as "the way things should be," and are very threatened by these developments which have splintered that reality. So threatened, they will tolerate literally anything in a politician who promises to restore that uniformity.

Declining worship attendance can be explained in the same way. This splintering of American culture - which includes the notion that everyone should go to church on Sunday - is the big reason many people no longer attend. It is that simple, and that complicated.

And here's the hard truth for us church leaders: This genie is out of the bottle, and it's not going back in. We will never return to that "golden age" of church growth. The sooner we accept this, and the sooner we stop trying to figure out what we have done wrong and how we can "fix" things - the sooner we will be on the path to what the Spirit is doing in this new era.

In this blog, I will now leave behind the discussion of why church is declining - and focus on the exciting new things that are bubbling up.

6 More Ways Cultural Change Is Affecting Worship Attendance

Here is the second set of reasons that worship attendance has been on a steady decline for decades. As with the first list, these mostly relate to external changes in culture, not with what the church has been doing wrong.

Which reasons seem particularly relevant to you? Which do you disagree with?

7. Busyness/loss of Sabbath - "Sunday is the new Saturday", and people have options or obligations on this day they did not have in the past. Many more people must work on Sundays. For others, getting the family ready to go to church is one more hassle they don’t need. For still others, it’s the only day to sleep in or simply relax. In the past, very few options other than church were available or socially acceptable.

8. Loss of obligation - In the past, the general culture had a sense that “you’re supposed to go to church on Sunday,” even if they didn’t actually go. Today, this sense of obligation is mostly gone. People don’t wake up and think, “We should go to church.” Which means worship doesn’t have a prayer in the competition with other options.

9. Consumerism/materialism - Even if someone does make it to church once a week, one hour in worship is dwarfed by several hours a day of commercial messages on TV and the Internet. The occasional good news of grace is overwhelmed by the persistent bad news that we aren’t thin enough, rich enough, smart enough, or safe enough - and need to buy more and consume more. Is it any surprise that consumption is up and church participation is down? Or that when people do go to worship, they tend to bring a consumeristic expectation of receiving the product they desire?

10. Loss of moral authority - At one time, people turned to the church and its leaders for answers on the tough moral questions of the day. Today, many are looking elsewhere. Christians are frequently scorned as abandoning the principles of their faith, and a member of the clergy is often the last person someone turns to for moral guidance. The rash of child molestation scandals, and the outspoken voices of many Christians against LGBT rights has only deepened the divide. As a result, many people now stay away from worship because of their moral convictions.

11. Anti-institutionalism - At one time, the large denominations and their institutional strength was attractive to the general culture. Today, the once great institutions of society are viewed with suspicion. People don’t choose their place of worship as much by denomination as they do by where they feel comfortable or where certain consumeristic desires are met. Churches that still rely on their institutional strength and reputation to drive attendance are declining.

12. Individualism - Many people of faith are turning away from corporate worship and seeking more personalized experiences. “I meet God while hiking by myself in the mountains” is a common type of attitude. Watching sermons on TV and the Internet is also an increasingly frequent alternative to attending worship in person. In short, many people see faith more as “me” than “we,” and don’t value time spent with other Christians as much as past generations did.

Again, this list is being compiled to help us understand the reasons worship attendance is in decline, and to help us shift toward new practices that will reach people with the Gospel in new ways. If we keep thinking the problem is what we've done wrong, and keep trying to "fix" our worship services, we will never be able to move into the great things God is doing next. 

6 Ways Cultural Change Has Affected Worship Attendance

When churches analyze declining worship attendance, they often look internally:

 "What are we doing wrong?"

 "Why are we driving people away?"

But the declining numbers are more the result of external factors. Through no fault of the church, the culture has changed, and people are less likely to value worship attendance. If we turn our gaze away from ourselves, and out into the world, we will understand more completely what we are called to do to be faithful in this new era.

Over the next few posts, I will examine a number of shifts in the general culture of North America that incline people not to attend worship. Here are the first six:

1. Rapidly changing technology - We have shifted from perhaps one major innovation per generation to major technological changes every few years. People are in a perpetual state of adaptation to something new. We have developed an expectation of novelty, and become easily bored with the “same old, same old.” Churches tend to be much more static in worship practices and do not value variety and novelty as an attractive feature. Perhaps we should.

2. Communication has diversified and shortened our attention spans - Most of us were raised on four predominant modes of communication (“snail mail”, telephone, radio and TV) - all based on attention spans ranging from a few minutes to an hour or more. Today, we have added email, texting, websites, and various forms of social media to the mix - all of which require a much shorter attention span. Yet in worship, most churches use one or two communication forms and still require a 15-20 minute attention span for its message to be received. And we wonder why people say worship is boring and stay away.

3. Growing virtual reality - People are spending more time staring at screens and less time focused on the physical world around them. Many churches worship in a way that demands full attention in physical space. Even ones that offer screens as part of the experience often frown on individual use of devices during a service. This reality exposes a significant generation gap that we need to take seriously if we want to make worship vital for younger folks. Or should worship be a rare time away from the virtual world?

4. Increasing mobility - People move more frequently than in the past. Very few spend most of their lives in one area. Many folks are in a state of permanent transience, adjusting to a new hometown every couple of years. Moving is typically a time when people lose contact with worship participation and do not return. Those who move frequently are likely never to find a place to worship. 

5. Distance from family - A positive influence from a family member is often what draws a person to worship or keeps them attending. In a transient culture, many people have no family support in their areas, and therefore have no one encouraging them to make it to worship each week. 

 6. Spiritual homelessness - Many churches rely on loyalty to the tradition to undergird worship attendance. These days, that sense of loyalty is rapidly declining. People are much less likely to attend worship because it is the closest expression of a tradition they identify with. Instead, many feel a sense of spiritual homelessness and go "church shopping" for the service where they feel most comfortable. Or, their lack of loyalty to a tradition causes them not to attend at all.

There will be many more reasons to add to this list. A quick caveat to close:

I am aware that worship practices are not the primary way God is calling us to seek New Wineskins. But declining worship attendance is the number one sign that things must change. If we understand why people are not coming to worship, we can then make the shift to finding ways we can reach people with the Gospel - which may include worship, but likely centers on something different.

Church In Chains - Worship Attendance Should No Longer Be Our Measure of Success

My first pastor position was in a small church of 80 members. Average worship attendance was 35-40. When I started, I harbored fantasies that my preaching would be so profound, word would spread and attendance would begin to rise.

So each Sunday, as I stepped into the pulpit, I would count heads as the prelude was played. Much to my dismay, attendance remained remarkably steady.

So I tried some new strategies. I polled the congregation and preached series based on their interests. I focused on better delivery, eye contact, and connection with the people. I even began to preach from notes instead of a manuscript. But no matter what I did, the same 35-40 faithful people showed up each Sunday.

When friends and relatives asked me how my first call was going, they would invariably ask if the church was growing. I soon came to believe - both from internal and external expectations - that I must not be a very good preacher. Just an adequate one, only good enough not to chase people away.

It was only ten years and two churches later that I finally realized that Sunday morning attendance is not the best measure of success for a pastor. Many of my colleagues have never realized this, and continue to struggle with the stress and the self-doubt I had experienced.

Why is worship attendance considered the chief measure of success for pastors and churches? Why are offering totals and building projects a close second and third? If those are not the best measures, then what are?

These are questions all church leaders need to be wrestling with as we transition from one era of church history to the next. For the past 40 years, numbers for mainline Protestant churches have been on a steady downward slope. More evangelical denominations, who for a while avoided the decline, are now losing members, too. Even the non-denominational megachurches are having more trouble attracting people through their doors than they did a decade ago.

In short, if we maintain the ABC standards (attendance, buildings, cash), we are setting ourselves up for further discouragement. Cultural trends much larger than us are driving this shift away from church participation, which means we need to focus on different goals.

These new goals and measures of success are being revealed by the Spirit as time goes by. My hunch is that it has to do with being a counter-cultural witness against the consumerism, individualism, racism, and many other “isms” that predominate in today’s world and bind up people’s freedom.

What do you think will be the new ways the 21st century church measures if it is fulfilling its calling?

Sympathy For The Prodigal Son - A Sermon On Change

An excerpt from my sermon "Leaving Home" on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) that was preached in August of 2014 for the Presbytery of the Peaks' quarterly meeting in Lynchburg, Virginia:

"Perhaps it's time for us to generate a little sympathy for the younger son, and even to admire and emulate him for his bold decision. Perhaps the message we are to receive is not that we will be rewarded for staying home where it is familiar and safe; but perhaps the message here is that we will only find freedom and only become who we are meant to be - that we will only truly come to know and experience God's grace - when we find it in ourselves to get up and leave home.

And maybe we are not called to leave home in the exact way that the prodigal did it, with dissolute living, but maybe we are called to take the resources we have been given and to use them in what some would call a reckless manner.

Maybe leaving home for us means that we stop worrying about our own security and the future of our institution, and instead use the abundant gifts that we have been given to reach out in our communities, to minister with great energy and creativity to the many people who are in need in so many different ways.

Or maybe leaving home is meant to be more literal, as in getting out of the four walls of our church buildings that feel so familiar and comfortable. Maybe it means going out to the people in our neighborhoods instead of expecting them to come to us. Or maybe leaving home means getting out of some of our entrenched habits - being willing to let go of a program, or a policy, or an attitude, or anything that we do that we have grown accustomed to, but that prevents us from moving forward into what God is doing next.

Leaving home looks different for each individual, each congregation, each presbytery, and even each denomination - but in all cases, it means having the courage and the faith to do what the Prodigal Son did - to realize that where we were yesterday is not where we are called to be tomorrow.

The church we know and love, the church we are familiar with, the church that feels so comfortable and safe in the midst of a world that is so chaotic and confusing - it is the church we must, in many ways, leave behind."

The Church in Chains - “Glory” Days

At a Presbytery meeting several years ago, I ate lunch with a retired minister who told me of his adventures as a church planter in the early 1960’s.

“We put up a sign and ran a few newspaper ads, and it wasn’t long before people just started showing up. First a trickle, then a deluge. We had people coming in so fast, we didn’t know what to do with them. After a few years, we had over 500 members and broke ground on a new sanctuary and educational wing.”

“What was your secret? What did you do to attract all those people?”

“I don’t know. I preached on Sundays, taught a Wednesday night Bible Study, and played a lot of golf. Back then, people wanted to come to church. We didn’t have to do much of anything to draw them in.”

Those were the "glory days" - not just of new church planting, but also of the mainline Protestant church in general. The 1960’s was when membership in my Presbyterian denomination peaked, and it  has now shrink to about a third of that number.

Folks who are in their sixties and seventies today grew up in these “glory days.” They don’t see the post-World War II era as an aberration of population and economic growth. Neither do they appreciate the high level of civic and religious loyalty that dominated the Baby Boom years.

To them, what they grew up with was normal.

The way things should be.

The way things still should be.

And a big part of that “normal” is that most people wake up on Sunday morning and feel the need to go to Sunday school and church.

This memory of the church of their childhood is shielding many of today’s leaders from understanding the much different reality of the 21st century. They know that culture has changed, but many seem to hope it will change back - as if the steady decline of membership over the past 40 years is the aberration, and we can bring back the “glory days” and get back to normal if only we try hard enough.

Much of this desire has been reflected in the popularity of Donald Trump among older white Christians. His campaign promise to “Make America Great Again” includes a return to those days when churches were bursting at the seams on Sunday mornings.

But the culture is not changing back.

The “glory days” are not returning.

The church in Amercia will never again enjoy the popularity and the cultural influence it once did.

If we can accept this reality and let that dream die, the Spirit will be able to birth in us a new dream.

A dream of a New Wineskin that will pour forth the truth and beauty of the Gospel in ways we cannot even imagine today.

But first, we must take our eyes off the past. We must let go of the glory days and the hope they will return, and instead turn to embrace a new day.

The next post will be on the second chain the church must break - the ABC measures of success (attendance, buildings, and cash) - which belong back in those “glory days.”

7 Reasons The Church Is Struggling To Respond To Rapid Cultural Changes

Lately, I’ve been blogging about individual freedom. But let’s switch gears to institutional freedom. If there is such a thing.

It’s clear that the instutional church in the United States is struggling these days. We are frustrated, anxious, and frightened by rapid cultural changes that have sent our numbers into a downward spiral. Our ability to effectively respond is hampered by numerous chains that bind us - some seen and others unseen. Here are seven that will be discussed in detail in future posts:

1) The “Glory Days” - We long to return to a mid-20th century level of attendance and cultural relevance, which is never going to happen.

2) Numbers-based definitions of success - Attendance, buildings, and cash. (ABC) See #1.

3) Survival mentality - We are afraid to die, even as we proclaim the God of resurrection. See #2.

4) “One church, one pastor” leadership models - Developing new and vibrant communities of faith will require us to better understand and employ our varied gifts of leadership. One person can’t do it all. Shared leadership among congregations is now a more faithful model.

5) Clergy careerism - If leaders make their core ministry decisions based on personal and family finances, new ideas and models will be stifled. Risk in leadership must be shared. See #4.

6) “Bring them in here” approach to evangelism - More and more, the population in general is not showing up at our facilities, no matter what we do. The more we stick to our own buildings, the smaller the pool of people we can reach. We must get out where the people are.

7) Centrality of a worship service - This is not a call to end worship, but to rethink the practice of making a worship service (sitting in a pew or a chair for one hour, once a week) the central and defining practice of faith.

Which of these seven do you resonate with? Disagree with? What else should be on the list of how the institutional church is in chains?

Do Not Worry - What If We All Lived As Jesus Teaches?

In Matthew 6, Jesus lays out a powerful prescription for freedom:

“Do not worry about what you will eat, or drink, or what you will wear... But seek first the Kingdom of God and it’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.”

Taken literally, this passage would have profound implications on our individual lives. Imagine if  someone:

• Goes grocery shopping, but only buys food they will eat that day.
• Does not own a refrigerator to preserve any food for another day,
• Does not plant a garden or grow their own food of any sort.
• Does not own more than one set of clothes.
• Does not maintain a plumbing system in their home to guarantee fresh water is always available.

Extended to all aspects of society, this literal command becomes even more ridiculous:

• No preventative medicine.
• No banking or financial investments.
• No construction that takes more than a day to build and won’t be used that very day.
• No education systems or formal schooling of any kind.

In short, to live like the “birds of the air” and the “lilies of the field,”as Jesus suggests, would be irresponsible for individuals and disastrous for society. It would drag us back thousands of years to a time when life was short and quite difficult for the majority of people - when each day was indeed a struggle to meet basic needs.

So what does Jesus mean when he implores us to worry about today and not tomorrow? Is it simply a caution not to become too anxious about the future, even as we work to provide for ourselves what we need? That is likely how most relatively affluent modern Christians have interpreted this passage. 

But that’s not what it says. 

Perhaps, Jesus is not telling us to buy small portions of meat so we don’t have leftovers to preserve - but he is calling us to live radically different lifestyles than the dominant culture around us. He is leading us toward an orientation toward the material side of life that recognizes our dependence on God. 

He is freeing us from the anxiety that it up to us (and us alone) to secure what we need not only for tomorrow - but also for next week, next years, and even decades into the future. This is a belief which causes us to ignore the needs of others and the presence of the Kingdom today.

In other words, the command not to worry about what we will eat, drink, or wear is not literal, but neither is it trivial and to be too quickly dismissed. In fact, it lies at the heart of the spiritual freedom about which Jesus is teaching.

(In the next post, I will explore some practical example of how people are fulfilling this command in their daily lives and faith.)

It’s Not About Us - Why Declining Church Attendance Isn’t A Crisis

(Originally published August 18, 2013)

One of the best pieces of advice a young pastor can hear is this: "It's not about you. When a church member stops attending, it more often than not has nothing to do with the pastor - so try not to take it personally."

Perhaps the larger church, as we struggle with why our overall participation is waning, could follow the same advice.

Why aren't young people coming like they used to? In all our collective hand-wringing, perhaps the best answer is one we haven't considered: It's simply not about us.

Perhaps it has nothing to do with how relevant we are, what style of worship we use, how hypocritical we might seem, or anything that has to do with us and the way we do things. Perhaps it has everything to do with how the world beyond the church has changed, and not necessarily for the worse. 

We need to get over our ego-centrism that tells us that the church is still at the center of the culture, and that if someone doesn't go, it means they have rejected us and rejected God. We need to get past the arrogant notion that we are the only place people can find spiritual truth and community. And we need to bury the all too-common belief that people are hopelessly lost without us, that they are miserable until they stumble through our doors - especially since much of the pain and alienation in the world has been caused by us.

Instead, let us be honest about the fact that the church is not for everyone. Some folks are better off the day they walk out our doors and never come back. In today's fast-paced, high-tech, postmodern, and globalized culture, we are merely one among many options that are out there for people to find fellowship and spiritual connection, and it's time we get real about the fact that we no longer hold a monopoly. If we expect to return to 1955 levels of membership, and then look inward for explanations when we don't achieve them, we are destined for disappointment, disillusionment, and defeatism.

Perhaps, then, we shouldn't beat ourselves up because the world has changed and so has our place in it. Perhaps we should just remain true to our faith and our traditions, interpreting them for new generations with new ideas and practices the best we can.

As a young pastor, it took me several difficult years of self-doubt and second guessing before I realized that Sunday attendance was not a function of the quality of work I was doing. It was more a reflection of the changing times. My role was to be adaptive, and to shape the ministry of the church in such a way to nourish those whom we could reach. The same principles apply to the larger church.

So the next time we are tempted to get down about slumping statistics, let us remember that sage advice. "It's not about us." And let us witness to the love and grace of Christ with a little more joy, and a little less despair.