It is no secret that many church bodies are experiencing a
time of decline. In the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, congregations have fewer people in worship than in
previous decades. Fewer people are
enrolling in seminary to become pastors, a reflection of the fact that ministry
feels less secure than it once did. You
would never get rich as a pastor, but you could provide a dependable income for
you and your family. This was part of
the image of pastoral ministry when I graduated from seminary almost twenty
years ago. Now we are starting to see
articles about the joys of bivocational ministry (aka part-time pastor and
part-time barista).
Recently
I convened a meeting of anyone who wanted to take part to talk about the future
of our congregation in Falmouth. About twenty
people attended. We talked in more
detail about these trends and their impact on our community.
At one
point, the participants were broken into four groups to answer a series of
questions:
1.
What sort
of church do you want to be for the next 5 years?
2.
What needs to happen for us to be that church?
3.
How will we support that church? What are you willing to do to make it happen?
In answering the first question the
groups came back with:
1.
Focused on seniors and social needs
2.
More welcoming
3.
Open – Not Gone
4.
In existence
The first answer reflects a sense
of hope and purpose. The group talked
about reaching out to older people because that is the makeup of our area of
Cape Cod. It is true that we have
families with young children (the current holy grail of church life) but many
of the people around us are 55 and older.
It would make sense to look at the needs of our current older population
rather than continuing to hope that younger people will seek out an aging
congregation.
The second answer, be more
welcoming, is one I hear frequently and have heard in several
congregations. Many people seem to think
that the solution to a multitude of the church’s problems is to be friendlier. To be clear, there are congregations that
have a reputation for simply being unfriendly or closed off, where no one
approaches the visitors at fellowship and unsuspecting guests are ejected from
family pews (or at least seriously glared at).
There are also congregations that do hospitality very well with good
signage and happy, smiling people to greet you at the door. I suspect, however, that for many
congregations, the hope to be more welcoming is a reflection of visitors who
come and don’t return. What did we do
wrong? If only we had been friendlier.
Yet often when people don’t return
it is more complicated than being treated in an unfriendly way. In this era where denominational loyalty is
less important, people may visit a
church with something specific in mind other than having Lutheran on the church
sign. The Lutheran label might be a
bonus if that is your family heritage, but it is probably not the first
priority. The thing they are looking for
might be a program, like Sunday school or social outreach. It might be a worship style. If they are younger, they may be looking for
a place with people of their own generation.
I have received several comments from people who visited our
congregation, thanked us for being very welcoming, but acknowledged that they
were simply looking for something else.
Don’t get me wrong. We should be
as gracious and welcoming as we can be, but should not have the expectation
that friendliness will make us all things to all people.
The final two answers, “open-not
gone” and “in existence” represent the reality for many congregations
today. We look at empty pews and deficit
budgets and wonder how we can make it through the current year much less look
at life five years in the future. It can
be as dangerous to get mired in the current reality of the church as it is to
ignore it.
As we consider the future of our
congregation, the question that needs to be asked is “Why?” Why should we remain open? When there are several congregations in the
area that are on paper more viable, why does God need this pocket-full of
Lutherans on the heel of the jester’s shoe that is Cape Cod?
I suggest that this is where we
need to spend some time together in conversation and discernment. If we can find no other reason to be open
other than to be open, then it is seriously time to consider how we can best
look toward closing with dignity. That
may sound harsh, but it is difficult to justify through scripture or tradition
a church that is open simply to be open.
If there is no mission or purpose that undergirds the life of the
church, then we are, as a colleague once put it, “a museum of Lutheran studies with
a music appreciation society.”
If we are the church, then God has
a mission for us. We are here to spread
the good news, continuing Christ’s work in the world. As a congregation, we are a unique gathering of
Christians, with talents and resources for sharing that news. We don’t need to ask if we are called to share it, but need to ask how we are called to share it.
The good news can faithfully be described in many ways: grace, peace,
forgiveness, promise, life, joy, hope, love, truth, justice, equality,
wholeness, mindfulness, and welcome, just to name a few. What would our life together look like if we
said that we are here to share the good news of grace in Christ? Peace in Christ? Joy in Christ? If we find a way to focus our attention,
perhaps it will help us look forward. My
next few blog posts will continue to look at how we pursue the why.
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