BEYOND THE PEW

BEYOND THE PEW The gurus are scrambling. The recent Pew Report documenting the decline in our nation’s Christian population from 78 per cent to 70 percent is sure to stir up those who busy themselves crunching the numbers and pushing the paper work. My generation of clergy were dazzled by the pyrotechnics of the church growth gurus who admonished us as we approached the new millennium that we needed more mocha with Messiah and Cappuccino with Christ and less doctrine and dogma. So we built believing they would come. The mega church outfitted with all of its technology and pleasure dome aesthetics was the new Oz. Church architecture became about erecting structures that demolished tradition and embraced entertainment. Sacred spaces were stripped of their symbolism and the dominant concern became where do we put the projector and screen. Worship was severed from its historical roots and hymnody displaced by what one church growth specialist called a “soundtrack” for worship “that is determined by what the worship guests listen to on ITunes.” What should cause all of us to set up and take note is what The Pew Report reveals about “generational change.” Many of the shifts outlined above were seen as being necessary for our churches to attract children, youth, and young adults. I myself am a survivor of the “worship wars” that resulted in countless of our congregations dividing their congregations up and defining them as “traditional” and “contemporary” worshippers. As one growth specialist advised “where a congregation is aging and possibly declining it might be best to create two kinds of service, one of them traditional and the other “culturally relevant.” But it is among the population characterized as requiring “cultural relevance” that the rise of “nones” is taking place - those who are less likely to belong to any Christian (or other religious) body. The failure of our churches to pass on the faith to the next generation has to be at the heart of this trend. Worship life and teaching spaces within our faith communities cannot bypass the substance of Christ’s teachings and be driven by the values that define popular entertainment. The exhaustion and burnout seen in many of our clergy and worship leaders is directly tied to their continual quest to remain “culturally relevant.” Spiritual formation takes a back seat to insuring that the image of our churches is “relevant.” Could it be that the decline of the church might be due to our younger generations seeking something beyond what they find at the Apple Store? In our branding of the Church as a commodity that must compete with Silicon Valley, the young who are trying to find the meaning of why we are all here might well be looking for what makes the church different from their I Phone. In the techno driven world they are inheriting might they be craving authentic community versus simulated reality? Jesus chose a real body (the church) here, imperfect and human to carry his message and he assured us that with the Holy Spirit we had everything we needed to do just that. The truth of the Gospel will never rise or fall because of institutional growth or decline. It will live and breathe in and through us or in spite of us and it will never power down. Tweet that.