DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO COME TO CHURCH OR NOT?

Some years ago, when I was in seminary, I came across a flyer posted outside the Trinity College Chapel, advertising a seminar, in Burlington,  on Church renewal offered by someone with the unlikely name of Tex Sample. Since it was offered at an Anglican Church – St Christopher’s -and I was intrigued by the title – “Supposed you pitched a tent in your community and nobody came, what then?” – I decided to go.

As a Seminarian I was, understandably, concerned about the future of our Church. After all, I was seeking to become an Anglican Priest. I believe that was the career path that was intended for me from the beginning, but when I was  young I thought a different career was my destiny. Much later in life, after my own mid-life crisis, I found myself answering the call that I had ignored as a young man – a very late vocation. All this occurred just at the time that the Church was being told it was in precipitous decline, and may not last another 25 years before it disappeared completely.

When I arrived at St Christopher’s, I noticed that I was one of the younger people in the room. I was 57 at the time. Other than a sprinkling of people in their 40’s, just about everyone was in or on the downward slope to retirement.  The speaker, Tex Sample, was himself 70.

Tex Sample is a specialist in church and society, a storyteller, author, and the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at the St. Paul School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, where he taught from 1967–1999. Wikipedia

That he did, indeed have something to say that would be relevant to church in contemporary society is evidenced by the title of one of his then-recent books, “The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World”.

Professor Sample began his address by asking:

“Do you want your children and grandchildren to come to Church or not? Just say yes, or no.”

There was a stunned silence. After allowing the question to sit with the audience for a few minutes, He asked once again:

“Do    you    want    your    children    and    grandchildren    to    come      to    Church   or    not?    Just say yes, or no.”

He was answered with a resounding YES from the audience.

He went on to say, “well what are you going to change, because they’re not here now.”

After letting the audience sit with this for a few minutes, he said:

“The good news is that, for you, NOTHING needs to change. You just have to give permission for something different, perhaps at a different time, and maybe in a different place, and RESOURCE it.”

Unfortunately, not many paid attention back then. Despite the statistics and the warnings. The decline was already very real.

In his 1999 book, Suicide: The Decline and Fall of the Anglican Church of Canada?, Dr. Marney Patterson reported that in less than 30 years the Church had lost 267,000 members and 33,000 identifiable givers. Parish income had dropped by $5,111,360. 954 churches had been closed. Baptisms fell from 31,215 in 1967 to 17,722 in 1995, a drop of 43%. Confirmations dropped from 26,676 TO 7,183, down 73%. Marriages dropped 43%. Women’s groups were down over 50% from 105,171 in 1966 to 50,208 in 1995. Men’s groups dropped over 50% from 21,085 in 1966 to 9,234 in 1995. Youth ministry decline over 80% from 86,965 groups in 1966 to 17,680 in 1996. Sunday School declined 73% from 219,573 in 1966 to 57,537 in 1996.

Summing it all up, he said:

“Our Anglicans are now, and have been for all too many years, deliberately departing, leaving the church. And, it should be noted, it is something that they are doing, in many instances, with great reluctance, but doing it they are, knowingly and deliberately, and as we have seen, in tremendous numbers.”

He went on to note that It wasn’t the C and E (Christmas and Easter) Anglicans we were losing, but life-long committed ones. They left because they believed Church leadership was out of touch with ordinary people, and no longer offered them any good reason for staying.

In the wake of these revelations, much effort was spent on attracting new people.

We experimented with Back-to-Church Sunday, Natural Church Development, Appreciative Inquiry, and Fresh Expressions of Church. We tried to become more “relevant” by throwing out our traditional liturgies, way of worship, music, and vestments; and adopting the style and mannerisms of the evangelistic and mega churches. Sadly, they too now see decline and express many of the same concerns we have. Indeed, Willow Creek Community Church – a 25,000 member mega-church near Chicago, a model for much innovation – has recognized that they got it wrong … that their growth resulted from attracting other Christians seeking something new, and not from making new believers … and that they were not making disciples. Due to scandals and Covid, their attendance has dropped to 50% of their pre-pandemic attendance, and tithing is down.

Whatever we did was only slowing the decline, not reversing it to any great degree. Over the last several years, the United Church announced their intention to close fully 50% of their parishes, an objective they are well on the way to achieving. The Anglican Church renewed its exploration of team and regional ministries, and the rationalization of parishes. Despite all of the effort, the expiration date of our Church has recently been announced as 2040.

What has happened exactly? I recently heard a dialogue in the meditation community citing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the World War II era German theologian. Talking about the situation in the German Church, and the rise of Hitler and World War 2, Bonhoeffer declared that the Church had lost its moral authority, and that its words of proclamation had gone dead. As a result, he believed that its ministry must be for now – perhaps for a long while – a silent affair, characterized by prayer and right action. Given how the German church supported Hitler, after the war who would listen to the church ever again? The German church had lost its moral authority, and its right to speak.

Could not what Bonhoeffer struggled with explain the decline that we are facing? Certainly, there have been moral failures and corruption. Certainly, many have come to feel the Church has no contemporary relevance – that it just no longer speaks to or for them. That was already the case before the Covid Panademic. During Covid, Churches were closed. Services were not held, the rites of the Church that define life – Marriage, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Burial of the Dead were discontinued. Pastoral care was provided over the phone, if at all. Groups and Guilds did not meet.

The Church accepted that it was non-essential. If the corporate church accepted that, is it any wonder that parishioners found something else to do with their time on a Sunday?

Bonhoeffer believed that when the church loses its moral authority its speech must become “religionless. In other words, it should just shut up. We have lost our right to speak. Rather than speech, we are  called to righteous action in the world. After losing our moral authority, the only sermon the church should preach is by our example. Going forward, actions alone will suffice. Words are empty. As they say, put up or shut up. We must just keep our mouths shut and silently go about the the work of loving our neighbors. Our actions alone become the witness.

This was how Bonhoeffer felt the church could regain its voice after Hitler. After the war, the church should stop talking and start acting.

That is good advice for us in our time. Let our actions speak louder than our sermons. Maybe, after a season, the world may start caring again about what we have to say. But that right has to be earned. When the world observes our faithful care and love for them it might ask what we think about this or that issue. Until then, no sermons. No propaganda. No words. Just silent righteous action.

How might we do that? Consider the words of Tex Sample one again:

“Do    you    want    your    children    and    grandchildren    to    come      to    Church   or    not?    Just say yes or no.”

If you said yes, what are you going to change, because they’re not here now?