I’m
serious. Let’s talk.
I have
the great privilege of traveling all around this synod and I have the
opportunity to listen to rostered leaders and congregation members on a daily
basis. This is one of the blessings of
my current call to synod work.
What I
am hearing right now is a lot of fear.
This isn’t new. What is different
is the level of that fear and the heightened anxiety that accompanies it. As a result, rostered leaders and
congregations are experiencing a lot of pain.
There are
common themes. Congregations are
projecting their futures and what they see is decline and death. Numbers have been sliding for quite some time
and the outcome appears to be inevitable.
As a generation of generous and faithful givers fades away, finances
become tighter and the focus turns inward.
More money is spent on operating expenses and less on outreach and
mission. Young people are largely absent
from the life of the church. But, truth
be told, it was my generation that began to drift away. Many of my generation’s children have never
been part of a church community, yet we expect them to “come back” to a place
they have never been.
Worse
yet, the church has lost its voice. No
one really seems to care about what we have to say. The Christian voice is fractured and noisy,
so it is lost in the blurriness of background noise. Rostered leaders, especially our pastors,
fear that they are becoming irrelevant or already are.
These
are huge issues, but they are symptoms of a massive cultural shift that is much
bigger than the church. Have you
noticed? Everything is changing. Everything.
During
this past August, I marked my 30th ordination anniversary. I had thought that it might be fun to reflect
on those 30 years for this blog. But, I
never found the motivation I needed to do so.
Of course, it was fun for my wife and me to look back for a few
minutes. But, as I searched for words to
write, the more I looked back, the more I was drawn to look forward. While looking back is informative (we really
have to know our history), I think we need to concentrate our efforts more on
today and tomorrow.
Recently
I had a conversation with one of the synod’s younger pastors. We were talking about the current conditions
in the church. I told her that my seminary
education certainly did not prepare me for what we as pastors are facing
today. I then told her that my consolation is
that her very recent education did not prepare her any better for it. None of us, clergy or lay, is truly
prepared.
I
recently attended a continuing education event at which I heard Phyllis Tickle,
Brian McLaren, Tom Long and David Lose speak.
The theme was “Preaching at the Crossroads.” I attended specifically to hear what these
voices had to say because they seem to have a handle on some of what we are
encountering in the church today. Let me
tell you what I heard in just a few sentences.
The world is changing. We had
better get used to that fact because there is no going back and there is no
stopping it. Things are changing fast
and it is going to continue. In the
midst of this change, the church must ask itself if it is going to accommodate
the change or help lead the change in a way that will benefit the world in the
name of Jesus Christ. This is a time for
courage and innovation. All of the
speakers agreed that we do not yet know where all of this is leading, which is
stressful. But, in these stressful
times, the church, you and I, are called to remain faithful.
The
problem I see is that we are not talking.
Congregations are not talking about what is happening and putting it
into a larger context. I see
congregations grasping at straws in attempts to accommodate rather than
lead. Congregations are not talking to
their neighboring congregations to see how they are doing. I see pastors and lay rostered leaders
becoming frustrated and depressed and contemplating just calling it quits. They feel isolated and alone. Pastors become the focus of misdirected
anxiety in many congregations. But,
pastors are not talking to each other, sharing their own joys and sorrows.
So,
let’s talk. I’m serious. If you asked me, I couldn’t begin to guess
how many unproductive, unmotivated, useless meetings I have attended over the
course of 30 years. Let’s not waste our
time with any more meetings that have the goal of just meeting. Let us ground ourselves in the Word of God
and start talking about things that matter.
Let’s start talking to each other for the purpose of mutual support and
discovering new ways to share the good news of Christ.
Thanks
for reading. Comments? Go to the blog website or comment on
Facebook. --JC
