Missional Church

This is one of the most insightful articles on the subject of "mission church" that I've read in a long time, particularly from a US perspective which often still seems to insist that "If we get our marketing right, they will come back". Uh uh.

The Death of the Funeral Society

Church Growth?

A short post, open to your projections and comments. :-)

Once upon a time, the general culture was amenable to church-going for a lot of reasons that didn't have anything to do with God or to a commitment to being a disciple.

Now, the general culture is less amenable to church-going.

Instead of focusing on trying to get people into the door, churches should focus even more on faithful worship, faithful teaching and committed discipleship. If this results in declining church membership, so be it.

Whatever the format is of the above commitments, I don't care. I expect that different formats will appeal to different disciples and I think that's fine. Just let's stop trying to make ourselves attractive to people who are not primarily interested in worshiping or learning about God. All we're doing is watering down the Gospel.

Comments?

The Emperor has no clothes

Over on my friend David's blog, Big Circumstance, I managed to blurt out an idea that's been in my head for awhile but which never came out in quite the same way before.

The idea is this: lots of people who want to follow Jesus hate Sunday morning services. They find them energy-sapping and exhausting, like a terrible meeting at work that you really don't want to attend but have to. Only the thing about church is that you don't have to attend if you don't feel like it.

I think that this is actually the real challenge to the Church today and no amount of contemporary worship, no amount of praise songs and no amount of "modern worship" is going to "fix" the problem. Trying to make existing Sunday services attractive to people who would rather go to the dentist is just a no-win game and I think that's what we're trying to do. US congregations, not having yet declined in the way that the Church has done in the UK, seem even more stuck in the mode of thinking that if Sunday services just get more "modern" that more people will come.

Now, my only problem is that I don't really know what to "do" about this. I do think that small groups may be part of an "answer" and I suspect that this is part of where the Emerging Church movement is at. But I think that small groups are going to have to be places where individuals can share of themselves and be real and contribute to the growth of others in the group so that everyone can go out from the meeting into the world. They can't be just another meeting. And they can't be primarily led by one person week after week or they just turn into mini-Sunday services.

Any other thoughts?

Church as Business Model

My cyberfriend and fellow Methodist John Meunier at Come to the Waters has written a fascinating post entitled Is it the Business Model not the Theology? where he compares the institutional church to a 'business model' that is breaking down.

I think that he's very definitely on to something here. and I think that his comparison with institutional journalism is a good one. I think I'd agree that 'people want Christianity, they just don't want to get it or pay for it in ways that they used to' - to paraphrase John's comparison with institutional journalism.

Church and Evangelism

I might be being foolish by publishing another post on this subject, but a short exchange with my friend Sally in the comments section of my post Minister as Evangelist? got me thinking.

I think I might be on to something here and I throw the question open to you:

I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a difference between: 1) Telling someone the Good News of the gospel and 2) Getting them to come to church.

I actually do wonder whether the bigger 'conversation experience' in today's culture is the church-going bit.

I suspect that, in the past - even in my own lifetime - people attended group activities outside the home for recreation and entertainment. Nowadays, recreation and entertainment are much more 'private' - me and my friends or me and my family. This is what's foreign: belonging to civic and cultural organisations. And the 'foreignness' of group activity is why people find church so uncomfortable.

I do genuinely find it easy to talk to people about God, about Christ and about the Christian Gospel and about my personal faith. I'm not, however, convinced of my ability to 'get people into church' who don't want to be there.

Over to you.

Reasons for Giving Up Church-going

This week, both The Methodist Recorder[1] and The Church Times[2] contained articles about a study done by Leslie Francis and Philip Richter on the reasons that British people have given for giving up on church-going. It was infuriatingly frustrating that The Methodist Recorder only reported the existence of the study and gave no indication of its contents.

The reasons cited for leaving add up to more than 100% presumably because individuals were allowed to give more than one reason. The top reason given by a 'high proportion' of church-leavers was 'Church irrelevant'

The second most important reason given for leaving - cited by half of church leavers - won't be surprising to anyone who goes to church but it is rarely cited by people ranting about church decline: about half the church-leavers said they gave up going to church because they were excluded by cliques.

Social exclusion was one of the most important reason people gave up church-going! What a challenge to all congregations. Exclusion is so easily done.

Other reasons included:

• Churchgoing was part of growing up (40%)
• Moving to a new area and family commitments (33%)
• Tensions with work (25%)
• Church was too feminine for some men, and too difficult for those sexually active outside marriage.
• Inadequate return for time and money (40%)
• Disillusionment
• Hurt by pastoral failure (14%)
• Disliked change - e.g. of hymns (20%)
• Worship too formal/informal and teaching too high/low (33%)
• Church leader too authoritarian (RC) or too unclear (Anglicans) (25%)
• Church was too conservative (20% to 33%)
• Lack of boundaries between the Church and the world (25%)

The authors suggest that churches need to 'multiplex' - to meet different needs, but people need to work together.

I wonder where this leaves small churches?

The study is called Gone for Good and is published by Epworth Press. Cost is £19.99.

[1] Does not carry the article online.
[2] Article online for subscribers only.

Bums on Pews

Call it what you like: bums on pews, Fresh Expressions, the crisis of Christianity/religion.

Why don't people come to church any more?

My own theory is simple and probably not very helpful. I think that people don't come to church any more because people don't want to join groups. Still less do they want to join institutions. Ask the Scouts, the Toastmasters or the Rotary. It's not like people are flocking to join these groups whilst studiously avoiding the church. I think that this is a sea-change in our culture and it's a change that is very difficult for the church in general even if individual congregations are able to attract numbers.

I'm not of the view that people don't come to church any more because they are more hostile to religion or to Christianity than they were in the past. In this, I disagree with a lot of my friends in 'real life'.

My disagreement comes from my past when I had an 'office job' and people were constantly askimg me about God and constantly wanted to talk about God. People are, I think, quite interested and eager to talk about God as long as they don't have to come to church.

Let's be honest. In the days of the 'church as a bulwark of general society' church was about individual congregations being essentially local clubs. What is church in this new cultural context where few want to join a club but many want to talk about God?

As usual, I have no easy answers. I wish I did!

Hope and Foolishness

United Methodist Bishop Wiliam Willimon has written a wise and hopeful article: Divine Wisdom Among Little Old Ladies which I think is definitely worth a read.

Willimon asks:

When will we ever learn the truth that God has chosen "what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are" (I Corinthians 1:27-28)?

I wonder if that should read: "When will we ever learn the truth that God always chooses 'what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...'" etc. etc.

If the Gospel is counter-cultural and if God has a preferential option for the powerless, the weak and the poor, why is it that we seem to require the same markers of "success" for the church that we do for secular culture?

We deride consumerism as being a false god but we expect business and the economy to grow X% per annum and - consciously or unconsciously - we seem to measure the success of our congregations by whether or not they are large and growing.

I'm not entirely certain why we seem to think that the message "Go and sell all your belongings, forgive your enemies, join these 'little old ladies' (sic) and come and follow me" is a message that is going to attract lots of followers.

What's Wrong with the Church?

Question: What's wrong with the Church?

The Right Answer™: Preachers and pastors are no longer preaching The Authentic Gospel.

Q: How can I know I'm preaching The Authentic Gospel?

TRA™: You will know if you are preaching the authentic gospel because people will start flocking to your congregation. All it takes is for the preacher to preach the True Word; if you do, God will bless your endeavours and people will come.

Is this just another version of "The reason you aren't being miraculously healed of your incurable disease is because you don't have enough faith"?