We asked Dave Male:
What is Church?
[youtube]eUFRtWmYKf0[/youtube]Length: 1 minute, 33 seconds
Watch for a new question posted each week, or view the entire interview here.
What is Church?
Church - General
WHAT IS CHURCH AND HOW DO YOU MEASURE IT?
Church of England consultant, Ven. Bob Jackson, proposes an answer to his own question in a recent paper.
“Once upon a time we thought we knew what church was and how to measure it. Church happened when we gathered in a consecrated building for a public act of worship with a priest on a Sunday. So we measured the size of the church by the number of people who attended the public act of worship. Until the year 2000 we counted ‘Usual Sunday Attendance’, and since then we’ve also used ‘Average weekly attendance in October’, including weekdays.
But attendance & electoral roll measures have never done full justice to what we think church really is. So today I want to pose the deeper questions: ‘What is church?’ & ‘How do we measure it?’”
Time for a Game Change
We need to revise the rules of a game which seems to be played out with one active pulpit, before an audience of passive pews. Here’s one way forward
As Canadians wrestle with a shrinking Church and a growing recognition that the God of all ages is not limited to high ceilings, wooden pews, or even Sunday morning, we are beginning to grasp the magnitude of the task ahead. It is huge, and will require more than young priests and ministers eager to enter traditional parishes. We face a revolution in how we do ministry, plant churches, communicate a message, and create community.
Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM) was developed as an advanced training course for teams of lay people planting Fresh Expressions of Church in Great Britain. I wish I could say MSM is a magic formula, creating new churches to replace those that have reached the end of their lifespan.
Instead, it challenges the Church to rethink itself on at least three levels.
How we lead: We have come to think of the Church in terms of pastor and laity — one doing the skilled work and the other supporting in many ways. But Fresh Expressions of Church are as much the formation of ministry teams as the reformation of professional leaders. Thinking back to the Acts of the Apostles or the Pauline Epistles, new ministries were always the work of what I think of as the apostolic AND: Paul and Silas and Barnabbas and Titus and Phoebe and Priscilla and Aquila and Epaphras and Mary and Andronicus and Junia and many more cited by name. The next generation of church leaders will have complementary ands in every leadership team.
How we finance ministry: As much as I appreciate collecting a salary for doing the things I love – and would likely continue doing even if I won the lottery tomorrow — my income comes from the accumulated wealth of generations. People older than myself, for the most part, have paid the mortgage on buildings we could no longer afford to purchase. In the future, I suspect much ministry will be conducted by teams of lay persons; supported, encouraged and blessed by clergy but not restricted by the availability of the ordained and salaried. We can no more afford to launch only churches build by professional church workers than could the early church — or any of the other church planting movements of history. Unless we are willing to send out mendicants with bowls to beg for their supper, Fresh Expressions of Church will often be the work of those who earn their salary and mingle with the working population as others do. Instead of numbing themselves in front of the computer, console, or TV, dedicated Christ-followers will create new Christian communities through networks of relationships inaccessible to parish focused ministers.
Role of pastors: There must be a shift from pastor centred mission to multi-faceted team. The British MSM was designed to aid groups of eager lay people in need of seasoned advice, theology, and structure and to temper a spontaneous church planting. Guiding an unruly outbreak of enthusiastic lay ministry does not seem to be a significant problem in the Canadian Church. But we cannot forget that the early Church was largely a movement of lay persons mentored by followers of Jesus, tied to the teaching of the apostles, but not to buildings or methodologies.
The difference between a laity that cares beyond its friendship networks and one that is ingrown appears to lie in one of the eight measureable quality characteristics of Natural Church Development (NCD). Passionate Spirituality is the ability to apply one’s love for God, one’s knowledge of scripture, one’s experience of the transforming power of God to everyday life and relationships at home, in community and at work. It is that extra “something” that pushes past loving fellowship and a crowded agenda of work and leisure to a life that follows in the footsteps of Jesus — and of the 12 — and the 72, and 500 and so on through to those who mentored the ministries of which each of us are a part.
Does the world need another course to learn how to plant a church or fresh expression of Church? If it does, MSM is a pretty good one.
But I think we must strive for more than more than deepened knowledge. We need to recruit young people and active retirees and persons whose circumstances allow them to live simply in order to serve God’s mission in the world. We need priests and pastors ready to rethink tried and steady patterns of ministry that support a passive laity.
We need to revise the rules of a game which can be played out with one active pulpit, before an audience of passive pews. MSM is a team sport. Gather a gang of two or three or ten, and see what you can do. I can safely say that God is on your side.
Going Missional Across Canada
Years ago, my best friend Janet and I travelled from Halifax to Vancouver and back again
on a student Via-Rail pass. For 21 days we sat, slept and snickered in coach seats, eating peanut butter sandwiches and once an entire cream pie. We giggled through northern Ontario and cackled through the prairies, until, to our utter bewilderment, someone finally snapped.
Our fellow passenger shouted “Would you please stop that incessant giggling!” The rest of the car applauded. They weren’t clapping for us. Amazingly, they were clapping for the man who told us to shut up.
We were stunned to discover not everyone — not anyone, actually — thought we were the cat’s meow. And that’s how the church is to some people, in some neighbourhoods. The church has become irrelevant, and maybe even annoying!
This past year, I had the privilege to interview and write the stories of 13 Canadian churches — of various sizes, shapes and denominations — across Canada who have decided to get relevant, big-time. Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life is the book, borne of that research and co-written with Willard Metzger, then World Vision Canada’s director of church relations.
All across Canada, there are churches embracing missional life. They are moving out of their comfort zones into a more intentional local engagement and serving their own communities in remarkably creative ways — not to grow their churches — but to grow their obedience to Jesus’ teachings to deeply love the people and places that surround us. And they are doing it in partnership with all kinds of people and community groups already active in their midst.
Partnerships was a huge part of many of the missional adventures I learned about. Ask, then listen, advised Judy Paulsen of Christ Church, Oshawa, an Anglican congregation profiled in the book. Going out to meet with community groups, asking how the church can serve them, then coming up with creative partnering possibilities is a staple of the missional life.
I shared this idea of partnerships with people in the community, who weren’t necessarily the least bit churchy at all, with our own church’s Mission and Outreach group. Inspired, we formed a team to go visit the local schools and offer our church’s assistance for students in need. The result, after months of talking and re-visiting, is a bursary for social action at the high school, and a sizable donation to another school to build up their literacy program.
We feel certain we are on the right and very new track.
This immediate application of what I was learning happened again and again during the writing of Going Missional. Because our own congregation of the Ascension in Port Perry is well on its way to a renewed incarnation in our community, we were able to apply some of the missional lessons right away, which is the very point of the book.
We fellow travellers on the missional road – and many would argue there is no other road — can learn so much from each other. Simple things like dialoguing with the community to find out how we can help — and not presuming to already know. Realizing that God is already at work in Port Perry and elsewhere, whether we are a part of it yet or not. And knowing that simply being a friend can be the greatest witness to Christ’s love. One church I spoke to built a homeless shelter right down the hall from their sanctuary; another offers fixed-up cars to the poor in their community, yet another asked surprised parishioners to donate their coats and boots (on a cold Saskatoon Sunday) to a homeless shelter downtown. A west-coast church volunteered in droves for an Aboriginal Olympics taking part in their hometown, and did more to build bridges in two weeks than in the decades previously.
I ended this project feeling like it was a good time to be a Christ-follower in Canada — and in my very own community. For the first time in a long time, I am excited about what is to come.
Going Even More Missional
I interviewed 46 people, from 13 diverse church communities from coast to coast, for Going Missional. Here are some more ways these congregations are living out Christ’s call in their communities.
1. Work with other churches: In almost every case, churches who are deeply engaged in their communities are open to collaboration with other — often very different — congregations.
2. Be prepared to help when the community needs you. A large Montreal congregation founds its missional feet during the ice storms of 1998. Their sanctuary became a shelter, and their reputation as a church the community can trust grew exponentially.
3. Know your community. The churches in the book spent time asking questions, hearing from community groups and even just travelling on city buses to hear and absorb what the needs of their communities really were.
4. Encourage lay people. Often, the best ideas for missional outreach come from parishioners who want to share their passion and their gifts. Sometimes, clergy are most effective as cheer leaders.
5. Move from writing cheques to being present. The churches in the book, especially Christ Church, Oshawa, have intentionally moved from mostly financially supporting needs in their communities to actually rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Parishioners love the switch.
6. Preach and teach boldly. One church in Winnipeg tells members that if they aren’t willing to get to work in the community then they are just taking up a chair someone else could use. Ministry opportunities are presented on their website like job descriptions and everyone has a chance to participate.
7. Open your doors — for free. A large Saint John congregation opens its building (rent-free) for community meetings and events and has gained a reputation, starting with that simple act, as being on the side of the city.
8. Train people how to serve. A St. Catharine’s congregation that houses a homeless shelter makes sure its volunteers are well-trained and comfortable. They present varied “on-ramps” for engaging parishioners in missional activities.
9. Invite the community in — even on Sundays. A church in Duncan, B.C. invites community leaders to join them for a Sunday service and share what they do for their town, then the church offers to pray for their work, right there and then.
10. Do your programs well. A Saskatoon church took a load of their “Sunday best” clothing, in new boxes, to a homeless shelter and the shelter staff were moved to tears. Another church-run homeless shelter washes their visitors’ clothes and offers them fresh pyjamas to sleep in. Offer the world your best.
Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life is available through The Leadership Centre, Willow Creek Canada, at www.growingleadership.com
Karen Stiller
How a Sabbath year Changed our Church
One busy congregation made the gutsy move of ceasing activities
and busyness — for a whole year! Find out why and how they did it.
A year ago last September, we at St. James Anglican Church in Caledon, Ont., agreed to enter into a Sabbath year. Why? People here, in this rural congregation of 110 families, had been more than a little over-stretched. They had worked hard to accomplish a major building project, experienced changes in pastoral leadership, were struggling financially and, like many churches, faced a decline in numbers.
All of these realities — coupled with the personal hustle of day-to-day life — made for a very weary and frazzled congregation.
Some of us had been doing a little reading and reflecting on the Sabbath day itself. That led me into thinking about the Sabbath year which occurs in one out of seven years in the Bible.
What would happen if St. James was to take a Sabbath year?
How could we do it? Using the Sabbath year teachings found in the Old Testament we adapted these principles to life at St. James.
Here is a quick summary of how we did it:
If in a Sabbath year, the land is to rest, so, we will give the church, which belongs to God, a rest. The church is not so much about the facility, as it is about God’s people. To rest is to abide with God. It is a holy rest, a time to set the church and the people apart exclusively for the Lord, for his purpose and for his glory.
If in the Sabbath year, people were released from work obligations, then the people of St. James are to be released from “work” around the church. On the other hand, if there is “work” that is a joy, a delight, and a pleasure to do, then we are free to pursue it with joy and to consider it holy work.
In the Sabbath year, if the fruit of the land is to be of benefit for all people equally, as they have need, so then will the fruits and blessings of our church be shared with everyone equally. In the Sabbath year, God calls us not only to allow for provision for the poor and the vulnerable but also to provide nourishment for the spiritually poor and the spiritually vulnerable. Therefore, in the Sabbath year we are called to generously share our experience of God, including his power working in us.
If debts are to be cancelled or postponed in the Sabbath year, the difficult questions become what to do with things like emotional debt, the sense of personal obligation, the rejected peace offering, the demand for retribution, the simple misunderstanding that has become a mountain. This is the year to let it all go. Trust in the Lord. Consider our Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
The Sabbath year is our year to consciously entrust ourselves to our Lord and his gracious provision, to listen quietly for his voice, to walk gently beside him, to let his presence permeate our entire beings and to permeate the full body of Christ here at St. James.”
So now the big question is, “How did it go?”
At first, to many of the good people at St. James, a Sabbath year was a radical idea. Then, we had an electrical fire, caused by lightening. It didn’t look like much, but the water damage and other related electrical issues surely disrupted the usual rhythm of things. But, by Christmas, we had settled into the idea of our Sabbath year…most of us at least. There will always be those energized souls amongst us who just keep going and going.
As the pastor of this little church of St. James, my experience is that the Sabbath year was absolutely wonderful. I would do it again and plan to do so beginning in September of 2016.
What happened? The busy business stopped. The edginess is gone. There is a greater acceptance of others. There is also a deeper sense of fellowship. I find that there is a gentle sense of a peace and patience. There is a renewed affirmation of who we are as children of God. I believe that these things happened because we were taking time, not to be busy, but to rest in the Lord, allowing us to be who God created us to be with one another.
There is now a quest to understand our spirituality more profoundly. I believe too, that we discovered the gift of discernment and wisdom. Now decisions are reached more prayerfully and thoughtfully, and always with the well-being of the church family in mind.
Those who decided to take the Sabbatical year off from their church “duties” have returned refreshed. Our church attendance is up marginally and it looks like our year will close in the black. Admittedly, there were times when we had to remind ourselves to not panic, but to trust in the Lord.
We decided to dedicate one of our Sunday services to focusing on Sabbath rest, in fact, it has come to be called “the Sabbath Rest Service.” It has become the favourite service of the month. It is simple, quiet, gentle, and beautiful.
Six of our “cooks” (all male) decided that they would like to offer a “Sumptuous Sabbath Breakfast” which is offered on the first Sunday of the month followed by our Sabbath Rest Service. Ideally on a Sabbath Rest Sunday, when our people come to church, a gorgeous breakfast is waiting for them. Then the Sabbath Rest Service begins. Our prayer is for a grace-filled pace to be set for the rest of our day with the Lord.
As I write this I realize that these words do not capture the fullness of what God has done here. But He has done marvelous things. We just had to let go of our stuff and be still long enough to watch and listen and to trust Him.
Are you thinking about a Sabbath Year?
*Pray about taking a Sabbath Year and how it may be interpreted into the life and culture of your congregation. Is the timing right?
*Present the concept to wardens, ministry leaders, advisory board. Define roadblocks, path-forward, commitments.
*Set the calendar for the coming Sept – Sept., keeping cherished events, at the same time setting aside as much of the busy stuff as possible. Let go of the shoulds and coulds.
*Keep everything simple.
*Teach and explain about the Sabbath Year, its biblical foundations and application in your church today.
*Except for the wardens, everyone is set free from their responsibilities. They may carry on only if they love what they do and it is a great joy to them, otherwise they are free.
*Truly trust in the provision of the Lord. Share what He has provided with those in need.
* Rest in the Lord.
Does Canada still need the Church?
You’ve probably seen the headlines, headlines such as: “Churches come tumbling down. . . . Canadian Christendom is destined for history’s sunset.” (Globe and Mail, Christmas 2007)
According to Canadian sociologist Reginald Bibby there is a perception, particularly among academics and the media that religion in Canada is a fossil, a vanishing holdover from an older more superstitious age. Is this so? Has Canada given up on religion, or at least on the Church? That may be the perception, Bibby notes, but the facts say otherwise: “The 2001 census reveals that 84% of Canadians continue to identify with religious groups.” (See The Comeback of Organized Religion in Canada.) What’s more, Bibby’s research suggests that of the remaining 16% who say they have “no religion,” two-thirds will connect with a church when they need religious rituals for children, marriages and death.
And Canadians are still attending church regularly (if somewhat less frequently) at the once-a-month or more level. In fact attendance is on the upswing in the past 5 years—especially among youth!
As far as the atheists go, while holding their own, they have about the same grip on Canadian beliefs that they had 30 years ago—very little.
Apparently then Canadians haven’t given up on faith, or even the church. Religion is alive and well in this country. Why is that? What is it that Canadians see in the Church that they aren’t willing to give up—and seem to want more of?
Let me suggest several gifts which the Church has historically offered, and continues to offer, to the building of Canadian society:
Structured support for healthy community values
In one of Project Canada’s studies (see Press Release #10, Oct 8, 2007), researchers compared the attitudes of God-believers to atheists in Canada. They found that on community-building values—such as honesty, kindness, family life, being loved, friendship, courtesy, concern for others, forgiveness, patience and generosity—believers were much more (up to twice as) likely to hold such values as atheists. Bibby suggests that churches provide a place where people can hear the stories, practice the habits, and build the accountable relationships that sustain such values.
Head Space—thinking room that allows for real hope, and the exercise of a rebellious imagination in dealing with community issues
Communities across Canada have been rocked by the recent world-wide economic meltdown. Some fall into a communal depression that sucks away energy for adaptive responses. Churches point them to a God who loves their community and is bigger than the forces assaulting their common life. Christian churches tell the story of a God who saw His Son fall into a nightmare of betrayal, capital charges and death and yet raised that Son to indestructible life. They claim that ancient hates and corrupt states, even the powers of death and hell have no ultimate power over our future because it is held by One who raises the dead. That kind of hope makes it possible to resist destructive trends and try new things, economically, socially, knowing that the effort will not be wasted.
A Talking Place
In the beginning, the “Word” created human community; words continue to build or destroy it. But in a world dominated by great political and economic powers average folks often feel voiceless, helpless to speak words that will make a difference. The church offers a mid-sized space for conversation. It fits between the privacy of family talk and the vast fishbowl of national news media or political debate. It’s a place where people can test out their public “voice” with reasonable risk. And, because Churches tend to draw people together from all walks of life, the conversation is diverse: bartenders and judges, children and engineers, soccer coaches and artists, young and old, rich and poor put in their two cents. Teaching our people how to talk well, providing good processes and healthy structured space for conversation is at the heart of what church and community are about.
Maze-walking guides
Canadian life is a minefield of bureaucratic traps and mazes: income tax, the health care system, banks and finances, the justice system and so on. There are overlapping, intersecting, and often contradictory rules, licenses, fees, punishments and procedures everywhere we turn. Churches have a long history of guiding vulnerable people through those mazes. They help those trapped in the basement of a bureaucracy to get heard at higher levels. They help people sort out complicated applications and legal forms. Church folks sit at hospital bedsides helping people make sense of their journey through illness.
The Rite Stuff
Two recent graduates from our Saskatoon seminaries took adjoining parishes just as two Mounted Police officers were shot and killed in their area. Families and friends of both the victims and accused were members of their churches. These two pastors found themselves thrown into the local and national spotlight. They had to provide a way—a communal liturgy—for people to process the grief and horror of that experience. And so they did. They created opportunities for folks to pray and lament. They modeled ways to be hospitable to media, to care for families. They helped their people channel the powerful but chaotic emotions triggered by the murders into a community-building experience. They mobilized hope and helped the region recover a view of itself as something other than a place that murders its police.
The church was born into drama and liturgy and that is still its central activity. But our rituals are not meant to be private. Public churches take the rite stuff out to their communities. They help celebrate harvests and holidays, lament deaths and disasters. They gather up stories to share at anniversaries and commemorations. They help communities begin things well: through baptisms, weddings, the blessing of new crops, new buildings and, new office-holders. They help end things well: funerals, farewells and closings. And they provide a process for healing and reconciliation from the conflict that a community inevitably suffers.
A Home Base
The majority of Canadian churches are located in rural and inner city communities that live with constant change and often inferior infrastructure. Rural areas live with boom and bust economies dependent on the vagaries of commodity markets. Inner cities lose their infrastructure to the donut effect, or have it shattered by urban “renewals” which uproot people from their homes and tear long established social webs.
But churches persist. They hang in through the changes brought by weather, markets and government programs. They provide a “home base” for community-building and re-building as they offer: a building; a pastor who knows how to train leaders; a group of volunteers and the know-how to recruit, train and support them; a fund-raising structure and know-how to raise funds; grass-roots memberships that cuts across social lines; a tradition of care for the weakest.
Saving Grace
Gracious churches help their community see that their future is open. It is not simply a reaping of past mistakes or revisiting of past glories. They also help communities value people intrinsically, as God’s creation and not according to their economic production, gender, colour, etc. That grace is essential for the healthy functioning of a community. For example:
The Church has been given some wonderful gifts. They’re meant to be shared. And our country needs them. Let’s take those gifts out where they can do some good!
Cam Harder is Professor of Systematic Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon SK. He also directs CiRCLe-M, the Centre for Rural Community Leadership and Ministry at http://www.circle-m.ca/.
Alpha, Lectio Divina and Three Cups of Tea
A Surprising Recipe for Parish Renewal
The Church’s prayer in every generation is always for the people of God to be renewed. When our hearts and minds are renewed it opens us up to the unifying love that is Christ, brings the desire to serve others, and offers peace and hope to our families, communities, and to the world. This, of course, is the Church’s mission and raison d’etre.
In order for the local church to be effective in its mission in every generation, its pastors need to be intentional and systematic in guiding its people—and ultimately its whole region. The people of God need to be loved, cared for, and shown compassion and mercy. And the people of God also need to be well instructed in the Christian life.
In our Canadian context we are living in a predominantly un-churched society, where perhaps only 10 to 15% of the population is affiliated with organized religion. Moreover, the influence of our secular society on that 15% is substantial. Recognizing the church’s mission mandate, and well aware of this societal conditioning, in 1999 the Anglican Parish of the Resurrection in South River, Newfoundland, began a process of renewal, educating our Christian community and re-creating ourselves.
Here is our story.
In the fall of 1999, the parish was a four point charge with small, diminishing, and tired congregations. It was evident that we would have to become one congregation, with all the heartache that would entail, or we would die. This is how we managed, with the grace of God, to recreate ourselves into one vibrant congregation.
We began experimenting by pooling all the human resources from the four congregations in such a way that we would function administratively, liturgically and catechetically as a one point parish. Liturgically, we had one main service on Sunday mornings that moved each week around the parish. The music was more contemporary, and the children’s church was worked into the liturgy. Those who appreciated the contemporary worship and children’s church would “move” to a different building each Sunday morning. Administratively, all four vestries met and worked as one body responsible for the entire parish; and a single financial team was put into place to manage all parish finances.
These “experimental” changes made the running of the parish more efficient, and the liturgy more life giving. But the factor that gave the process deeper roots and the desire to persevere was the intentional, systematic, and ongoing catechetical evangelization of the congregation. If the parish was going to survive, to be renewed and to be made effective in ministry and mission, it was evident that we needed to challenge those already in the pews to learn more about their faith, and to deepen their spiritual practice. In other words, we took as our very first mission mandate to evangelize and educate those already in the pew.
So, at the same time that the administrative and liturgical changes were happening, we introduced the Alpha Course to the parish. All four vestries and others from the congregations were challenged to take part in that first Alpha course. And, thank the Lord, most vestry members responded. This first Alpha was life changing for a number of those who participated, not only by deepening their experience of God, but also by building new relationships across the boundaries of the four congregations. This was a major factor in bonding together in faith and friendship those who hardly knew one before.
The Alpha Course in the fall of 1999 was only the beginning of the catechetical evangelization of the congregation. A Sunday Breakfast Bible study and a weeknight Bible study began right after that first Alpha. In addition, we dedicated two nights each week to Christian Education. Thursday nights was set aside for Alpha, and Monday nights for other Christian education opportunities such as After Alpha, various other programs, and guest teachers who would come to speak on selected themes.
Gladys Harvey writes: Twelve years ago, I was a churchgoer but not
acommitted Christian. I decided to do an Alpha course which was offered by our then new priest. That course changed my life and set my feet firmly on a faith journey which has led to a deep involvement with my faith community and with Christian adult education. Alpha gave me the nuts and bolts to begin with, and Lectio divina gave me the discipline of prayer. Christian education , in addition to theology based sermons from our priest, has helped to build a faith COMMUNITY where formerly there were four dying congregations.
As the faith of the congregation was deepening and maturing, many were being prepared to make the hard decisions to become constitutionally a single congregation with one vestry, to sell our old buildings, and to construct a new House for the Church.
During this interim between the old order (with four buildings) and the move to the new House for the Church, the Alpha and other various courses, including Bible studies, continued to renew and transform our people. The Sunday homilies, strategy and visioning workshops, and special lectures also became very important in educating the congregation about the liturgical principles that our new Oratory would embody, and the ideas of hospitality that would direct our new “Emmaus Café.”
Winston Bishop writes: In September 2006 my family and I decided to
give church a chance again and take in a service at the newly opened Parish of the Resurrection. We were a family in need of something meaningful to help fill the emptiness that was within us. We received a warm welcome and after several services, an invitation was extended to us to attend Alpha which soon became the single most important event in our family’s lives. Alpha saved us as a family; it introduced us to Jesus and gave us a place to belong, praise God!
After moving into our new community home in 2006, we added to our Christian Education menu a Wednesday afternoon Spiritual Reading Group. This group meets after the Wednesday mass and lunch, and has read and discussed books including such classics as Augustine’s Confessions and The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, and popular works such as The Shack. During the fall of 2010, the Spiritual Reading Group will be reading and reflecting on Three Cups of Tea, the popular story of one man’s encounter with the Pakistani tribes high in the Himalayas, and his response to their great kindness to him.
Another strand of catechesis we’ve been developing over the last four years has been outreach to the wider community: courses on marriage, parenting, bereavement, divorce and separation courses (using resources available through Alpha Canada) and relevant support groups. We’ve moved into this area for a number of reasons: we want to be seen as a resource to our region for people who are not members of our parish; we discerned a need in this area for our region; and there is potential that when folk participate in the outreach programs that we run out of our café, they may decide to explore faith issues with us as a parish.
Finally, for those interested in learning the disciplines of meditation and contemplation, and early in our process of recreating our community, we introduced the practice of Lectio Divina, which has become an important aspect of our catechetical evangelization. This has developed into a regular corporate practice on Sunday evenings, and, when we moved into our new House for the Church, on Wednesday mornings also.
Debbie Kaba writes: When I started attending Parish of the Resurrection at thebeginning of Advent 2007, I was eager to learn meditation and contemplation and have found them very helpful in my Christian journey. It helps me quiet my mind and emotions and feel the love of God no matter what situation I’m in. Stuck in traffic? I can practice silent prayer until the frustration abates. It has also developed a deep love and connectedness to others of the parish who corporately practice this prayer. The self-discipline it takes to grow in this discipline has been beneficial, too.
Our schedule for catechetical evangelization in the fall of 2010 is full: the new seven week Alpha course; a Bereavement Course; the Spiritual Reading Group discussing Three Cups of Tea; Sunday morning and Tuesday evening Bible studies; corporate meditation on Sundays and Wednesdays; Sunday and Wednesday Mass; and a Parenting Course and a Divorce and Separation Course on request. The winter schedule will be similar, except that we will add the Marriage Course.
As we have sought to develop a mission focused parish, we have discovered that ongoing, intentional, and planned “catechetical evangelization” needs to be a regular component of congregational life. The results, by the grace of God, can be remarkable.
Can Low Commitment Churches Make Disciples?
I recently sat through a three-hour service, with well-behaved children and a one-hour sermon in the package—and that after an hour-long Sunday School class. Only the occasional sermon is devoted to tithing, and yet 80% of the congregation tithes. But one feature in particular caught my attention: in 45 minutes of non-stop singing (worship and praise time), I heard no grand hymns of the church, only typical praise songs of the sort one might hear in any “contemporary” worship service.
Yet a customary criticism leveled at churches that sing only these “mindless” praise songs is this: how can we expect to form mature Christians when all they sing are worship songs without Scripture or “doctrinal” content. Two observations come to mind. One is that this church’s choice of worship songs “lite” does not appear to dilute the devotion and commitment of its members. And I wonder how those of us in mainline and even some traditionally evangelical churches would respond if that question were put to us. While we are wearing out our time-tested hymnals, have we in fact produced mature and knowledgeable believers? In other words, maybe the song selection has little or nothing to do with the question of spiritual maturity.
I think the problem is systemic, hidden deep within our institutions. One of the first books to attempt an explanation for why mainline churches were losing numbers in the late sixties was Dean Kelley’s 1972 sociological study, Why Conservative Churches are Growing. He argued that high commitment churches—churches that give you a reason to shuffle off to church on Sunday morning—attract more people than low commitment churches which require little of its members. Yet it is precisely this issue that continues to haunt us: we silently envy the laudable benefits of high commitment religion, but are theologically or practically ambivalent about employing the strategies necessary to achieve those effects.
I need to enter three caveats here. One is that our profile of a mature disciple of Jesus will vary along the ecclesiastical spectrum, even when we use the same words. A mature conservative evangelical, fundamentalist, pentecostal or charismatic will know their way around the Bible and can memorize numerous verses, generally attend church-related spiritual programs throughout the week, give generously to the church and mission, and place a high priority on evangelism, locally and globally.
A mature disciple in a mainline church may not differ much in theory, except that they will be expected to be more theologically nuanced (translate, less literal) in interpreting Scripture, express a greater appreciation for the church’s tradition, be more culturally sophisticated in hymnody and liturgical practice, and view mission more in terms of responding to social needs and justice in society.
The second caveat is that many pastors in low commitment churches do struggle deeply with the pressure to compromise the church’s teachings. The response was palpable following the publication of Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon’s provocative book, Resident Aliens (1989). Pastors confessed they felt like ecclesiastical prostitutes, offering religious services without requiring commitment.
Third, no church is simply culturally compromising or counter-cultural. Evangelical and pentecostal/charismatic churches are high commitment in terms of their doctrines and certain moral standards. But they are low threshold in terms of worship styles. Mainline churches, on the other hand, are theologically and ethically low threshold, more “in step” with cultural shifts in ideas and mores. But they are traditional (high threshold) in their worship, preferring pipe organ, choirs and traditional hymnody.
There is undoubtedly an important link between Christian teaching/beliefs and practices. The question is where these two intersect in a congregation. The link is seldom direct and observable, but subterranean and systemic. Where will we find doctrinal and theological “input” within the congregational system in a way that produces maturity in its members?
While this may suffer from over-generalization, let me suggest four profiles that may help us understand our own church and others better.
Profile 1: Traditional Pentecostal/Charismatic
- Participation: high commitment to the spiritual programs of the church outside of Sunday worship; e.g. involvement in Sunday School by both children and adults; greater number at weekly midweek services
- Educational curriculum: high commitment to biblical content, and earlier introduction of Christian doctrine
- Worship: low commitment to theological content in hymnody (except for those churches that continue to use a hymnal); low to medium commitment in preaching (a few pastors with a “theological bent” may preach the occasional doctrinal sermon)
- Practices that support core doctrines and values: medium to low commitment to “tarrying meetings” for Spirit baptism; high commitment to camps and regional events for children and youth to guide them in making an early commitment to Christ
Profile 2: Evangelical (including some Pentecostal/Charismatic) Seeker Churches
- Participation: medium to high commitment outside Sunday worship, including Sunday School; small groups are emphasized, but theological content is a lower commitment than building community and support; midweek activity is devoted to these cell groups
- Educational curriculum: low commitment to doctrinal and theological formation; focus is on practical living
- Worship: low commitment theologically in both hymnody and preaching; “evangelistic” focus is on connecting with the practical needs of the worshipper
- Practices that support core doctrines and values: low commitment to doctrine, though higher commitment to core values of reaching the seeker and mirroring the “needs” of the culture
Profile 3: Traditional Evangelical
- Participation: high commitment to participation outside Sunday worship, including Sunday School for all ages and mid-week Bible study and/or prayer meeting; mid-week service might include a sustained study of a book of the Bible or a doctrinal theme
- Educational curriculum: high commitment to the doctrinal beliefs of the church; Sunday School curriculum will be rigorously biblical; doctrinal teaching is designed to reinforce the theological identity of the congregation
- Worship: high commitment to doctrinal content through use of the traditional hymnal (even if mixed with “praise songs”), and emphasis on exegetical, expository and doctrinal preaching
- Practices that support core doctrines and values: high commitment to practices that support the church’s doctrinal identity such as Bible study; commitment to theological consistency throughout the life of the congregation
Profile 4: Mainline
- Participation: low commitment to participation outside Sunday worship; Sunday School for children integrated with worship time, as families are often unwilling to sacrifice the extra hour outside worship; low commitment to weekly adult study opportunities; only short-term education programs are successful (e.g. Alpha); conferences and retreats are attended by the few motivated core members
- Educational curriculum: low commitment to doctrinal beliefs; Sunday school curriculum may give priority to social ministry rather than to issues of personal discipleship; the view of Scripture may reflect a more critical approach
- Worship: the doctrinal content is located primarily in the liturgical rites (e.g. the Anglican Book of Alternative Services) and traditional hymns; low commitment to doctrinal preaching, which is possible but not necessary in lectionary preaching
- Practices that support core doctrines and values: low commitment to practices that support the church’s doctrinal identity; programs for children, youth and adults are sporadic and uneven, and mostly at the initiative of the local congregation; resources from the denomination are minimal, due to lack of finances, commitment, or interest.
The dance between doctrine and practice is tricky. Separating the two can be lethal for
discipling believers, as neither dry doctrinal treatises nor pietistic platitudes will be effective. My interest here has been to take notice of our conventional criticism of one practice, “superficial” praise songs. This sliver in our brother’s eye belies the log in our own, because many of us in the mainline tradition have little cause to boast of the spiritual maturity of our own members.
I do not say this to disparage the riches in my own mainline tradition. But being a low commitment church, with its distinctive European heritage, is the hand we have been dealt. Nevertheless, we are not helpless. Lyle Schaller, patriarch of the church growth movement, once observed that those churches that are most successful in growing do two things: they are committed to proclaiming with confidence what Scripture teaches, and they are consistent in communicating those teachings at every level of the congregation’s life.
That may not be a magic wand. But is it a good place to start.
.
