The Push to Change
I remember the precise moment when it happened. It was early 1990. I was ending my second year in my second call since graduating from seminary, when I read these words:
"Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began. We do not mean to be overly dramatic. Although there are many who have not yet heard the news, it is nevertheless true: A tired, old world has ended, an exciting new one is awaiting recognition. This book is about a renewed sense of what it mean to be Christian, more precisely, of what it means to be pastors who care for Christians, in a distinctly changed world."
The book was entitled, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, and it was written by two folks teaching at the Duke Divinity School--two Methodists--William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas. It was the statement on the book's cover that had called out to me at the bookstore: "A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong." And I guess, after nearly six years of working in the Church, I was one of those people who knew that something was wrong--who deeply believed that something was broken in the way we were trying to do Church--the way I had been raised to do it--the way I had spent three years in seminary learning to do it. To be honest, it was a sad moment in many ways--to acknowledge that the Church I loved so much that I had dedicated my life to her service was so seriously ill. But as I read the book, I was also filled with hope that uncovering a renewed sense of what it meant to be a Christian community in this changed world could be an adventure.
As the years have gone by, I have become even more deeply convinced that the way that we have done Church traditionally is broken. There's been a lot more published since 1990, and I've read some of it. But more than anything, it has been life these past 20 years, serving Christ through the Church, that has deepened the conviction that the Church is in serious need of a change more profound than anything we've seen since the Great Reformation of the 16th Century.
As far as I'm concerned, the signs are everywhere around us--in the statistics nationally as well as in our life together here at Silver Spring. Back in 1994, Loren Mead, an Episcopalian and the director of the Alban Institute, in his book Transforming Congregations for the Future (a sequel to his book, The Once and Future Church) wrote about an approaching "brick wall thrity years down the pike" for the Church financially due to a "donor base [that] is aging and is not expanding in numbers, diversity, or age." He advised that, in the short term, congregations would be wise to build their endowments, but the time to do so was short, probably ending around 2010.
That's why I have supported efforts these past five years I have been your pastor to build endowment, first arguing philosophically that endowments were not somehow evidence of a lack of faith, and then supporting redirected efforts of the Legacy Giving folks towards building a true endowment fund for Silver Spring. That's why I will continue to support those efforts, even though, to be honest, I don't know how much longer we can expect much in return.
But we are seeing right now, here at Silver Spring, the future predicted by Mead over 15 years ago: "In the foreseeable future, demand for financial resources is likely to continue to outstrip 'supply.' Indeed, I believe that financial resources will continue to diminish.... Church leadership will increasingly be concerned with staff and program cuts. Inevitable cutbacks will always engender conflict between those who priorities differ." Sound familiar?
Of course, the signs of needed change are not just financial. Churches are increasingly empty. Back in 1989, the average Sunday morning worship attendance here at Silver Spring was 380. In 2009, it was just over 280, a decline of almost 30%. While there is no statistical report on Sunday School and youth group attendance, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be at least equally as troubling. And that's probably not even the worst of it. My guess is that if we looked at the average age of those attending, it has gone up, meaning that, unless we find a way to relate more effectively with younger folks, we should plan for continued decline.
But even that's not the worst of it. If this was just a problem at Silver Spring, some simple tinkering might be the answer. But the truth is that Silver Spring is not alone in facing this problem. Nationally, the statistics point out that the same reality is at play. Indeed, in one report I read recently, it was estimated that only about 40% of Americans attend religious services regularly, and as you look at the statistics for younger folks, that percentage drops even more precipitously. And, to be clear, it is happening among all denominations and all theological persuasions of Christians. The Christian Church in the United States is on the verge of losing a generation! (And I saw how ugly that looked when I spent the summer of 1999 on a pulpit exchange in the Church of Scotland--a church that effectively "lost" my generation).
All of which leads me to the sad but inevitable conviction that the Church, as it is (which is largely how it has been for a very long time) is increasingly irrelevant in the lives of most Americans. And that is what pushes the changes that we are trying to make here at Silver Spring.
Of course, change is not just pushed along by signs of decline and decay. Change is also pulled along--pulled by the vision of a brighter future. And in my next blog, I want to share some of the outlines of that brighter future that I believe are now appearing on the horizon, in the larger Church as well as here at Silver Spring. But I want you to know that I, personally, continue to have what Willimon and Hauerwas wrote about 20 years ago--"a renewed sense of what it means to be Christian." And as we together live through this time of change and transition, I pray that you, too, will find that renewal, that hope, that spirit of adventure.
