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Holy Week resources and reflections

Reflections on our decline

We know all too well that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been losing members for decades.

Last year we posted our biggest loss to date, nearly 70,000 members. A number of reasons are commonly advanced to explain our persistent, seemingly unending drop in membership. One popular explanation blames membership losses on “liberalism” that offends current and potential members and undercuts an evangelistic impulse. While supporters of this view can point to 25 congregations who took 34,000 members out of the PC(USA) into more conservative denominations this past year, I do not think this explanation is the real reason for our loss.

First, what counts as conservative or liberal is slippery. Should we consider a Mennonite who doesn’t believe that women should wear makeup or cut their hair and who opposes American military spending conservative or liberal? Also, even if we use theological fundamentalism and political party as measures, this line of reasoning fails to explain the growth of Unitarian Universalists, who are far more liberal or the decline of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod who are more conservative. Finally, telling people what they want to hear leads to false prophecy.

Others attribute our membership losses to negative demographic trends. They talk about immigration. They note that Presbyterians have fewer children than members in some other denominations and that many church buildings are located in neighborhoods where members no longer live. Unfortunately this explanation does not tell us why we don’t do a very good job passing the faith to the youth we do have. Neither does it account for why we haven’t done a better job reaching out to changing neighborhoods and building new churches in growing suburban areas.

Still others attribute the church’s decline to cultural changes that put the church at a disadvantage. Some say that the pluralism and secularism of American society have undercut the plausibility structures of Christian faith. A number of studies show that when Blue Laws are repealed in a community, a decline in church attendance soon follows. Also, colleges and universities that were founded to advance Christian learning and produce an educated laity have lost their sense of religious vocation. (This is a complicated and in many ways troubling story, especially for what it may portend for an intellectually serious Christian faith.)

Our changing culture does present challenges, but why haven’t we risen to meet them?  After all, the early church started as a minority religion in a much, much more hostile culture without benefit of Blue Laws or colleges. The nascent Reformed Church grew amidst adversity and hostility.

Why not us?

Rather than liberalism, demographics, or cultural changes, the real reason for PC(USA) decline is far more serious: We are declining because we have lost spiritual vigor. This past year, beyond the 34,000 who died and the 34,000 members of congregations dismissed to more conservative denominations, we removed 104,428 people from congregational rolls, slightly more than the nearly 104,000 who joined. Most of these did not join another church. They became inactive.  They left because they didn’t find the reasons to stay compelling.

It is common to hear pastors across the country complain about competition for Sunday morning. But it is not the temptation of Sunday morning sports that leads parents to choose soccer over church for their children. Rather, it is the quality of the parents’ spiritual lives. The sad fact is that many parents do not value their own Christian experience enough to demand it for their children.

Spiritual vitality is the mainspring of Christian faith. It moves people to want to know and worship the living God. Spirituality is the joy that produces and is increased by generosity of time, talent, and wealth put in God’s service.

When we glimpse something (always partially and imperfectly) of the excellence of God, it enlivens our spiritual vitality.  As we grasp the glory of God in creation and in the redeeming love of Christ we discover, paradoxically, that it grasps us. As the divine glory takes us captive, we find ourselves drawn out of ourselves to love God with all of our hearts, minds, and strength. In this transformation we are given new energy and passion to love our neighbor as ourselves. We begin to see all life in the shimmering light of God’s glory and find direction for our lives. We are drawn to others who share a sense of God’s glory and seek to advance the cause of Christ, which is the kingdom of God. No longer motivated chiefly by guilt or dreary duty, we find deep pleasure in living out our true purpose as God’s creatures.

Loss in spiritual vitality corrodes almost every area of our church’s life. It is the reason so many churches and church-related institutions struggle financially. It undercuts the sense that we are united in a common spiritual purpose, thus breeding both conservative paranoia and liberal impatience with the church. It is a source of clergy burnout and ennui. It is the reason our denomination has cut mission workers and diminished our public social witness. It is why we aren’t doing a better job passing the faith on to our children, why we aren’t reaching out to changing neighborhoods and planting churches in new neighborhoods, and why we aren’t adapting better to an evolving culture. We have lost the sense that something crucial is at stake — we have not experienced first hand God’s majesty.

Revitalizing the church depends on renewing this experiential aspect of faith. It lies in recovering that knowledge of God that Calvin called “piety.” As we discover the glorious attributes and benefits of God we become infused with an abiding sense of awe, dependence, gratitude, remorse, forgiveness, new possibility, and love of God. Such knowledge goes beyond saying, “There is a God.” It says, “You are my God!”

Only the Holy Spirit can make people sensible to God’s fierce goodness and tender mercy.  We should never attempt to manipulate others into thinking that their chief purpose as human beings is to glorify and enjoy God forever.  True conversion happens only as God gives people a taste of divine glory. The renewal of the church truly depends entirely on, and must be grounded in, the work of the Holy Spirit in the experience of believers.  

Saying that we depend wholly on the work of the Holy Spirit does not mean that there is nothing we can do. In fact, as the Spirit moves us, we need to work on four areas.

First, we should testify to the glory of God. This means becoming familiar with the witness of Scripture so that we are able to articulate the glory of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ in ways that are sensitive and illuminating. Being a witness means looking for the work of the Spirit in our lives and in the church and then celebrating what we have seen. My experience suggests that people who have a transforming relationship with God through Christ share their experiences with others. They share freely and naturally out of a desire that others experience the same love, purpose, direction, and confidence. The renewal of the church will begin as we witness and testify to the excellence of God.

Second, we need to take church membership much, much more seriously. I know an elder who says he accidentally joined his church. While greeting the pastor at the door following his first visit to worship, he mentioned that he was “interested in joining.” He meant that he wanted to learn more about the church. The pastor, however, took him to say that he was ready to join. Grabbing him by the arm, the pastor said, “Come with me.” The next thing he knew he was sitting in the back of the sanctuary with a couple of elders and became a member. I tell this story because the fact that this man went on to become an elder is the exception rather than the rule. Sad to say, but many of our congregations take membership this casually and give new members the impression that church membership is not very important.

A well-executed new member class provides an extraordinary opportunity for the pastor to teach the faith, to share the gospel, to clarify expectations about church membership, to talk about the congregation’s values, to cast a vision for the church, and to give initial guidance in Christian faith and practice. In this connection, I observe that the PC(USA) could use more high quality new member class materials that pastors and sessions can adapt to their congregations.

Third, we must learn again how to do adult discipleship. I know a woman who was raised a Hindu and today is a practicing Hindu. At one point she joined a Presbyterian church and attended a new member class. It covered Presbyterian polity, worship, building committees, stewardship and the good works her giving would support. To hear her tell it, the new member class focused entirely on the institutional needs of the church. This church, perhaps like many Presbyterian churches, expected everyone who joined to already be a mature Christian. We can no longer assume this!

Learning how to do adult discipleship is the single greatest challenge facing the PC(USA) at this time. We need to help people fall in love with and maintain a devotional life focused on God, neighbor and God’s realm. We need to guide members into a graceful life of service to Christ’s kingdom. In this task we need Presbytery accountability and denominational resources that encourage and equip every congregation to institute a process of adult spiritual development.

Finally, for any of this to happen we leaders must take greater care of our spiritual lives.  During the First Great Awakening Gilbert Tennant was intemperate in the way he accused his colleagues of being unconverted, but there is truth in his claim that pastors and elders cannot guide people to a place they have never been themselves. How can we lead people to trust God, if we do not trust God? How can we help people to live their lives for God’s glory, if we do not seek this as our greatest pleasure? How can we lead our congregations in the transformation that needs to take place, if we are not ourselves transformed?

I suspect that every pastor and elder went into ministry because he or she experienced something of the luminous Triune God. Pastors and elders need to develop and maintain the spiritual disciplines that will keep this lively impression upon us. We need to seek the face of God and ask for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit because this is the source joy, courage, and hope for the church.

 

Raymond R. Roberts is pastor of The Presbyterian Church in Westfield, Westfield, N.J.

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