The Truth About Change

In the United Church of Canada, we have something called a Needs Assessment. It is a document that is created every time a church wants to hire a new minister. 

There is a formulaic way that a Needs Assessment is created and it ends up highlighting the community at large, as well as the congregation. It spells out the benefits that will be paid upon the successful hiring of a candidate and all that jazz - but at its heart, the document is exactly what it says it is. This is what we need. 

At the risk of sounding bitter - I can tell you what your church will say in its assessment before I even read it. 

I have read scores of them and helped to create a handful more. They all differ in terms of what they describe their community as, and to be fair and upfront one in a hundred will be different from what I am about to say - but in a nutshell, despite the idea that each church is creating a unique document, they are all the same...

Here is what they need:

- an engaging, biblically focussed preacher who can connect to all ages

- a minister who loves to visit and will always be there in times of crisis.

- a minister who will perform weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

- a minister who works well with others.

- a minister who loves children and youth.

- a minister who will do administration tasks.

- a minister who will be visible in the community and represent the church well.

In other words - someone who does what has always been done and does it better than the last gal.

If you read the whole package, the surveys, the write-ups, and everything between the lines - here is what I imagine every church means by this.

 - You have to be interesting enough that people will flock to hear your sermons.

 - You need to seek out every single person who ever attended this church and have tea with them and hope that makes them feel better and perhaps even come back on Sunday.

- You need to be willing to baptize our grandchildren from away while at the same time doing such a good funeral that we all feel taken care of.

- You need to not rock the boat. There are people in this congregation who have been doing things here longer than you and you have to honour their wisdom and play along.

- Bring back our kids. Pure and simple. Our church needs more people paying the bills and somehow that will be accomplished if young families come and bring their children.

- We need you to manage all the forms, census, housekeeping etc. in such a way that we do not have to worry about it, but simply vote on it. 

- Bring more people to church by going out there and being so popular and present that everyone who sees you anywhere wants to come to church on Sunday. 

And the unwritten expectation is this - you need to keep our church open, by getting more people, who will give more money, simply to enjoy the show on Sunday morning. 

You have to realize that this blog is where I air my own grievances and frustrations - so I apologize if that sounds bitter. But I think we need to start owning the real problems of the church. And this is a real one.

Every congregation seems to harbour this secret fantasy that they will magically return to the 1950's and 60's when their church was the "boys club" of professionals and the "wive's club" of the community and everyone went and everyone had coffee together, and maybe there was a church picnic, and there were bowling leagues and couple's clubs and everyone loved being there but no one really had to do anything.

The world has changed. Society has changed. Faith has changed. Technology has changed. Hell, everything has changed and the church is the one single organization that spends the entirety of its effort trying to go backward. 

We are not living in the past - we are actively trying to recreate it. To return to it. To glorify it. 

You know what - just because everyone came did not make it better. People were not more faithful. People did not follow Jesus and more closely. It was a sham. 

If we were serious about this whole faith being the important thing we would be spending all of our passion, energy, and enthusiasm in figuring out what we should BECOME and how different that needs to be from what we WERE.

From Martin to Martin

"If Church history teaches us anything, it is that we cannot afford to be a vacillating Church. We minister to a people who are in great need of hearing the truth, we dare not make any attempt to soft-pedal that glorious truth." - Martin Luther

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

Ahhh... But What is Truth

So often I hear it joked that one should never talk about religion, politics, sex, and money. I am sure you have heard this said before as well. We make the joke but in reality, we are trying to convey this social contract that we somehow believe will make the world a happier place. 

Let's not talk about the things that we might disagree about. 

The other side of this is that somehow we have gotten ourselves to a sort of social popularism where what matters most is our own opinion. (Yes, I do see the irony as an opinion writer that I am putting my opinions out there as truth and thus... well... nevermind)

My point is that "but I feel like it" often trumps the "but this is the way it really is" way of seeing the world. 

And I think "the church" has become more and more afraid of its prophetic role as time has gone on and we have started fighting for our survival. Martin Luther was not only right, but he was also prophetic in saying that we were becoming an irrelevant social club.

I am not meaning to misrepresent either of these fine gentlemen, and I am not even sure what I am meaning when I say "the church" I do know there is a great variety of denominations and callings, as well as a great variety of faiths and understandings. 

But overall - I think religion in North America (my only context) bought into the idea that we should not talk about some things and so we should try to be what people want us to be. we decided, to misquote the older Trudeau, "in the bedrooms of the nation" 

But the thing is that if the church stood up and said proudly what we know to be true - we would be relevant. 

AND NO - I DO NOT MEAN THE THINGS THAT MAKE NEWS ALL THE TIME - GOD DOES NOT HATE FAGS AND TRUMP IS NOT ANOINTED.

I mean if we could honestly say to rulers - rule justly or get the hell out. If we could honestly say to people possessions don't matter and stop chasing after the wrong things. If we could echo the Bible in saying race, religion, sexuality, class don't matter - we are all the same. And if we had the courage of our convictions - do you not think we might be relevant on the current world's stage?

But no, we get bogged down on virgin births and the ten commandments and other petty articles of faith that Jesus told us right out do not matter at all. 

The thing is, and I believe this completely with every bit of my essence - we in the church are not Christians. 

I wonder if that has anything to do with declining numbers? 

The Simple Thing Martin Luther Got Wrong

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.

I have also been talking a lot with friends, asking a lot of questions on social media, and generally making a nuisance of myself.

Part of that comes from my need to reinvent the wheel which is the church. 

I have been focussing on worship and the fact that it is not doing what I would hope it would - connect people to something greater. 

Out of that, there was an A-ha moment that has really brought on that good old cognitive dissonance where once hearing this everything has to change. 

I have to give credit where credit is due - so without outing anyone, this is not my idea, it was told to me by a friend in a discussion about church over some wonderful craft beer - and he told me it was a friend of his who had originally shared the idea.

Okay, enough beating around the bush. Martin Luther changed the church by saying the focus should be on the word of God - as written, as proclaimed, etc. Before that the focus was on the Eucharist - the literal presence of God in the elements of worship.

So we moved the altar back and the pulpit forward and the centre of worship became the readings and the sermon.

At first, it was novel and connected and we felt God's presence in a new way. But what really happened was that we had shifted away from the presence of God and towards the explanation of God. Church membership became about assenting to certain explanations and ideas. We had to accept Jesus as x and y in order for God to be present. 

But... no... You see, what the church had right before the Reformation was a sense of mystery and awe that required nothing from us. God is present on the altar whether we are there or not. We don't have to believe anything in particular for God to be with us - God is with us and we accept it or not. 

Worship, in the beginning, was simply a way to encounter the mystery and awe that is "God"

Even if you are like me and see God as more akin to the force in Star Wars then to an old man in the sky this still makes total sense. 

No matter how many times Obi-Wan told Luke about how the force worked - it meant nothing until Luke felt the force within himself. Until he had an encounter with something that was bigger than himself. 

We know this to be true about other things. If I explain to you how beautiful a waterfall is  - even if I paint a picture of it and show you - that does not evoke nearly the same feelings that actually seeing the waterfall would evoke in you.

I know everything about the Grand Canyon and have seen countless pictures - but I have exactly zero feelings about the Grand Canyon. Whereas the Rocky Mountains of Alaska and the Yukon which I have seen up close and personal still conjure a sense of majesty and awe in me though I have not been there in two years. 

So protestant worship - whether traditional, contemporary, artistic or seeker focused is still at a disadvantage simply because we are looking in the wrong direction. We are focused on the word of God which means we are one step removed from the holiness and mystery and awe which is to be found in actual contact with that divine spirit. 

Until we change this focus - we will not be getting at the heart of why traditional religion is failing. 

Now - how to do that?