And some numbers....

While there's a good deal of analysis to be done with all of this, here are some numbers from a fellow TEC clergy person: "A Time to be Pruned."

The problems in TEC (and most likely in your Church, too)

The Crusty Old Dean (the Very Rev. Dr. Tom Ferguson, Dean of Bexley Hall, Columbus, OH or COD) says it better than I can.  


We are the less than 1%
-In this post, Dean Ferguson explains briefly why TEC is shedding members and sketches his "Marshall Plan for rebuilding the church".


Guns, Germs, and The Episcopal Church: Manifesto for Radical Change
-In this post, Dean Ferguson describes what may be the most fundamental problem for TEC.  Based on the work of Jared Diamond, Ferguson points out that:

So one problem is taking the blips, the anomalies, to be normative.  COD is convinced that the Episcopal Church has, in a way, done something similar.  We have taken the period from 1950-1990 (give or take a few years) as somehow a normative and determinative time period -- what it means to be the Episcopal Church is what occurred during this period -- when, in fact, it was a blip, an anomaly.  

But it may be too late.  And even worse, we realize that all teh folks and all the structures who need to get it together are a part of "blip-think":

COD finds himself thinking that restructuring is so 2011.  The past few months have convinced him that one the one hand the scope of change we are looking at in the next 50 years is so profound, and, on the other hand, how utterly incapable governing structures currently are at shaping a discussion about what is needed....
Collapse, my friends.  That's what's coming. 

The worst part, and the part that makes those of us at God and a Beer take long looks in the mirror, the COD suggests that TEC:

End parishes as clubs for members with a chaplain to minister to them, set up as Ponzi schemes for committees, which sees recruitment as getting people to serve on committees.  Would many of the towns where our Episcopal churches are located even notice, or care, if they were to close?  How many of our parishes function solely as clubs for the gathered?  How many dioceses have 10%, 15%, 20%, of their parishes on diocesan support?  How many dioceses are struggling to function?  We have to change not only the diocesan structure, but fundamentally reshape what it means to be a parish and a diocese.

[Sigh]


How do we really become a missional church?


This is why it's "God and a Beer".  After reading this stuff, we need both God and a beer.

"Bring your own beverage, just make sure it's cold."

"Stick it in the fridge, stick in the fridge stick it in the fridge."

Many of us are realizing....

Here at "God and a beer", we are nothing if not lazy.  But we are planning on doing some work here.  I promise.


I am going to spend the afternoon finishing the Teaching of the 12 by Tony Jones.  I have a few things to say about this interesting book, which is the complete text of the ancient Christian text known as the Didache ("the Teaching") with commentary.  After that, and remember dear reader that this is purely an exercise for my own edification, I am going to work through a lengthy critical review of Lesslie Newbigin's Foolishness to the Greeks.  I think Newbigin's book may provide the frame for most of this blog.  Well, that and beer.


But before I get to that, I want to share a handful of posts that have come to my attention.  Each of these posts relate to the struggles of the Episcopal Church ("TEC"), but much of it applies to all mainline Christian churches.  If you want my honest opinion (and, if you don't, you can look at research by the Barna Group, by Diana Butler-Bass, or lots of other places), I think this is true for most of the current institutional incarnations of the Church in the "West" today.  I have heard this statistic a number of times and from various places, but even the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States (about 1% per year) is misleading.  The huge number of immigrants to the United States (coming mostly from Spanish-speaking, Roman Catholic countries) is offsetting and thus hiding the large number of people fleeing their parishes.  Whatever the reasons, and they are legion (pun-intended), denominations and local congregations are struggling.  And that at the tunnel is a train.


The first of these posts is "Where have all the rectors gone" from "Episcopal Journey of Hope" (a blog that I happy to have found).  The author describes a recent meeting of clergy from three dioceses.  Many of these clergy are bi-vocational and serving at very small congregations.

...collectively the three contiguous dioceses represented in our group report information on 124 congregations with 80 (65%) being too small both in membership and dollars to have a rector; they are usually termed “family size” and have average Sunday attendance (ASA) under 50.  Eleven of these congregations have an average Sunday attendance of fewer than 10 persons and twenty-five more congregations have ASA at 20 or less.  God love the people in these tiny congregations for their loyalty and their devotion.  But no rectors here anymore!

Two points of clarification:  A rector is the senior priest/pastor of a church that is financially self-sustaining.  While in many denominations, an average Sunday attendance of 100 would be considered a small church, in the Episcopal Church at least, a parish with an ASA of greater than 100 is usually considered a large church.  My own congregation (with an official ASA of 105 in 2011) is the largest Episcopal Church in the deanery stretching from Warren to Steubenville in Ohio (about 80 miles).  


Again in my deanery, 4 of the 9 churches are self-sustaining and have rectors (well, one is technically a priest-in-charge).  But of the four, only 2 of the churches have full-time rectors.

There are two issues here--and I am intentionally mixing them up.

1. Many parishes are no longer able to fund their ministries without outside (read "Diocesan") support.
2. Many parishes are no longer able to support full-time clergy.  

This raises a whole host of questions.  Are these ministries viable--does the Diocesan support help, hinder, make any discernible difference?  The post goes on to say:

92% of the congregations in these three dioceses are not able to call a rector or can only obtain the services of a rector on a minimum or reduced cost basis. We have always hoped that with the right leadership (priest and bishop) and hard work by the membership, these congregations could grow.  So what has happened under a half a dozen dedicated bishops and scores of committed clergy?  Not one of these congregations has moved up a category in the past 10 years; several have moved down.  At best our strategies are a holding action and not a posture for meaningful growth. 

Simply put, a holding action is no good.  As the number of members in churches decline and as they become older and/or their lives become busier, there is more and more pressure put on church staffs.  But as the members go, so goes the money to pay for the staff.  And, since we live in a consumerist culture, as the programs go, so go the members (especially the coveted "young families").  It's a vicious cycle.  In my own congregation, we are closing in on a time when endowment funds will make up more of our revenue than pledges or "other income."  This is not sustainable.

So as churches become less and less able to remain self-sufficient and/or maintain full-time clergy (not to mention other staff), what chance do they have?  This is not a question of God's work in the world.  The Church is not just the collection of local congregations working in tandem or (worse yet) their national and international structures.  The Church--that mysterious collection of the saints past, present, and future--will continue living out its mission.  But those local congregations and their national and international structures are in trouble.  Serious trouble.

And many of us are realizing that--despite our paychecks and pensions--this trouble may just be the opportunity the Church guided by the Holy Spirit has been waiting for.  Because none of this even begins dealing with the larger questions of the Gospel in our culture.  Ultimately, numbers and dollars are irrelevant to the Gospel.  What about all the folks who see the Gospel as irrelevant to their lives?  What about them?

Next up: wisdom from the Crusty Old Dean.

This is precisely the kind of thing...

I want to talk about on my blog.  Just not tonight.  I have a sermon to write.

Scott McKnight's recent post, "Beyond Atonement Theories".

Not really this blog's first post

Greetings and salutations,

Okay, so I am going to start blogging.  This is more for myself than for anyone else.  I want to get back to writing, and this seems like a good way to get started.

As it is, I am passionate about a number of things.  I am passionately in love with my wife, Katie, and our three beautiful children, Isaiah, Miriam, and Judah.  The kids are rock stars.

I am also passionate about this guy named Jesus and about the myriad ways this Galilean peasant from 2000 years ago has brought me closer and closer to wholeness.  As I get the hang of this, I envision this blog will be a place for me to work out my own Christian apologetic--an apologetic particularly conceived in and for my current city, Youngstown, Ohio.  As I go along, I will try to make sense--again, mostly for myself--of the way the God known to us in Jesus Christ brings salvation to you and to me and to the whole world.  Perhaps more often than not, I will explore the way that God's salvation is made manifest here in Youngstown.  So this blog will include conversations about all sorts of things related to my Christian faith as I live it here in the Yo!  That may include, but will not be limited to, theology, church, history, politics, book reviews, and other such things.

Ultimately, I just want to be one of the guys.

Truth be told, I am also passionate about beer.  And from time to time, I may talk about beer to the exclusion of other things.  I can just imagine which beer I will chose when President Obama invites me to a theology pub in the White House Rose Garden with Silvio Berlusconi and other notables.  If it were today, I'd most likely choose Breckenridge Brewery's SummerBright Ale.  It is like summer in a bottle.  But I digress.

So hold on, sisters and brothers.  It's likely to be a bumpy ride.  And of course, wherever we're going, I highly doubt we'll get there.

God's blessings,
Bradley+