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.