"Behold, I Am Making All Things New" ~ Restructuring the Church For the Future

Following last week’s post about restructuring the Episcopal Church (read here ), I am going to take my bullet points and expand on them over the course of the next few months for there will be no chance that someone like me will be selected to serve on that 24 member National Church committee. So, I might as well offer my opinions and see if any of them get picked up over the internet and beyond. Who knows, maybe, and hopefully, these posts will make a difference one way or another.

The first bullet from my initial post read: “Get this idea in our heads: The Church is no longer the center of society and that changes everything! (Seems simple but too many of our Church folk have not yet embraced this concept.)”

I was reading some blogs recently and came across a quote attributed to the social scientists: “The only thing that we can be certain will not change is change.” We are living in a time where the change that we are experiencing represents a “crack in time” (Bill Easum) in which many long held truths are disappearing, never to be seen again. What was once a fairly simple, bland, “play by the rules” world has changed dramatically into a wild and crazy ride. The best metaphor I have heard about such a time is “living in a wormhole” (Bill Easum).

An example of
A Wormhole

From my notes taken at an Easum/Bandy Conference in Chagrin Falls in 2006, there are two theories that exist discussing the nature of wormholes. “One theory is that a wormhole is a portal in space that offers rapid travel from one universe to another. Scientist think that whatever enters, exits the other side totally different. The other theory is that a wormhole is a hole in space into which whatever enters ceases to exist. We are spiraling away from a world view that has existed for 500 years to one that is not yet born.”

In order to make the necessary changes needed in our Church, we all must be of common mind and agreement moving from vagueness to clarity, from denial to reality, in identifying the issues. This begins when we honestly understand what the community of faith is facing in our culture. I believe that this factor alone will take some time to be accepted fully. It is time which we do not have, mind you; but a very necessary foundational step of the process. With the assistance of the modern technology, we are blessed to be able to have at our fingertips resources that have already done some of the work for us assisting our Church to address these initial concerns which, if used correctly, could speed us on our way through the “wormhole” towards solutions.

A first example, Diana Butler Bass in a recent post on Facebook suggested that every member of the Christian church read the following article from the Religion News Service (see here). To paraphrase, the author, Cathy Lynn Grossman, wrote that 1 in 5 Americans now admit that they have no religious affiliation at all (19% of those studied) which represents the highest level ever documented. Grossman interviewed Barry Kosmin, one of the authors of the study who said: “Young people are resistant to the authority of institutional religion, older people are turned off by the politicization of religion, and people are simply less into theology than ever before.” This is our reality – a younger generation rejecting authority, and older generation tired of the politics from the pulpit and in the pew, and most importantly, an overall reluctance to embrace theology.

If these facts are true, and I believe from my own experience that they are, then the following statements will become the norm:

• Churches can no longer count on newcomers to a community seeking out a faith community to join because that is what is expected from the culture.
• Churches will no longer receive special treatment: days on the local community calendar or special status in the community.
• Churches are viewed more and more as bastions of prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and racism in an increasingly pluralistic society.

The 'sacred' used to be near or, in fact, was the center of our lives. No more. Secularism has triumphed! This may, in fact, be a blessing and not a curse for the Christian faith and our Church. I mean, in reality, we have always lived in a secular world where men and women place themselves in front of God. I am not saying that it is right; but, it is nothing new. What is exciting, if that is the right word, is that Christianity may have found itself at the beginning of the 21^st century right back where it started from – a minority movement in the midst of a hostile culture where what the faith community believes and does is challenged or even rejected by the majority.

A second example: The Church of Wales has just issued a report citing 50 recommendations for ‘radical change’ in its structure and governing practices. I have not finished reading the forty-five page study as of this writing. However, I am encouraged that other churches in our Anglican Communion are already in a process that we might learn from. While initial reaction to the report has been mixed, it is a start. You can read the whole report by clicking here.

Some questions that come to mind as we move forward together in our reflections (Leadership on the Otherside):

• What is the difference in being missional church and an institutional church?       

• What is the difference in being a representative of the denomination and being a representative of the Kingdom?

• What will be the role of church planting in a missional church?

• What does it mean to live in a world where one’s spirituality is more important than credentials?       

• If authority is based on relationships rather than credentials or office, will there be a need for national denominational leaders, and if so, what will be their role?

• How will we communicate the message and engage truth?        

• How do we transition from handing out data that informs people to offering an experience that transforms people?       

• How will we help people grow spiritually instead of just teaching them more about the Bible?

• Will denominations survive or be relevant in an anti-institutional world? And if so, how and what will they look like?

• How will we “be” the church instead of “go” to church?

• The ultimate question as we move through the wormhole - What is non- negotiable and what is eternally significant to God’s mission?

So why are so many of members of the Episcopal Church refusing to admit we can no longer sit around and wait for people to come to us? Bill Easum believes the answer is simple. Quoting the words of Upton Sinclair – “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

More on these matters next Monday. I hope you will return to the John 13:34 Blog throughout the week for other daily reflections on prayer, the Church, and the journey of life.

Love One Another - Brian