Fixing A Broken Church

This morning, the pastor said he read that 20-30% of church-goers who stopped attending church because of the pandemic will not be going back.

Wow. That’s a big chunk of people.

And that’s not related to the decline in religious activity that was already happening across the country. You heard that recent statistic, right? For the first time in American history, the number of people claiming membership in a church, synagogue, or mosque has dropped below 50%.

I’ve heard a lot of people raising the battle cry about this. The pandemic is changing everything anyway: now is the time for the church to step up and reform itself! To become more relevant to the world! To enter the twenty-first century! To get all Woke and stuff!

Yes . . . but, no. I mean, there is definitely brokenness in The Church. Change needs to happen, but not change like I think they are implying.

I’m afraid this new push to reform will simply mean we try to get more “hip”. (Or whatever the current term is now -- the fact that I’m still saying “hip” probably shows how un-hip I am.) We need to look at the young people today and see what they like and make the church like that. What would that be? More informal – casual clothes, eat while we meet, lots of conversation, little structure. More technology – use all the social media platforms, lots of video stuff, many sound bites on memes, maybe even just continue everything online. More flexibility – do things your own way, low commitment, fuzzy theology, live your own truth, whatever’s good for you, man . . .

Somehow, I don’t think this is a good direction. Is that just because I’m not a millennial? I don’t know. But I vividly remember a Jersey friend’s warning that the church should not try to attract unbelievers by offering them white-washed versions of their own idols. A valid admonition.

After we have "reformed" ourselves, the church still needs to be The Church. Whatever that is.

I wrote in my last blog about the School Improvement Team I was on at Hutchinson High School. How we were told to forget everything we thought we knew about “School” and imagine the whole thing from scratch. What is a high school for? What are we here to accomplish? And then what’s the best way to get there?

I’m thinking this may be a good time for a Church Improvement Team.

What are the essentials here, people? Is meeting on Sunday morning an essential? Is meeting together at all essential? What about music? I mean, any music – choir or worship team or Gregorian chants or whatever . . . is music essential to the Church? How about public Bible reading? Bible teaching? Preaching? Communion? Congregational prayer? Confession? Liturgical calendars? Reciting the Lord’s Prayer? Offerings? Mission trips? Fellowship dinners? Sanctuaries? Deacons? Pastors? 

Even if we genuinely try to get out of our individual comfort zones and be objective, this question isn’t easy. There are a lot of things that feel essential to us just because we can’t imagine The Church without it. That doesn’t mean The Church can’t survive without it – truth is, it might actually thrive without it. Or grow dramatically. What if that thing we’re hanging on to desperately because it has a soft place in our heart is actually holding us back from being the Body of Christ on earth?

I have a sinking feeling that, were God to hand us a list of Church Essentials, most of us would not recognize our own congregations there.

I think this is a conversation we need to have. Actually, it’s probably the conversation we should have been having all along. But if the pandemic is what gets us moving on this, then maybe it’s done its work.

There's a place for comments below. We can start there.