Running Hawk of the Lakota Nation once said that religion is for
people who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for people who have
already been there. Are our churches filled with the first or latter
and how does that affect the growth of the church?
People are
leaving the institutional church in droves. Many of the peripatetic
people are not taking the time to technically leave, they are just not
going anymore. Despite that, there are a few churches in my area who
are boasting that their congregations are bursting at the seams but they
are just cherry picking their data. One church dropped from five
Masses each weekend down to two. The priest at that church reports that
his two Masses are packed every Sunday; consolidating five Masses into
two is not growth. Another pastor was interviewed by a local paper
where he said that his church has seen significant growth and every Mass
is packed. He failed to mention that the bishop of his diocese closed
three other churches in his community and his church simply picked up
the people who lost their buildings. New people where not suddenly
going to church, regular attendees just got displaced and had to find a
new home.
I have heard all the excuses why people are leaving
the church such as society is lost, or they are sexually deviant, they
don't beleive in God, they think the church is full of hypocrites, the
church worships money, that gays and atheists and politicians and
Hollywood have destroyed morality and our society of lemmings is blindly
following. All that may be true to a certain extent but those people
are still not the problem, the church is. Ultimately the church is
terrible at choosing which battles to fight and how to reach out to
those who see the church as irrelevant.
A church was hiring a
new music director and the best candidate who had promising ideas and
talent turned out to have a felony record. Instead of hiring him they
hired the next guy in line who lacked vision, worshiped music and
consequently destroyed their existing music program. That church chose
to die rather than forgive. They failed to walk the walk and realize
that Jesus, a convicted felon himself, while on the cross didn't take an
honest man to paradise with him but another convicted felon. That
church lost members who were not only frustrated by the diminished music
program but some people left because an unforgiving church was not a
church they wanted to be part of or thought they belonged to.
Ultimately, churches would do well to replace their staff with people
who only have the goals of serving God.
Each day our communities
are beleaguered with violence, hunger, homelessness, drug abuse, racism
and judgmentalism. Meanwhile our churches are battling with issues such
as, do we take out the kneelers or leave them in? Should we have
background checks to protect our children? Should we put in pew
cushions and carpet? Do we buy a pipe organ or electric organ? Should
our music be more upbeat and contemporary? Should we purchase a pool
table for our youth group room?
Now to be fair, there are
churches who address the big issues of violence, hunger, homelessness,
drug abuse, racism and judgmentalism very well. Most people would very
much like to be part of those solutions but when the church bickers
about something other, it can be a turn off. The decision to put in a
carpet may not be the reason someone leaves a church but it could be the
proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. Usually there have been
a series of disillusionment or a longing for something more. The
church should work on ministry and leave the building issues to the
professionals they hire.
I once had a choir member who didn't
like the fact that our church, the church she was raised in, was a
liturgical church. She longed for a more charismatic approach to
worship. She said that the church used an archaic and dusty language
which didn't resonate with her. It didn't give her comfort and she said
that the message she heard each Sunday wasn't worth hearing. When she
came to me expressing this ache in her heart and that she was interested
in the local Assembly of God congregation, I didn't try to talk her out
of it. She was no good to us if she was unhappy and guilt ridden. I
told her to try them out for a few months and if that style of worship
made her feel closer to God and the community, then she had my blessing
but, our door was always open for her if she ever wanted to come back.
We never saw her again but she became very active in her new worshiping
community's food bank and soup kitchen. She went on to organize a
mission trip to South America. For her and her spiritual needs, she
chose right. She is no longer at war with herself and the church and
now her battleground is with poverty. Who knew this Milquetoast of a
person had it in her to become a General in the army. That is what
happens when you have faith and there is an opportunity to turn it
loose.
Another reason people may choose another church is for
their Sunday production value. People may have joined their church
because of the music but, I don't want people to come for the music.
Instead I want my music to inspire them to action, to be re-energized,
to oxygenate their blood, to transform them, to remind them of a Kaddosh
moment from their life, to be part of an awakening to a call for
action, to feel joy. Many church organists are just organists. That is
too bad.
The music we sing should not simply be a song that
fits into a time slot like most musical offerings in our worship
services are. It should speak to the needs of the community, not preach
to nor entertain them. Much like the words of an uninspired preacher,
music can also speak in a foreign dusty tongue. Some of our music holds
onto dusty words that have no resonance in the ears of society, not
realizing that just singing those words louder or faster isn't the
answer. Religious buzzwords and fancy octavos used to work 50 years ago
but they don't anymore. This spiritualized insider-language keeps
regular people at a distance. People need the music to speak in a
language that they can understand. They long to sing songs that pertain
to what is happening in their lives this day. People don’t need to be
dazzled with big production numbers larded with churchy words that are
about eschatological frameworks and theological systems or warm and
fuzzy theology.
Too many organists don't see how pastoral and
ministerial their work is. I knew an organist who never played the same
song twice in a church. He would date each piece and never repeat it
again. People love to hear their favorite song over and over and if
something an organist plays or the choir sings resonates with people,
why not use it again? The same holds true for hymns. I fell in love
with a new song called "You Are Mine" and I thought it would serve my
parish well for funeral purposes and decided to use it every week for a
month. The confirmation class liked it and asked if I would play it for
their confirmation Mass and the song became a comfort and favorite of
the parish over time. Another song I selected for a whole month was
"All Are Welcome." The city was planning to put up a parole shelter
next door to the church and the church was protesting so I thought that
the congregation needed to hear that message over and over again. The
church lost the battle and the parole shelter was put in. Some members
left. All are not welcome.
A lot of churches have drastically
changed their gimmicky worship styles to include lights, stages,
elaborate sound systems, bands, videos screens, computer graphics,
cameras and big production numbers from the praise band. In reality
this is just noise to those who are really seeking an encounter with
God. It is a distraction that has little importance, purpose and
applicability to the rest of their week, or for people who are trying to
grapple with the painful and confusing issues in the trenches of their
real lives.
I have nothing against tech, I use it myself. I own
four cameras, mixing boards, a switch box and the ability to stream
live but I don't use those tools other than for recitals. If my church
wanted to move in that direction for ministerial purposes then I'd
gladly donate my expertise for that purpose but, the gimmick of a church
"rock show" simply doesn't make a difference in peoples' lives. People
can find entertainment anywhere. Church shouldn't be entertaining.
Church should challenge us and inspire us to do something with our
lives. Yes, many people who don't know what they are looking for may
choose a church that offers entertainment but, that is all those
churches may have and it requires a lot of energy to maintain that
illusion. "Ignore the man behind the curtain."
There is a
church near me who has a full time youth minister and a youth group
budget of about $50,000 per year. The youth have their own service,
plan all the music and readings and no adults are permitted to attend
that service. The music by most standards would be deemed liturgically
inappropriate for they use pop songs in place of sacred music such as
"Lean on Me" and "Don't Stop Believin'." They average over 200 teens
each week and despite that, they don't have a collection anymore because
it would usually yield about ten bucks. Their swanky teen lounge
sports a pool table, ping pong table, Foosball table, several sofas, a
small kitchen, a 54 inch flat screen TV, a game console and WiFi. Post
service activity include copious amounts of pizza and soda. For a teen
on Sunday night, it's the place to be. When the teens graduate high
school, they are not permitted to come back because they are now adults
nor do they bother to join the church they don't know. The whole
program is a wash financially and only gives an outward appearance of
being spiritually alive, active and having a reputation for success.
I'm sure many will disagree about the efficacy of the program but the
numbers don't lie because on Sunday morning the youngest person in
attendance at the normal Mass is 60 years old because the kids just
don't ever come back. I bet most youth programs are much the same.
Dollar for dollar, they are not a very good investment. Kids, like
adults, yearn for a message worth sharing and an opportunity to act on
it and make a difference, but it’s hard to hear that message above
gimmicky pyrotechnics.
Some friends of mine heard that message
and sent their daughter to Arizona one summer to help build housing for
the poor. She came back a different person, with vision, drive and the
decision to dedicate her life in service of the poor. She really wants
to become a priest in the Roman Catholic Church but we know that isn't
going to happen. That's another issue which drives our contemporary
society away. Like many issues, the church is usually on the other side
of popular opinion.
I knew a Methodist pastor who wanted to
start a satellite church in a strip mall in a poor section of a nearby
city. They would move their food pantry there and offer counseling with
meeting rooms and ancillary worship space. His parish council shot
down the idea citing that it would be expensive and they wouldn't have
the volunteers to run it. I applaud the pastor's vision - instead of
trying to lure people to the church, to instead go out to where the
people already are. Just because the parish council didn't think anyone
in the parish would volunteer didn't mean that once people found out
about this ministry they wouldn't take part or join. Especially people
in the community where this vital ministry would have been offered. The
parish council couldn't see past its own building. Ironically this
church has a large wooden sign above their front door which can only be
seen as you leave the church to the parking lot. It says "Enter." When
you leave the church you are entering the mission field. The best way
to reach the people who don't come to church is to get out of the
building and go to them. Get out of the building!
Churches don't
walk the walk. My dear friend Maggie's husband was arrested for a
consensual yet illegal sex crime with a teenager. They were immediately
ostracized from their church (as was the victim, strangely). When they
approached the pastors at several other churches about joining, the
answer was always the same; they were not welcome. Some churches are
not very forgiving or loving or welcoming. That was too bad for the
many churches who turned their backs on them as Maggie and her husband
are very well off financially and tithe over $100 weekly. Unable to
find a church who accepted sinners, they formed their own little living
room church with several friends who were more forgiving and they all
left their respective churches to create their own.
When two
hurricanes struck my area, I went out with a small band of volunteers to
help people with cleanup. We encountered many people who lost their
homes and were sleeping in their cars. When they called FEMA for help,
they were told to call Catholic Charities who told them to call United
Way who told them to call Family and Children's Services who told them
to call 211 who told them to call . . . FEMA! Many of these people
haven't had a good meal, a shower or clean clothes and were living day
by day waiting for help to arrive. I knew there was nothing I could do
to fix their dilemma but I was telling Maggie that I wanted to help them
in some small way that could at least give them hope. That Sunday when
Maggie's living room church of about ten people gathered, she raised
$5,000. I then went out with the cash and when I encountered people
living in their car or in distress, I gave them $100 a piece and told
them to go get a good meal, go get a good night sleep in a hotel, or go
buy some necessities. That little band of ostracized sinners did more
for the homeless than a church full of "good" people.
So, if
Jesus spent his time with prostitutes, murderers, thieves, lepers and
outcasts, why can't the church? Hate begets hate and when the church
hates, they lose but, they don't know it. They don't know what they
don't know. In reality, all are not welcome in our churches despite the
pastors regurgitating it on Sunday. That is part of the reason people
are leaving the church because some of us are honest to admit that we
are sinners and know that the "good" people in our churches would not
accept us if they knew the truth. So you see, the people who don't go to
church are not the problem, the church and its "good people" are the
problem. If they would stop praying, preaching, judging, diagnosing,
denying and just simply welcome, that would make all the difference.
This doesn't necessarily mean that people are walking away from faith,
it just means faith is more attainable somewhere else. Maybe if the
church pulled its praying hands apart, their arms would be open for
embracing and welcoming rather than denying.
Occam’s razor
(developed by Ockham) is the law of parsimony. It is a problem solving
principle which posits that it is pointless to do something with more
when it can be done with less. In other words, simplicity is your best
bet. When faced with a decision on which is the most likely strategy to
be successful, generally, the most simple choice is the most efficient.
Here
is an example of Occam's Razor in my life. I volunteer for a cable
access show each week and it took my predecessor an hour to set up the
studio while it only takes me about half an hour. The difference is
when he put away microphone stands and camera tripods he would loosen
them, fold them, tighten them then put them in their respective corner.
I would just leave them extended and put them in the corner, saving a
significant amount of time setting up and taking down. They weren't in
the way and nobody else used them during the week. Likewise, all the
cables going to the cameras are about 50 feet long and he would unravel
them then have to roll them up after the show. We only need about
fifteen feet of cable so I taped up about 35 feet and now I only need to
uncoil and roll up fifteen feet. He would always put out 25 chairs for
the audience but if we only have six guests on the show, I only need to
put out six chairs. If they bring a friend, I can always go get
another chair. Simplicity is your best bet.
The church
desperately needs to be aware of the law of parsimony. Especially when
it comes to forming committees. The problem with a committee is that
all it takes is for one person to not like an idea or say it can't be
done and it probably won't be pursued. Much worse is to assign a task
to someone and they either don't get it done or do it poorly.
Committees usually have a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point
to make or a cause to defend and while these may keep the church
running, they are also the bane of many a church. As a member of the
staff, my preferred method of work is to meet with the pastor, toss
around ideas then implement them. I spend the week talking to people
about it, getting their input, researching it, then being a master of
delegation, I either call people whom I trust or catch them at Sunday
coffee hour and assign them a task. Implementing deadlines and followup
with each person is crucial. I can get more accomplished in one day
than a committee can get done in three months and it is the simplest
route.
My pastor once charged me with the task of organizing a
haunted house because our church youth group attended one and I
commented that we could do better so he said "Then do it." I researched
haunted house ideas, mapped out a route for our three story rectory and
spent the year casually gathering materials. Several months later I
contacted people and groups in the parish asking them to be responsible
for whatever haunting I planned for each room. Nobody said no, I had
over 80 volunteers and the program was a huge success. Several hundred
visitors filed through in a two hour period commenting that it was the
best haunted house they've ever visited and we made several hundred
dollars from donations.
Showcasing parish leadership was key.
One year the pastor was in an open coffin and the choir served as
mourners. I saved flowers from funerals for the whole year and that
funeral room was decked out with dead flowers, wailing choir members and
creepy organ music. Another year the pastor and associate pastor's
heads were mounted on a fake wall and the secretary, wearing a pith
helmet, stood proudly next to her trophy collection. People came every
year just to see what the pastor would be doing in his room.
After
I left that parish a lay person took over the haunted house. With no
vision and waiting until the last minute to plan, she formed a committee
where anarchy reigned, tempers flew and people who had no idea what
they were doing shot down idea after idea. The haunted house was a
disaster, half the rooms didn't have anything in them. It failed
miserably and they never had one again.
Occam’s razor can serve
an individual very well also and this is where I think Occam’s razor can
come into play for the person who is disillusioned or disgruntled by
their church, the institution, the politics or anything else that leaves
them yearning for something more: Withdraw your membership. Leave the
church, leave the apathy. Form a small bible study group with family
and friends. You don't need much to run a home church, a bible and a
place to sit is all. Churches are failing across the country and they
need to crumble more before we can begin to rebuild. Many pastors need
to get real jobs instead of pretending to serve the community and we
need to let the money serving churches fail. Church people are
notorious for worshiping music, buildings, organs, groups, committees,
activities and money. One parish council I sat on discussed the need
for attracting new members to the church - to help pay the bills. That
is totally the wrong reason for a church to exist but churches are
businesses, institutions, corporations and are run by like minded lay
people. How does growth for the sake of having more money to pay the
bills serve the poor, naked, hungry, dying and imprisoned? So what do
you need from a church that you can't find in your living room
surrounded by like minded worshipers? The church needs to be reminded
of the commandment “Thou shall have no other Gods before me”. This is
Occam’s Razor at its best. When the church teaches love, joy,
forgiveness, death, peace and God, the people will listen. That is all
they need. Continue with worshiping other things and soon the church
will be an empty room.
A big problem in our churches is poor
leadership and people who lack vision. Something I try to do with all
my ministry projects is to network to organizations and people out in
the community in addition to the diverse organizations within the
church. When I organized the aforementioned haunted house I made sure
every organization in the church had a room to haunt, likewise, I
invited local community theater organizations to haunt a room. I asked a
funeral home to donate a coffin and a local contractor to build me a
working guillotine. The people who were not part of the church were
excited to see their labor being part of something bigger and they even
visited the church on Sundays thereafter. They also never said no to
future requests.
I once went to a Christmas party at a home
where the host hung foil stars from her ceiling and I thought that would
be a good idea for the church. I asked the pastor if we could decorate
the church that way for Christmas and he said if I thought I could pull
it off, do it. I bought 300 various colored and sized stars and spent
two days building a fishing line grid then hoisting it up to the ceiling
from a ladder. When I entered the church that Saturday for Mass, I was
horrified to see that our forced air heat was causing the stars to wave
and twinkle, thinking they would be a distraction. When people began
to arrive for the four o'clock Mass, you could hear the gasps, oo's and
ah's as people entered. The following week attendance grew by 25% at
every Mass. The stars became an annual attraction with many volunteers
looking forward in taking part with the hanging them and, the pastor
even purchased a lift for the project. Now I don't know if people
joined our church because of that new ministry program but, more fallen
away members began attending again because something new was going on.
It also didn't hurt that the pastor used the stars in his homily for
weeks to come. The true success to that program was socializing and
networking as I was able to use that program to make contacts for other
programs.
At another church I offered a weekly organ recital
every Tuesday at noon. I dropped off a flyer at that new parole shelter
and some of the men started attending (probably for the free coffee)
and eventually began volunteering to set up, pass out programs and clean
up. They eventually asked the church to use a room for their daily AA
and NA classes. In return they provided electrical, plumbing, carpentry
and painting services to the church. A few of them joined the church,
got married and had children. People often find our churches in the
most unexpected ways. That is why we need to network and be willing to
step outside of our comfort zones and areas of expertise and hire people
with vision and courage. Someone may not ever think of approaching an
organist to talk to about their problems but if that organist also skis
and they encounter them during a coffee hour and begin discussing the
new parabolic technology, it opens a whole new dimension of relationship
which can be tapped into later. Like my disgruntled choir member,
acorns can become oaks.
A woman found out that I answered a
suicide hotline and she joined the choir. It took her five years to
approach and talk to me about her suicidal thoughts. She said she never
wanted to talk to me about her issues, she just wanted to be near
someone who would understand and care. It was a "hem of the garment"
encounter for her and for her it was all she needed to keep going.
I
once inherited a church with a lot of problems. What church does not
have problems? There were three music groups; the traditional choir,
the folk group and a youth choir. There were three directors for each
group and they all hated one another and worse, they planted the seeds
of hate among their individual membership. I met with each of the
directors asking them what their vision for the parish was and I
remember the folk group director said "Vision? I just come in and play
every Sunday. What do I need vision for?" So I created programs where
no group had ownership but all three could participate in, together. It
took about five years before wounds began to heal and I'd say it took
fifteen years before all hate was abolished. The secret wasn't in
creating musical opportunities for them to participate in. It was in
the creation of non-musical activities for them to socialize in where
they discovered one another outside of what they were competing with. I
organized a Living Stations of the Cross service and asked a few
members from each group to participate by writing and reading personal
meditations based upon an assigned station. When they heard testimony
about each others fears, pains and struggles, they began to see each
other for who they really were: broken and frail human beings. When I
saw them spending time together at the coffee hour, I knew healing had
begun. Soon they began attending each other's concerts and Masses.
Judgmentalism,
ostrcisation, fear, anger and separation slowly and insidiously breeds
distance. A woman in adultery, a doubting follower, a rebellious
prodigal, a person with a record, a demon-riddled young man with
substance abuse issues or mental health issues; they all need a Church
which will love them, nothing more. People who are hurt and confused
feel God's love when they are cared for. They take shelter in God's love
when they look with gratitude at all the beauty they see. A church who
offers all that, they will feel it too. So if their problems are
growing like a bacteria, if their money problems are a concern, if they
lack vision and membership is falling, they have nothing to lose by
embracing grace, mercy and forgiveness and everything to gain. Like
someone caught in a rip tide, they need to stop flailing, take a deep
breath and just float. Like the boy in the story about Jesus feeding
the 5,000, they must offer all they have. Like the people in my church
who left through the back door because a parole shelter moved next door,
God provided and more people entered through the front door.
God
works through people. The church moves forward rhythmically like a
clock ticking. The key is to remember, it’s the Lord’s church. Churches
should focus on this truth. When they do, time heals wounds. Conflict
embraces resolution. Anger gives way to joy. Emptiness surrenders to
fullness. But first we need to forgive and not judge. Is the church
willing to do that?
Society is becoming more enlightened and
many good people recognize that they are sinners and are still searching
for a place where they can be known and belong. A place where it feels
like God lives, and the people of that church are the ones who can show
it to them. Maybe we do live in a sinful, deviant and disbelieving
society but it is those people whom the church is supposed to be
reaching out to. So, for the love of God; reach. Step out into the
neighborhoods around you and partner with the amazing things already
happening in the secular world and all the beautiful stuff God is
already doing there. As C. S. Lewis once said, "We're going to be
really surprised who actually makes it to heaven."
