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Today’s Blog Post
This series is like a really long sermon! The congregation is tired of listening and the preacher is ready to go to out to eat – NOW!
As I wrote yesterday about the culture shift that I have personally experienced working within the church, I suggested that things will change rapidly. That change will deeply affect a host of things I am convinced.
Let me try to outline the shifts that I have witnessed up to this point in my life and ministry. I will try to do it as a series of snapshots – something like looking at a photo album with you.
Snapshot One
Since about the 1950s among Evangelical Churches there has been a great emphasis on bigger and bigger buildings. The apex of that movement seemed to take place at a few different places over this past few years. The apexes are a little like a series of mountain ranges that you pass over when flying, they go in rows and rows, or ridges running parallel to each other.
In the 1970s to 1980s there was a flurry to build massive in order to accommodate thriving influxes of Bus Ministry Kids. Every church was doing it… buying old clunker buses and then developing a system to haul in larger and larger number of kids – doing Evangelism like a farmer harvesting potatoes. Dig em out, scoop em up and dump them into a truck to take to the weigh scales.
Then the Bus Bubble Burst. The Government caught on to cheap buses being bought to carry precious cargos of kids – and deemed it unsafe.
The Bus Ministry went flop and big churches floundered with many empty class rooms.
Snapshot Two
Mid Week Children’s Ministry rose quickly in the 1970s. The need for facilities was great. The musty basement was a shame to put kids in each Tuesday or Thursday night for the club program… so build bigger… with more and better facilities.
This boom of ministry was almost over in 1980 as cultural shifts in the community were beginning in the larger cities with immigration changing whole neighbourhoods. The place that the church once found kids for Sunday School and Kids Clubs were now changing colour. This was specially true in the cities. Little towns were pretty much one colour still and not much changed.
With the changes in the city the Head Office of all things about Kids Clubs made radical decisions to change the old program to accommodate the new realities of the cities changing.
In the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada the leadership realized that the name of their National Children’s Ministry was a bad name. It was called “Crusaders”. The direct reference by the original designer of the program went back to the crusades conducted into Jerusalem to free it from the horrible barbarians that had invaded it. It was very British and Western mentality – free the Sin Encompassed world – free the people in Jerusalem.
In Canada in the 1980s a steady stream of ‘barbarians’ were immigrating to our country and filling the cities with new people. The fact that many were descendants of the people that had once invaded Jerusalem and had been pursued by Crusaders that had killed their early relatives by the hundreds of thousands in the name of Jesus(the Church) – kind of still stuck in their throats.
On the side, the opposition to the Western Armies in Afghanistan now keeps raising the ugly term as they call the invading forces “Crusaders” in 2010.
Many in the church thought the name change was a departure from the original intent – a softly militant, mini army of children that would be formed into little Christian Soldiers – who one day would take over the church leadership.
Societal changes dropped Kids Club programs in favour of other kinds.
NOTE: I was the National Leader of the Pentecostal Crusaders and went through that mega change and up heave in the church.
Churches that built bigger and better now had old posters on the wall of the Crusader Days of Glory. Sheesh! And there were few to no kids coming.
Snapshot Three
The energy, stress, organizational pressure that it took to run huge bus ministries and well oiled children programs was over whelming. Committed leaders became older and more tired. Most quit at the end of their 10 year or Life Sentences.
It became much easier to hire young professionals and call them “Youth Pastors”. These YPs were given the task of building an outreach to the youth of the community. The kids of the Kids Club grew up, the parents that ran the programs were too tired and the easiest was to get a professional YP to do what you were too tired to do.
This new Youth Ministry Movement required better buildings and more facilities. If the church had not built for the Kids Club or the Bus Ministry it sure needed to build for the new YP. The poor young fella couldn’t do much in that ratty old basement. And if we didn’t do something soon the Teens would be at the Mall and messing around where they shouldn’t be messing.
YPs were the key to reaching the community. Mega Youth Groups grew out of nothing and were featured stories at Minister Conferences. The large youth group could even be bragged about. Look at the kids we are reaching!
Pastors that once bragged about Sunday School Busing now switched to Youth Ministry bragging.
I switched from being a Children’s Ministry expert to a Youth Pastor expert. In one church the climax or monument to my abilities took place. We had 250 teens, college/university students and young married couples! They were the heart of the vibrant church of 1500. The old people loved it and funded it in wonderful ways.
Then the shift came in this area. Poof! Communities introduced 7 days a week shopping, open on Sunday, and in some cases all night long store opening. Added to that the data and call centres began to flourish as job opportunities for young adults – with 24 hours a day shift work!!!
One more thing – education became more important than working in the local area. Students became more interested in their future than their fun. This caused a drop off radically at the grade 10 – grade 11 split.
Unless the church was in a city the youth group ministry would fluctuate up and down as kids grew up, moved away and went to University or College. The group would not appear again until the siblings of that student came of age. The ministry in small towns pulsated with the coming and going.
Then it died down right down….unless there was a real good YP in place. But most of these dudes grew up too. The struggle to do your thing with teens that kept moving and the fact that you had a salary that would not pay off your student loan from your theological college – made you take a Senior Pastor role – where the bucks doubled your salary.
The youth ministry era would flourish where ever the church can afford the larger salaries that are needed for these YPs.
Snapshot Four
Suddenly in about the start of the 1990s new attitudes started coming to the horizon. The ideas were scary to say the least. There wasn’t one, there were a whole conglomeration of things that unsettled the church that had built and bettered and biggered themselves to catch the religious wave and keep current.
New people were starting churches in strip malls of all places! They rented instead of buying and building! Add to that their music was plain nuts – not churchy at all. No organ, no piano, no choir, no nothing that we were familiar with. And the Pastor sat on a Stool to Talk – not in a pulpit! God help us!!!
This was the upheaval that we did not expect.
Then as a further extension of the strip mall church… why rent or even buy one of these places for a church.. why not have church in someone’s home? You know the way that Paul did it???!
The ultimate extension that is evident now.. why go to church at all!? I am more with God in the forest or in the canoe than in church. All they want is my money.
Large churches that had built between 1980 to 2010 were not yet paid off. And with this upheaval period surrounding them, the seniors started dieing off. Some of them still hated the new music and many criticized the lack of doing it the old way. But most just died of old age.
Snapshot Five
The constant belief that if you get a better preacher, preaching much better sermons, preaching or ‘sharing’ in a different way – people will come and fill the emptying sanctuary again. It is valiant theory. But it is a theory based and planned inside of church.
99% of what the church does is based inside of its walls and focuses 100% on the churches needs. It just has to be that way in order to be that way to keep the machine and building going.
Young couples that may come can not bear any more debt – they are maxed out personally. Many cannot even tithe the way that Grandpa and Grandma used to.
Soccer programs are cheaper and more rewarding than church. The values and ethics taught are the same as church. And the fellowship that comes from connecting with other people your own age is not found in church.
Christianity is still part of their lives – but they are out there doing something with it. Not inside listening how it once was… and some one telling them that they need to get out there and do it.
They simply went and did it and are doing it.
They do get calls from the church for the plate of sandwiches that are needed for the funeral this week… but that isn’t cutting it.
Reality…?
Much of the church still thinks that if you get a better sermon, a better pastor, a better something(just not sure what) people will come.
Unless the church is able to become the “Avatar Church of Tomorrow” – did you get that “A.C.T” – it is very hard to see what might come of large buildings that are not able to be…. And one Avatar movie only cost $500,000 USD!!!!!!!
Now I bring my Addendum forward…
Sermonizing is a huge miracle in the church – where a preacher prepares something he thinks he should say – and the Holy Spirit works in spite of it – and even possibly because of it!
And I add…
The church getting out of its building and into the community… will be the greater miracle. The community feeling welcome and being able to use the building as a key place will make a huge difference.
But you know… if we just Sermonize better, Preach more brilliantly, Speak more clearly, Talk with greater practicality, Persuading more powerfully, Screech just a little louder… maybe we can fill this church again. Duh!
Change is coming – or maybe it has already happened… Yikes!
~ Murray Lincoln ~
3 comments:
It truly is interesting how the Sunday sermon made Christianity into a business enterprise. The changes that are taking place today of how we impact lives is simply a reminder of something from many years ago. Paul heard some news via super slow snail mail. And wrote back via super slow snail mail. His goal was never the "sermon" but lives intersecting, love one another and spurring one another to good deeds. The idea that a live sermon impacts our lives better than reading a letter, does not carry any weight, except of course the weight of religion.
Oh, and the need to justify a pay cheque.
Wow, this is such a nostalgic post for me. I remmeber spending so much time on the big purple bus when my parents ran the bus ministry in Thorold/StCatherines.
I was involved in Crusaders in Peterborough for years and it was a ton of fun but that name was awful. (Well, I didn't like the Cub-Scout-style uniforms, either. Heh.)
And then I was member of various youth groups during the advent of youth pastors, both paid and volunteer. And the flux of generations within the church was certainly true in my churches.
After that, I formed my own cell group in London for a few years with guys form various churches. I was a part of two others for the better part of a decade, only to see that fad die off from sheer boredom.
Finally, I just made a point of having friends and mentoring younger guys. No church involvement, no meetings, just me and friends hanging out and having fun and chatting about life.
And you know what? It was that last part, the part about simply being friends, that seemed to have been the most useful. I still have those friends, even though I lost contact with everyone else along the way.
This post was the story of my life! ;)
Wow, this is such a nostalgic post for me. I remmeber spending so much time on the big purple bus when my parents ran the bus ministry in Thorold/StCatherines.
I was involved in Crusaders in Peterborough for years and it was a ton of fun but that name was awful. (Well, I didn't like the Cub-Scout-style uniforms, either. Heh.)
And then I was member of various youth groups during the advent of youth pastors, both paid and volunteer. And the flux of generations within the church was certainly true in my churches.
After that, I formed my own cell group in London for a few years with guys form various churches. I was a part of two others for the better part of a decade, only to see that fad die off from sheer boredom.
Finally, I just made a point of having friends and mentoring younger guys. No church involvement, no meetings, just me and friends hanging out and having fun and chatting about life.
And you know what? It was that last part, the part about simply being friends, that seemed to have been the most useful. I still have those friends, even though I lost contact with everyone else along the way.
This post was the story of my life! ;)
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