{"id":232,"date":"2017-12-17T00:33:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T00:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=232"},"modified":"2019-10-30T00:42:23","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T00:42:23","slug":"future-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"Future Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an age of TED Talks and Podcasts do we need sermons? \u00a0If our churches are only organized for social justice are we something different than a political group? \u00a0What form should our churches take that will best do what our world still needs churches to do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw a little video online the other day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video was produced by AARP, the American Association for Retired People, so the video featured a story about an older guy.\u00a0 The video began, \u201cHe was about to retire and then he found a secret that might save the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well that\u2019s a little exaggerated.\u00a0 But here\u2019s what he discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guy is some kind of marine biologist.\u00a0 I\u2019m a little unclear on the details, but it\u2019s not really relevant for the point I want to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guy discovered that if you break apart a living coral that the separate pieces will grow.\u00a0 He said he broke the coral by accident.\u00a0 After the accident his expectation was that the broken pieces would be stressed and die.\u00a0 Instead, he put the broken pieces into an ocean-like environment, cared for them, and was surprised to see that the broken pieces more than survived; they flourished.\u00a0 They actually grew much faster than normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a little surprised people didn\u2019t already know this about coral, so undoubtedly I\u2019m missing something, but again, not relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So apparently, the guy has discovered some sort of super-growth gene response, a finding that has implications for cancer research, for one thing.\u00a0 But being a marine scientist, and a diver, the guy also realized that his discovery was a way to help re-establish coral in places where coral had died off due to rising water temperatures and increased acidity in the oceans due to climate change.\u00a0 Coral die-off is a huge threat to the health of our oceans, and thus the future of life on our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guy, found funding somewhere (again I\u2019m unclear, again, not relevant) and he set up a coral growing lab with the intention of re-stocking reefs where the ocean coral had died.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where a problem occurred to me as I watched this little video.\u00a0 \u201cWait a second,\u201d I thought.\u00a0 \u201cIf you raise the coral in your lab, and then you introduce the coral into the ocean, but the ocean still has the same increased temperature and acidity that\u2019s killing coral in the first place, then your new coral is going to die just the same as the old coral did.\u00a0 You haven\u2019t solved anything!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, almost as soon as the question occurred to me, the video answered my objection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab environment that the scientist created to raise his coral is not the ideal growing environment.\u00a0 He set the water temperature and acidity level to mirror the real environment of the ocean.\u00a0 And furthermore, the guy has created growing environments that mimic the even more hostile environments likely to come in future oceans as global temperatures continue to rise.\u00a0 He\u2019s watching which of his coral genetic lines are the most suitable for the future ocean, and he\u2019s propagating and re-introducing those corals that have the best chance of surviving in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, this old guy, about to retire (says the AARP), is doing future work.\u00a0 He\u2019s imagining future problems, and working our future solutions.\u00a0 Toward the end of his own lifetime, he\u2019s asking what the world will look like in the future, and asking what we need to do now in order to make that future more livable, for coral, and for all living things that depend on a healthy ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As W.E.B. DuBois said in a very different context, \u201cIt is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0 Even for a tomorrow that we may never see ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We who care about the future of churches must ask ourselves the same question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only, \u201cWhat should we do to solve the problems of the church today?\u201d\u00a0 But, \u201cWhat can we do today, to solve the problems that the church will face in the future?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any rapidly changing environment, work to solve present problems will be useless.\u00a0 By the time you\u2019ve got the solution the situation will have changed.\u00a0 Either the problem will have resolved itself and doesn\u2019t need your work, or the problem will have done its damage irreversibly.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church today is facing that kind of rapidly changing environment.\u00a0 If we will live up to our responsibility to be good stewards of our faith, we can\u2019t work to solve today\u2019s problems.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be too late.\u00a0 The solutions will no longer be relevant.\u00a0 If it takes a couple of years to create a solution, we have to work on the problem that will exist a couple of years from now.\u00a0 If it takes a couple of decades to create a solution, then we have to start now on creating solutions for the problems that will exist a couple of decades from now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, of course, as I often like to tell you in the first part of a sermon, the problem is much worse than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because our churches are already decades behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our churches today are not struggling with the problems of 2020.\u00a0 Our churches are still struggling with the problems of 2010, or 1970, or 1950.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video technology is not new.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t use it.\u00a0 Our churches don\u2019t regularly project images, which is fairly easy to do.\u00a0 Our sound systems are not up to date, nor are we using the latest technology for hearing assistance.\u00a0 We\u2019re not solving tomorrow\u2019s problems; we\u2019re barely keeping up with today\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our grey hymnal is 30 years old, and the hymns in it are decades, even centuries, older than that.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean we should throw it out. But it requires us to ask the question, \u201cWhere will new music come from, and how do we include it in worship?\u201d Does singing these hymns help people with the problems they have today or that they will be having 20, 30 years from now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re still following old, old forms of worship.\u00a0 We\u2019re still having the same tiresome debates about theism and atheism.\u00a0 We\u2019re still printing paper copies of the newsletter and putting up bulletin boards.\u00a0 We\u2019re still passing baskets to receive the collection.\u00a0 We\u2019re still worshipping in a physical place at a specific time and if you\u2019re not in the room when it happens, well, you just miss out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, have you heard of a thing called the internet?\u00a0 Smart phones?\u00a0 Apps?\u00a0 Skype?\u00a0 PayPal?\u00a0 Forget PayPal, have you heard of credit cards?\u00a0 Meet-up groups?\u00a0 Instagram?\u00a0 Live-streaming?\u00a0 Have you heard about the rising number of folks who call themselves spiritual but not religious who crave spiritual experiences but aren\u2019t really that interested in sitting for an hour in a folding chair listening to a lecture about humanism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People still crave what churches offer.\u00a0 But the structure we\u2019ve created to present our spiritual product hasn\u2019t kept up with the way people access the spiritual today.\u00a0 We expect people to come to us during the hours we\u2019re open and buy what we stock on our shelf.\u00a0 We\u2019re Macy\u2019s in an age of Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to be a faith that survives into the future, we have to know two things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the need that people have and will have 30 years from now that churches can fulfill better than other organizations?\u00a0 What is the question people have that we answer for them?\u00a0 What is the problem people have that churches alone can solve, or where our solution is better than the solutions other organizations are offering?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we offer our answer, our solution, our service, in a way that people are expecting to get their needs meet in today\u2019s world, and in the world of the future?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the first question is what is it that churches do that only churches do, or that we do better than anyone else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s model that most of our churches still follow, churches offered a lot of things that people couldn\u2019t get elsewhere.\u00a0 You came to church for community, for fellowship and friends.\u00a0 You came to make connections that would be helpful in your career.\u00a0 You came to give a moral education to your children.\u00a0 You came to church to hear interesting thinking, and hear beautiful music.\u00a0 You came for inspiration.\u00a0 You came to get activated on the political issues of the day, and organized to do meaningful work on those issues.\u00a0 You came for help and healing around the fears and anxieties of life:\u00a0 depression, loneliness, spiritual questions of identity, meaning and purpose.\u00a0 You came for counseling about problems with your marriage, or a moral dilemma, or a question about God.\u00a0 You came to church craving connection to something larger than yourself, and to feel hope and promise of a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still offer all of that.\u00a0 But a lot of other organizations offer many of those same things now.\u00a0 And some of them do it better than us.\u00a0 And a lot of them do it more conveniently than we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I want to hear an interesting speaker talk about an important question of the day, I don\u2019t go to church, I go to YouTube.\u00a0 Or a Ted Talk.\u00a0 Or they\u2019ve got their own Pod Cast.\u00a0 I don\u2019t need to wait for months, drive across town, be in a particular place at a particular time, and I don\u2019t need to belong to a church or pay a pledge to hear the talk I\u2019m interested in.\u00a0 The talk is right in front of me, wherever I am, whenever I want it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally, if it\u2019s someone really special, I will go to a live talk.\u00a0 Jim and I went to hear Khizr Khan speak at the library a few weeks ago.\u00a0 But not very often.\u00a0 The library has a well-publicized speaker series with interesting speakers several times a month, most of whom we don\u2019t go hear.\u00a0 And here\u2019s the thing.\u00a0 We went to the library to hear Khizr Khan, because a library is the appropriate place to hear an interview with a secular person on a book tour.\u00a0 Not a church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I want to get involved in a social justice movement, I\u2019m going to join an issue-specific political organization, not a church.\u00a0 The Women\u2019s March last January was organized on facebook, not in a fellowship hall.\u00a0 I get my political news from the Washington Post and twitter, and my political theory from blogs and books, not the pulpit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get marriage counseling from a therapist, not a pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get better theater and music, and as much of it as I want, from arts organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do churches offer uniquely, or significantly better than other organizations?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three inter-related things:\u00a0 Community.\u00a0 Spirituality.\u00a0 And relationship with a theological tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first answer is community.\u00a0 Social media and Starbucks claim to create communities but they don\u2019t.\u00a0 Neither do folks create real communities through a collection of yoga classes and ad hoc activism and friends from work.\u00a0 Creating community connections is a real problem for our contemporary culture.\u00a0 People need community.\u00a0 And we always will.\u00a0 We are social animals.\u00a0 And we need the kinds of communities that churches offer:\u00a0 committed, intimate, comforting and challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And churches offer a special type of community.\u00a0 We are a covenanted community.\u00a0 We are a spiritual community.\u00a0 We don\u2019t gather just for fun or politics, which you can get elsewhere.\u00a0 Nor do we gather just for the kinds of practical help that you can get better through a social service agency or a therapist\u2019s office.\u00a0 We offer those, but our unique value is in engaging in those activities from a spiritual dimension and for a spiritual purpose. A church offers a community focused uniquely on spiritual questions of identity, meaning and purpose, and grounded in a particular theology and tradition, that calls you back again and again to deeper reflection and transformation, not the constant call of the next and the new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Church sermons talk about a wide-range of subjects, but with the common thread of exploring the spiritual dimension of life.\u00a0 And unlike a Ted Talk or a Podcast, or a one-off speaker at the library, our churches offer, though the pastor, a living relationship with a trained theologian and a religious tradition.\u00a0 Sermons might have the form of a lecture but they aren\u2019t lectures.\u00a0 Sermons are preached for a particular community at a particular time.\u00a0 Sermons are created for you, by someone who knows a theological tradition generally and a congregation specifically.\u00a0 Jim and I went to hear Khizr Khan and then he flew off to Seattle to give the same talk.\u00a0 But you go to church to have an extended theological dialogue with a religious tradition week after week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, churches offer worship, education, fellowship and fun, pastoral care, and work for social justice, but those are merely the media of our work.\u00a0 What we really offer, uniquely and well is covenanted community, focused on spiritual questions, and in ongoing relationship with a theological tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And secondly, then, knowing that covenanted community, focused on spiritual questions, and in relationship with a theological tradition is what we offer, how do we give those gifts in a way that people are able to receive, in the culture of today, and in the way our culture is evolving?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s hard to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what I do know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be a community, people need to gather.\u00a0 Virtual community through the internet doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 But neither does a community gathering require a purpose built church building.\u00a0 People can gather in rented space, or a living room, or a restaurant, or a park.\u00a0 The emerging culture demands that we bring our product to the people, the way the internet does.\u00a0 A single big church building, like a department store across town, that you have to get yourself to during operating hours, isn\u2019t going to cut it any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither does the community need to be large.\u00a0 A smaller community that can come to you, or closer to you, is better.\u00a0 And a smaller community is better for creating intimacy and relationships, too.\u00a0 If we do have a large congregation to do some of the things that large congregations do well like an RE program or a music program, the large congregation will also need to find ways to divide itself into the smaller, more flexible, and geographically distributed communities that the future will need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staying focused on spirituality and having a real relationship with a theological tradition requires the leadership of an educated clergyperson.\u00a0 That costs money.\u00a0 And money will get tight as churches get smaller.\u00a0 And paying for professional educations will get more expensive.\u00a0 But dispensing with purpose-built church buildings and shifting to electronic communications and connections whenever possible will save a ton of money.\u00a0 No furniture.\u00a0 No maintenance.\u00a0 No insurance.\u00a0 And if our church communities are tightly-focused on spiritual issues, a single professional clergy person could be shared by several small communities who don\u2019t also need that person to be the church administrator and broad generalist that we expect them to be now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For examples of the kind of future church I\u2019m imagining, ironically, we can look to the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The early Christian churches were organized as home churches.\u00a0 Small communities.\u00a0 Meeting in members\u2019 homes.\u00a0 Worship created by individuals sharing their gifts and centered around a shared meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a professional clergy person shared among several communities.\u00a0 Think of Paul leading a dozen different communities that he stayed in touch with through writing letters while he traveled around the Mediterranean.\u00a0 Think of churches in 19th\u00a0century rural America served by a shared \u201ccircuit-rider\u201d preacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this the future of our churches?\u00a0 I\u2019d be a fool to predict with certainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I do know that holding on in 2020 to a church model that served the needs of the church of 1950 is a mistake.\u00a0 The world has changed.\u00a0 Our churches must change, too.\u00a0 Even if we can\u2019t be certain of the direction; we need to take the risk.\u00a0 And by 2050 our world and our churches will change again.\u00a0 Will we be ready?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wake, now, my reason, reach out to the new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wake, now, my vision of ministry clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With heart and mind and voice and hand may we this time and place transcend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will we be ready?\u00a0 Or will we watch with regret as the churches we love, the faith we love, passes away like the coral in a warming sea, and not, before we retire, try one more thing, try one more experiment, benefit from a happy accident, to see if maybe, just maybe, there\u2019s a new way toward amazing vitality we hadn\u2019t known before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prophetic church, the future waits your liberating ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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