In this country and in most of Europe, Christianity has been in the doldrums for some time. The United States has not seen the large-scale abandonment of the Church that much of Europe has experienced, but it would be quite a stretch to say that the church is vibrant and thriving. In just the seven years between 2007 and 2014 the number of people in the United States who say that they have no religion has grown from 16% of the population to 23% of the population. Similarly if you just want to look at the Episcopal Church we lost 37,669 members in 2015 alone, a decline of 2.1%. And so when we read things like today’s passage from Acts which says, “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added” the immediate question that comes to mind is what are we doing wrong? Well I wish I knew. There are of course plenty of theories and plenty of experts all of which claim they have the secret sauce to stop this decline. If you want to have fun sometime type the term “church growth” into the Amazon search feature. I did it the other day and got 24,463 results. I am not sure if that equates to 24,463 books, but if it does that means there is almost one unique book on church growth for everyone who left the Episcopal Church in 2015. I mean if the church were growing the way books on church growth were growing we would make those in Acts today look like amateurs. And it is not just books on church growth that are growing; there are also countless articles, lectures and church growth experts who work both freelance and for diocese and other Christian groups. In my diocese of West Texas we have a person entirely dedicated to Church growth, which has allowed us to shrink at a slower rate than the rest of the Episcopal Church. And so I don’t think we can blame church decline on a lack of experts or lack of books, but we do have to admit that it hasn’t worked. Like Princess Leia told Grand Moff Tarkin, “The more you tighten your grip…the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” The more we talk about growing the Church the more shrinking we do. And so into this cheery assessment of the state of the Church I am hesitant to add one more theory on what the church needs, but here goes.
As best I can tell from the Acts of the Apostles they never called in a church growth expert and St. Paul never published a book on church growth. As best I can tell they just went out and spread the Gospel. Yes certainly they wanted converts and cared about it otherwise we would not have recorded the number that we have today, but they did not have a concept of church growth as a thing in and of itself. Rather they wanted as many people to understand what had happened in the world through the death and resurrection of Christ. Which might seem like a subtle distinction but it has a different focus – the focus of the former is on numbers while the focus of the latter is on Jesus. The first focuses on growth for its own sake while the second sees growth as a byproduct of bringing people into the truth of Jesus Christ. And so the question for those of us who have been trained to desire church growth is, “So if we focus on Jesus then will the church grow?” And here again I have to say that I don’t know. But I say I don’t know with a caveat. And that caveat is that I am not sure if numbers are the right metric. For while today we hear that the church added 3000 people, in other places in the Bible, like Matthew, we hear from Jesus, “and you will be hated by all because of my name.” That quote rarely shows up on get well cards and it hardly makes it sound like Jesus had Church growth in mind as a metric by which to measure the success of his mission. For it would seem that Jesus predicted that not everyone would become a Christian.
We tend to look at the Church as a marketing problem to be solved. And, of course, the answer to any marketing problem is more – be it more things sold, more likes on Facebook or more people at a certain movie. Put in very general terms marketing measures success by how many products are sold and the way it convinces us to buy the products is to tell us that the purchase of that product will make our lives instantly better – using a detergent will make our towels cleaner, using a mattress will make us sleep better and eating a particular food will make our colon healthier. And in many ways Christianity has largely bought into this formula – you become Christian and it will make your life better and it will happen right now. But here is the thing, I know lots of Christians who have had or are having tragedy in their life. I know Christians who are wealthy, but I also know ones who are barely getting by. I know Christians with perfect children, but I also know ones whose children are delinquents. But the real message should not be centered around an instantaneous life improvement but rather is centered around being in relationship with the God of the universe. St. Teresa of Avila had a rather famous exchange with God where she heard God say, “Teresa, whom the Lord loves, he chastises. This is how I treat all my friends.” To which Teresa replied, “No wonder you have so few!”
Christianity is not rated on how it makes our life better but whether or not it makes us better, if it makes us more like Christ. And in a society raised on self-esteem being told that we might need to change something about us to grow closer to God is going to be a message that might be a hard sell. But becoming a Christian was never about ease but rather about holiness and our growing in holiness. God is not our concierge whose sole job is to make sure that we get everything we desire, but rather God is a loving parent who wants us to grow into Godliness. And if you think of it like this it starts to become apparent why our numbers may be in decline. For if the default mindset of most of the Western World judges the worthiness of any endeavor on whether it makes our life easier or better then how do you sell a product which says it might make your life harder as you grow in holiness.
And so all of this may make you wonder why you are here in the first place, why didn’t you just go to Starbucks this morning. But here is the thing. Being in communion with the God of the universe gives us the stability to endure the trials and travails of this life. But just as the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous bad things happen to both the Godly and the Ungodly. Those who buy the right laundry detergent still have problems. But for those who believe in Jesus Christ we know that he was raised from the dead. Which means that God can redeem everything, including our sufferings and mild discomforts.
I don’t know what the future of the Church holds –whether it will continue to decline or not. But what I do know is that Jesus Christ died and rose for our sins so that we may be called sons and daughters of the most high. That message does not always translate into an easy life, but it does translate to holiness so that we may be God’s both now and forevermore.