Can the Church As We Know It Survive?
Some things never change. Some things change a lot.
A problem in today’s Church is that we aspire to be modern and boast of “doing something new.” The truth is —and this is not necessarily bad—our feet are planted firmly in the past. Try as we like, we just can’t take the exit ramp that leads to the future.
We want to find that ramp. We’ve pulled over on the shoulder with the exit sign in sight. We are checking and rechecking our maps, plugging a new address into our GPS, waiting for the GPS voice to give us instructions . . . but it just keeps saying “recalculating.”
We are lost.
Or are we just afraid of what we may face if our over-stuffed luggage flies off the car rack on the sharp turn?
The Interconnected Church
One term for our era is the “The Interconnected Age.”
The Church has been big on that concept for centuries. We should be thriving.
However, today’s interconnection is different. We approach it not from need and dependence but for empowerment—long-overdue empowerment.
In the past our interconnectedness defined who we are and who will fit in. It gave us structure, complete with rules.
The result is hierarchy. There is much less need for hierarchy today but hierarchy does not like to be messed with!
In the beginning, hierarchy was cost-efficient and helped many lowly churches do great things in a big world. The rank and file didn’t have to be educated. They just had to follow leaders and things would be fine. This continued long after the Renaissance and public schools and any need for such strict structure. But change is slow and in the Church is slower.
The currency of this system was threefold—offerings, prayer and volunteer labor.
This isn’t working any more.
Today’s people will give, but they prefer to give directly — not out of rebellion or disdain for authority — but because people know it is more efficient to give directly and because for the first time, WE CAN. The established hierarchy actually stands in the way of innovation.
The result?
- The Church is not ready for today’s world.
- Individual congregations are not ready for today’s world.
- Individuals ARE ready but won’t sit in the pew for long waiting. They feel more useful outside the Church.
- The effectiveness of both the greater church and the congregation is weakened.
Congregations are like small bubbles within the larger bubble of the church. All are fragile.
Lutherans are proud of their interdependent structure. The structure doesn’t really exist. Congregations for the most part work in isolation. They know very little of what is going on in the next parish or even in their community. Each congregation is its own little bubble.
Structure becomes a pacifier.
As long as we worship and commune weekly, as long as we meet a budget that provides for a pastor and building, as long as we have a choir and some semblance of a Sunday School (even if it’s just sending the children away during the sermon) a congregation can be content.
The same thinking goes on at the regional and national level. Higher levels feel that they are pivotal to church life. In fact, they are far more reliant on the congregations than the congregations are reliant upon them. Shh! Don’t tell.
They work hard at maintaining staff and function but they are well aware that the congregations they serve can no longer afford the expense—especially since it is growing less effective and may soon be obsolete.
Interconnectedness means popping bubbles—one by one, until we are not just interdependent one with another but also with the world we serve.
How do we find that exit ramp into the future?
One way is to start using the communication tools of the future. The Church tends to look down on media evangelism. We are reminded of evangelists who beg for money to support media costs and lavish lifestyles.
But media costs today are negligible. 2×2’s annual operating budget is under $100. We will reach 40,000 people this year with our ministry.
It is true that the Church of tomorrow will be different.
- It will have more local flavor. We can trust people with that now.
- It will have less denominational loyalty. Admit it. This is holding us back. We work so hard at being Lutheran, Catholic, etc., that we forget how to be Christian.
- It will align itself with outsiders—business, charities, community groups and other faiths—and it will be refreshed in doing so.
- It will rely far less on structure. There just is no need and it costs too much.
Media is integral to modern life—the lives of the people you want to meet, the work of the organizations you want to work with and support, and the community the congregations hope to serve.
A church that has no internet ministry or only a self-serving internet presence, is wasting the key evangelism tool of our age. It may be the exit ramp that leads to the future the Church so desperately prays for.