Is God Killing the Church?
This isn’t one more article about church decline, at least it’s not one that will quote dire statistics in tears. Rather, I want to put out there a genuine question I’ve come to, over years of watching my church decline — both my denomination and the parish I serve.
My experience on the leading edge of church decline in America (my parish is Episcopal, West Coast, high income and high education levels — the perfect storm of decline) is that one time-hallowed tradition after another is proving to be … Not It, is the best way I can describe it.
Youth ministry, Sunday School, volunteerism, lay leadership, midweek programs, acolytes and processions, potluck suppers — each of them gone like a vanishing act, one moment there and real, the next a puff of smoke. “This was Not It,” is the echo left hanging in the eerie air of their absence. “This was not church, not Christ, not faith, not it.”
We’re down to the barest of bones now, many of us, with no signs of stopping the losses. Many churches can no longer afford their music program, their clergy, their buildings — budgets are cut to eating-the-seed-corn levels, dispensing with the only elements needed for any hope of future growth. And still: Music, clergy, buildings — they’re “Not. It.”
Honestly, it’s starting to feel to me like all this is coming from Gd; that the voice saying “Not it!” belongs to Gd. You know how sometimes you’re just going along in some stream of events, thinking, “This is weird, this is weird, this is weird,” till suddenly the marrow of your bones goes, “OH! I get it! This isn’t weird, this is Gd!” That’s the feeling I’ve started to have about church decline, that it’s our old friend Gd who’s up to these tricks, taking away our churchy toys one by one, until we’re forced to pay attention to the only One who really is It.
What if Gd has just had enough of church as we’ve been doing it for the last few hundred years? What if Gd is ready and restless for church to become the next thing it’s going to be?
What if it’s Gd who’s killing the church?
Yea and amen. I think it is, specifically, the Holy Spirit. Everytime I see a congregation resist the movement of Spirit, especially on stupid stuff they could easily do, I quietly day to myself... yeah, you're done.
I've been wondering this myself, too. I don't have any answers. There's one church that is not shrinking here in the city where I live, and it's congregation are mostly very poor folks and refugees that live in the area. The folks that the church is supposed to welcome and serve. The underbelly of the institutional church's history being exposed to the light of day in recent years adds makes the conversation a lot more grave, too. I've wondered if Gd is allowing the institution to fall so that something new can grow in its place.