Dying Well, Living Better

 

I've had, and seen, a lot of conversations lately about The Church. Maybe we should say THE CHURCH just to underscore the dramatic weight of these conversations.

In these conversations I've heard a lot about how the Church is dying. We are in this post-Christendom, post-institutional, hyper-connected, hyper-polarized, time in history that makes things very hard both for the Church and for my "-" key on my keyboard. 

Is it true that the Church is dying? Maybe. Probably. But what is actually dying? And why?

Institutions are struggling across the board. Ask a member of the Kiwanis Club, or PEO, or Scouts, or any of these INSTITUTIONS and you'll probably find the same anxieties among their members. Ask PTAs, or Rotaries, or Neighborhood Associations, or Bridge Clubs and you'll probably hear them bemoaning the lack of participation. Where have all the people gone? Why don't they come to us? Why won't anyone take up leadership?

We (the Church) aren't special. 

And yet, for some reason, we seem to think that we are. We used to be the big dogs. We used to be influential. We used to matter. And when we aren't the big dogs, when our influence wanes, when what we do matters less and less to people, it is particularly alarming. We seem to think that we need to exist by virtue of who we have been. We seem to think that wanting to matter should be sufficient reason for us to actually matter. We seem to think that what we do is so extraordinarily unique in our culture. 

I've been talking a lot about the dying Church, and I've also been talking a lot about the resurrecting Church. Resurrection is at the core of who we are as a people. Resurrection is our entire raison d'etre. 

But we also need to remember that when the new life comes into being that it looks very different from our old life. We look at Jesus resurrection and we see a guy who came out of the tomb who was the same, but also somehow different. The message of Easter is not that we're going to live forever, but that in our new life everything is different. Do we need to exist solely by virtue of who we have been? No. Do we matter simply because we want to? No. Do we offer something extraordinarily unique in our culture? Yes. But that yes comes with an asterisk. We only offer something unique if we understand what it is that makes us unique. 

We are not unique because we do more good than other organizations. We are not unique because we throw the best potlucks. We are not unique because our music is good. We are not unique because we have cool book groups. 

And let's not get cocky about our potlucks...

We are unique because we (can) offer this: you are beloved. You. Yes, you. You are beloved by God who cares so deeply about you, and nothing you can do will change it. We can offer people an affirmation that who they are is enough, that they were made beautiful in the image of God and are worthy of love simply because they are. We can offer a refuge from the expectations that we be someone else, that we act like someone else, that what makes us unique needs to be buried under levels of 'normal'.

But we are also unique because we (can) offer this: The love that you've been given obliges you to share this love. That we do things for others not only because we want to be 'good people', but because we are so deeply loved that loving others is irresistible. That God sees a world in which the poor, oppressed, destitute, outcast, hated, misunderstood, sick, are of primary importance. That God sees this world in which the least are the most, and the first are the last. And because we love God so much, we know that everything we do needs to be in hopes of transforming this world into the world that God sees.

The 'what' that we do can be found anywhere. What we do matters, inasmuch as we are a community that exists to do things. But the 'why' is found only here.

So the Church is dying. 

But could it be that the 'what' is dying, while the 'why' is priming us for new life? Does the 'what' matter as long as it's faithful to the 'why'? 

And what's more, a lot of these 'whats' are antithetical to our 'why'. Exclusionary practices, inaccessible traditionalism, an insular focus, a resistance to hearing the Spirit. All of these are 'what' we do, often in direct contrast to our unexamined 'why'. The 'why' influences what we do, and in the new life I see many of these things persisting - worship, prayer, community, service, sacrament, love. If we test our 'what' against our 'why', then we refine who we are in this new life.

So the Church is dying.

I'm not going to predict what the Church will be. I'm not even convinced that the Church will undergo resurrection, as long as we stubbornly insist that that we're still alive in the old ways of life. But I have hope. 

Pictured: the CHURCH

We are dying, and the longer we deny this the harder it will be to start anew. But I have hope because of what we witness to this coming Sunday: A testament to God's power to bring new life in the most hopeless circumstances, a reminder that nothing will separate God from God's people, a world of possibility in which anything is possible.

I have hope because resurrection is real, and new life is promised.

Happy Easter (almost), there is nothing better in this world than the celebration of this new creation.

Peace,

Jeff Fox-Kline