Link was truncated. Try this: http://reginaldbibby.com/papers.html and click on the 2009 paper.

DKS,

it says that 'The File is Damaged and could not be Repaired' so I dinnae ken atm.

Just a quick question:  what does 'becoming highly polarized religiously' mean?  Is that your term?

Just a Self-writing poem,

InannaWhimsey

Use the second link, as I said in the second note. Read the 2009 article. WC won't let me edit the opening post. 

The post is a quote from Bibby.

That is where I am getting the error message from.  Does the link work for you?

I like what I've seen of this guy's work...I like the bit where he's been seen as the bearer of bad news because he's shown teachers that they've been doing a good job, because school kids are positive :3  It just goes to show how we all live in our own worlds and we often forget that they are a choice...good on people like him who can try to bring in the fresh air :3

In related news, I just finished reading abook called How We Believe by Michael Shermer.  You might enjoy it; there are some actual studies done of religosity done in the US.  And all without the silly sturm n' drang of "Oh noes!  Religion is teh EVIL!1!!"  I'd like to have dinner with this guy :3  I saw him have a disussion with a Young Earth Creationist who also happened to be a scientist and what a calm and ordinary discussion it was.

Just a Self-writing poem,

InannaWhimsey

Absolutely.

I was able to read Bibby's article, following the updated instructions from DKS.

This is the full link to the PDF file, assuming what I copied will not be cut off before you receive it.

http://reginaldbibby.com/images/Revision_Bibby_CSA_Presentation,_Ottawa_May_09.pdf

(The original link ends in "_May", but it should end in "_May_09.pdf".) 

This is the table that DKS referred to:

It's worth reading Bibby's article and interpretation before deciding what you think these numbers can tell us.

DKS and RAN,

do you know your computer's specifics?  Is your processor at least a 1.3 GHz?

I ask because it could be a compatibility issue for me -- I can't use the latest version of acrobat reader because my computer is too aged :3

Just a Self-writing poem,

InannaWhimsey

Another sign of the increasing irrelevance of a church, and a faith, that refuses to change.

Yes. This computer has a 3.0 GHz Q6600 (a 25% overclock). For you it may well be compatibility.

That's the easy way out, Matt. I think this is another sign of failure to pass on the Christian faith by our generation and our children. 

Although not as blunt or succinct as RevMatt, I would agree with his conclusion.

I think the most telling comment in the article is this one

But while the survey findings document fairly extensive openness to religious groups, they also reveal that teenagers, as well as younger adults, are highly pragmatic. They have to find that greater levels of involvement are worthwhile – resulting in the enhancement of their lives and the lives of those who matter most to them. Otherwise, their outlook understandably seems to be, “Why bother?”

I long ago ceased being a teenager, and youth has become a distant memory, but I am finding myself at a similar place.  Lately it has become increasingly difficult to feel engaged in "The Church".  

This has nothing to do with a lack reverence for God or even the theology, but that I feel there is little relevance to the here and now.  There are tangible needs or spiritual wants that are never addressed because they get lost in the endless dialogue of how and the fear - yes fear - that to do something, anything, may step on somebodies toes so let's not do anything at all but talk it to death and put it forward to next month's agenda.

And next month never seems to come.

LB - restless in Muskoka

Maybe tomorrow I'll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, the whole world is my home.
     Maybe Tomorrow (Littlest Hobo)

On the other hand, DKS, I was raised in the Christian faith by very faithful parents with a grandfather in the ministry who did his bit to pass on the faith as well and I still ended up leaving (for UU'ism) because my exploration and personal journey took me in another direction. And the faith not being relevant was definitely a factor in my move, because I found that I was getting spiritual wisdom from other places (Lao Tzu, the Gita) and there just ddin't seem to be room for that in the UCC.

While I don't deny that failures by older generations to properly pass on the faith may be part of the problem, I suspect Matt is also right to some extent. In other words, this is a multi-factorial problem. Indeed, the relevance issue is part of your failure to pass on the faith issue in that part of passing the faith on is making it relevant to the recipients. If they don't "get it" in their own terms, it's not going to stick no matter how much you try.

Mendalla

Ah. The Great Protestant Heresy. "It's all about me". That's one place where we fail. It's not about me. It's about a lot more. I've done lots of comparative religion courses. Read the Koran, parts of the Gita, Lao Tzu and so on. Left me cold.

But maybe it doesn't leave others cold and equally others have not had the same opportunity to experience comparative religions - particularly since they have, I believe, been removed from the school curriculum.

Young minds are inquiring minds.  They haven't "been there, done that" and some want the opportunity.  (I suspect there are some old minds that would like the chance as well).

I sat through the most ironical service today.  On the one hand there was much talk about embracing change and seeking out new members; on the other was a service that would have been comfortable in 1908 including the hymns.  The contrast between what was being said and what was being done was huge.

Don't get me wrong, I love the old hymns as much as the 80 year old sitting next to me but in a service that revolved around looking to the future the incongruities left me cold.

LB

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.          Rachel Carson

We saw through the myths our elders grew by in our own youth, under the shadow of the bomb. No doubt in my mind the young see through the mythic structures of our religion.

They grew up in homes with churched moms and dads, parents already well alienated from the core values they enacted habitually. Hobbes being the architect of modern consciousness much more than Luther, Paul or the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we are to find our place in the emergence of youthful enthusiasm for change in social structures, we must be prepared to abandon the structures of social control by which we have been governed to this point.

There's the rub...!

The church has never been an institution of social control in my lifetime. That part of the Christian faith in Canada was long dead by the end of the 1960's.

For a better understanding of the decline of moral social control, read the book Superfreakonomics where the decline of prostitution is documented... and the church had nothing to do with it.

I don't think it's a matter of having lost the millenials as much as not having found them in the first place.  Resistance to change has caused mainstream churches to have largely lost the millenials' parents, and so it will be much more difficult to find the kids. (I SO identify with IBMusk's comments about the ironies involved with pretending to embrace change). I would say that the first step should be to reconnect with their parents. Kids often drop out, but sometimes drop back in later (I certainly did). But there must be a memory of something worth dropping back into.  I'm not so sure that most churches provide that. But they could, as part of an strategy to welcome the "lost sheep".  But that will take real effort.

Then there is the issue of social pressures, and the real hostility there is to anything remotely to do with "church". Having taught in high schools, I have seen this first hand, and my children (and parents' children) can confirm this. My daughter (now doing her master's degree), despite attending church and sunday school faithfully with us, now tells us that she "doesn't believe in all that".  However, when pressed on the matter, it seems that what she is referring to is a rather juvenile, sunday-school "God in the clouds" idea of divinity. And when pressed by her friends (as happens regularly, much more than defending the music she likes, for instance), she has a hard time either formulating or defending that faith.  I do believe that faith needs to mature, and that it probably needs a great deal more reflection than teenagers are willing to invest at that stage of their lives. But what they will want to come back to is not some kind of museum for the faithful. It must speak a language that connects with them, otherwise it won't ring true.

I "came back", but have had to invest a quarter of a century in trying to bring the practices of the church into the 20th century (irony alert: it's now the 21st).  But I'm not prepared to spend the rest of my life satisfied with small gains. Jesus said that if the message isn't accepted,  we should "shake the dust from our feet" and move on. Perhaps we are being called to do just that. Just a taste of the internal issues involved:  when I suggested that we could do more with our congregation's web site, one of the Council commented: "why bother? No one I know uses the web".   (This isn't solely a generational thing: even my children's grandparents use the web). In another era, the comment would have been "no one I know has a phone". If the church insists on clinging to the "trailing edge", we will have lost important opportunities to share our message with this and the next generations.  And you can't communicate if you aren't willing to use the tools at your disposal.  It's also not about shouting "it's not about ME"  - that won't change their attitude.  I remain convinced, however, that what we are called to do is not to simply duplicate the experience of our parents and grandparents. And that means using some of our God-given creativity not only to make a case for the gospel but to find a way of celebrating it in a culturally relevant way.

When Emerging Spirit was first proposed, I raised the point that it is not the GenXers we need to reach but the Baby Boomers (being one myself). My point was neither popular nor well-received. In fact, I was severley put down by some unvolved in Emerging Spirit.

This may be a situational thing. I read a lot of JNAC reports. Many of them seek leadership into some kind of viable web presence or they have placed the JNAC reporton the web itself. Just google JNAC and see what pops up. I know in my own congregation, our web page presence is led by an 80 something woman who was a TV producer, back in the  early days of that media.

The challenge is that too many churches are seeing and using the medium as an end in itself.

I serve on the board of a community mental health service. The staff are actively exploring the use of Facebook and MSN for initial contact with clients and whose who might need service. They have made it crystal clear, however, that this does not and and will not ever replace their primary face-to-face theraputic process. I hear too manyvoices in the church suggesting we abandon what we do for some kind of web engagement. That's just plain stupid.

I profoundly disagree. There are some timeless structures and experiences which have stood the test of millenia. What hubris if somehow we think that the latest and greatest technology or experience is any better. The historic pattern of approach, word and response have met the test of time and experience. Music style may change, but some kind of silly requirement of the use of video is nonsense.

I'd take this one step further and say churches need to connect with the grandparents of the teens and twenties.  I still have the yearnings for meaningful spiritual connection that I had in my youth.  If churches had been offering relevant discussion, courses, activities, I would have been there at some point in my life.

I'm now a grandparent.  I didn't take my children to church because it was so negative about the role of women which is what led me to leaving my congregation.  This was WAY back with me getting turned off in the 50's-60's.  Sure, if asked they'd say 'women are equal' but the lived reality was a different story.  Non acceptance of those with a variety of skin colors was another barrier for me.  At the time I was raising kids I saw no sign that anything had changed for the better.

My adult children have no lived experience of church, just encounters with 'Bible thumpers' threatening them with Hell for not being saved.

Needless to say there children (my grandchildren) don't go to church either.

I briefly attended a congregation in this decade and was rapidly shown that I didn't belong there.  I wasn't missed when I stopped going.  This has been watched and noted by my children and grandchlidren so it is unlikely that they will follow any strange urge to go to church.  

Kay - just so that experience can be avoided, what actions indicated to you that you "didn't belong"? Was it just rampant prejudice, or was there something else in how the members acted?

What our problemi is talking past one another.  As I read the posts there is something in almost all of them that I say Amen to.  It is not that the church or religion is irrelevant as we have not had a theology that affirms deep relationality and experience of the divine.  ( it is out there but most who were trained in Canada got a therapeutic or social activism deism ( or some form of it in combination.) theology and that is past on.  

Our society and culture conspire against letting a bigger  and more vivid story ground and
lead us.   In fact we forget that stories are true even when they are fiction.   A line in The Life of Pi captures this, "dry yeastless factuality," is the mantra of our time.  "Give me the facts" deadens the spirit.    The word of imagination and religion gives a better story.
Again from the life of Pi, "I have a better story that will make you believe in God."

Still we return to yeastless factuality, looking for some immovable images.  Luke shows this in "Let us build some shrines or idols to this moment,"  Peter says.  " Let us capture the moment and bottle it."   He wants to make the mountain into a monument.  A story turned into fact or concrete. He wants to create sacred tents. The danger is that he wants to make those tents into fixed moments, sacred cows, finished and complete, nothing more needed.  He wants to limit geography to one place and one time.
 

My claim is that we gave up or move theology to the academic rather than a life giving conversation about what matters.  Some theologies do ground us.  They help us affirm new technologies ( because they are 'senseless' occasions - always influence the context but without ideas they change us without direction) as an aid to communication.  But the vision helps see the technology not as the end but a means.  We are forced back to what is it we are about.

In fact, the move to relevance has had the counter movement of losing the lure.  We have crafted the church to be relevant to changing fashions - for example to be family centered at the loss of world centered.  Yes we must always be contextual and see our theology as a moveable feast, novel and luring us in new directions.  They must touch our existential reality - and that is hard for our society encourages benign thoughtlessness moving onto  disconcerting thoughflessness.

WE need to reframe and understand our sociology - if the parents dropped out then no wonder there are no youth.  And if our theology is not challenging then what happens is what happened to spirit's daughter - left with the big guy in the sky and that does not work.

Another thing evangelical churches also have a high drop out rate and more to the point are the breeding place for aethiesm.

For me there was a general lack of inclusion - no  one showed any interest in letting me be involved.  I went for quite a while and learned nothing new.  There were no discussion groups, no Bible studies, no sharing thoughts on the sermon, no invitations to anything interesting.

Bibby and Berger in later works and Stark in his last book ( and Clayton and Cobb in their recent works) make the or reinforce the point by implication is that it is not a crisis in relevance but in theology.  Note this quote "While more than 8 in 10 teens say that they have raised the question of the existence of a God or a higher power, at this point in time, only about two-thirds (67%) have concluded “It” exists. The remainder either “don’t think so” (17%) or definitely reject such an idea (16%).
These are not bad “polling” numbers. But they are not as good as God has known in the past, and for a very good reason. Further to my argument at the beginning of the paper, belief in God needs social support"

Whitehead in adventure of Ideas shows how ideas and social systems reinforce one another.  The world becomes through the interaction of idea and context that has arisen out of the history of ideas.  Taylor in a Secular Age shows how immanent frame - collapsing religion into diesm and social action and the moral order ( while having benefits) makes the social support system into reinforcing a form of the status quo and does away with transcendence - This ceated an exclusive humanism where there is no beyond.

Now a return to a supernatural sovereign transcendence (0nly) will not solve our problem but will make it worse for it cannot be defended philosophically.   We need to have or recover the idea of immanence and transcendence - God is in the world and the world is in God and God is more than the world.  Beginning from there we might recover the religious imagination - and using technology illustrate in our worship and actions.

This experience is one that is found in too many congregations - The lack of thinking and exploring the faith has made *the church' a vacuous actuality.  It was not a lack of inclusion ( that may also be the case) but a lack in the religious exploration - deism at work.

Our congregation is people about 80 years of age. Their children are not present, my wife and I represent that whole generation. They are our friends, but they are unchurched. I have wondered aloud why they are not there, having been raised there. I hear over and over again, that it is because they were there and that is why they are not. Ouch! I delve and hear hypocrisy about "The Issue" and an ugliness seen in and between each other. I also hear that the bottom fell out of the theology. The most often and biggest thing I hear is that church is not a good place, that it does not nurture, feed or help. They get more positives from AA, Toastmasters, golf, from family, from hockey....

If I honestly look at things, I too can see the ugliness below the surface, the waters kept still knowing what lurks beneath. I maybe was not caught in the rough waters and thus it is different for me. Perhaps being in those waters, one would have retreated to shore and stayed ashore.

I certainly listen to theology that is so 1950. As such, it bears a message that is not one people my age or younger are interested in.

I heard yesterday in a sermon about "good Christians" who can have bad things happen and forgive and also "forget it ever happened".

It does not match what people know outside the doors, their therapist told them they will never forget (forgive, yes... move past, yes... forget, no) , the UCC itself is saying we understand people cannot just forget what is in our past and is apologizing decades later,  the internet stuff they read said they may never forget.... darn Oprah and Dr. Phil offer up better... so, we leave them like we have for eons thinking if they cannot tow the line, they are "bad" Christians. Then we wonder why when we tell people how bad they are, why they stay away.

If you serve shame and guilt, nobody is going to beat down the door for that.

Right on Stevie

Hi Panentheism, 

Life of Pi is such a wonderful book!  I love the way it works on different levels, and I especially like what it has to say about the role of story.  Another great quote:

"Which story do you prefer?  The one with animals or the one without?"

"If we are to find our place in the emergence of youthful enthusiasm for change in social structures, we must be prepared to abandon the structures of social control by which we have been governed to this point."

Sorry for being unclear, happens when short categorical bursts are all time permits. Let me kick at the can one more time, again briefly.

Mandatory Pension Plan Participation.

Mandatory police record checks.

Mandatory Payroll Plan Participation.

Mandatory Anti-Racism Programs.

Consistent with the liberation given in gospel of Jesus Christ?

Hardly - and the youth of the land see it clear as day.

George I get your point about police checks and anti racism - They make no sense - we got a letter inviting us to the anti racism and then it goes on to say it is attendence will be checked - not an invitation at all.  We need to be aware of our racism but is this the way to go?  Or is a form of big brother?

However, one could argue that the pension plan is how the community takes care of one another - one is not left to take of the retirement time nor is it only a family responsibilty - it is how in practice we work out the 'family' as Paul calls the community - taking care of one another.

Now the payroll is another questions but one could suggest that given the way such things work the cost goes down for most, and yes up for some.  But again is it not sharing the burden that Paul calls us to do?

You forgot to include the mandatory sexual harassment training.

Not to mention the difficulty in actually making it mandatory.  We did the changes to the Sexul Abuse Policy at a PResbytery meeting and plan to do the Racial Justice Training the same way.  But of course there are ministry personnel who never attend -- what are the consequences of not having it?  No one knows.  ANd the Racial Justice Training is really hard to fit into a Presbytery meeting when you only meet 2x a year.

I agree with this, spiritbear.  Their parents, of some a small number might have had a church connection did not raise their children in the church.  It does not mean they are "faithless", it just means they have no connection to, nor no desire to have a connection to the organized, structured church.

"However, one could argue that the pension plan is how the community takes care of one another - one is not left to take of the retirement time nor is it only a family responsibility - it is how in practice we work out the 'family' as Paul calls the community - taking care of one another."

"Now the payroll is another questions but one could suggest that given the way such things work the cost goes down for most, and yes up for some.  But again is it not sharing the burden that Paul calls us to do?"

What you say certainly reflects the common assumption. I think the case can be made that it does exactly the opposite, displacing community care and concern with institutional programs. We may well ask about the security and well being of those who can not pay their way into finacial security programs and so cannot find support in the hour of need.

I find the matter well considered in Ivan Illich's "The Rivers North of the Future". Illich notes the gospel mandate to love in communion with God and persons, expressed as compassionate inclusion as a freely offered life of service. Early in the history of the church, this concept is eclipsed by the establishment of institutions which do the service in my place, freeing me to live just as I wish in the world as it is. The move from justice to charity. I will look through the text and see if I can find some examples to help make the case I have in mind.

"And the Racial Justice Training is really hard to fit into a Presbytery meeting when you only meet 2x a year."

We ought also to be mindful of research indicating that forced compliance specific to education for justice has no reasonable ground for expecting the realization of its objectives, no matter how well meaning those objectives may be.

I am all for the goals we hope to achieve by our 'mandatory' strategies.... I just think that 'mandatory' is not congruent with our gospel of liberty in Christ.

I wonder whether this is a bit like 'official recognition'?  Lets say a congregation know that there members needs support and acknowledgement following a bereavement.  They set up a 'system' and a designated person orders flowers for that person.  They are delivered by the florist shop.  This gives all the the other people permission to totally ignore the bereaved person because they congregation have responded. 

SHHHH, George! You are betraying one of the longest held and deeply treasured assumptions of the United Church! Mandatory Education leads to Proper Thinking!

Well put! The words are, "Well, we sent flowers!"

The problem is that the institutions were created to respond to needs that the community ignored or did not value. Thus the compulsory Pension Plan to force you to set aside money for retirement and the Payroll Plan to address the complete ignorance of some pastoral charges.

I agree that we have not 'lost' them, and think rather we never 'had' them.  But it's a complex situation to analyze and I've thought about it a lot.  Starting in 1964, if you check the stats, we began to lose numbers.  It wasn't because  of something we did wrong! I'm convinced of that!  The churches were full and we were building new ones; there were lots of programs, the New Curriculum included--one of the best things we ever did. We had lots of new music, though much of it didn't stand the test of time (some did!) We changed our language and relaxed our rules and expectations about dress and so on. But everything in our context was changing, and changing fast. More cars, television, other new technologies, more prosperity, cottages, travel, women going to work, more sports programs and so on, I've got a list as long as your arm. Smaller families. More Roman Catholics, having bigger families, and intermarriage meant our families went to the RC church because they demanded it and we didn't know how to argue against that. Many just quit both churches.  All community groups began to shrivel; volunteers were spread thinner as rural depopulation left communities withering; churches and businesses closed and whole towns disappeared.  Each generation has been distinct in character and each has had its reasons for staying away--but let's face it, if you're not brought up in the faith, what (besides the Holy Spirit) is ever going to get you to come to church? Why would you? If you don't know about God, and believe the worst about the churches by reputation, why would you ever go?

The problem we have now is that we didn't know how to do evangelism to the new generations when we really needed to, and the church has responded in typical stressed-institution style, by making new rules, shoring up old frameworks, harping on some issues far too much and others not enough.  So now I find myself in a rural congregation (relatively healthy, thank God, compared to many) which has no young people, but a very devoted and faithful core of older folks who work together well and have a rich life of fellowship and care deeply for one another and are busy volunteers in town besides, but most of the material I get from the church is harping about how we should be changing to suit people who are NOT there and WILL not be there. They're telling me I'm required to take a course in racism. Well, Sask. has 2% of Canada's immigrant population and they're pretty well all in the cities.  They're telling me now we have to have an Officer of the Court in the congregation to direct any sexual harrassment problems (i.e. between me and the 80-yr.-old UCWs). They're trying to force us to pay an extra $250 or more per year to pay ADP to do what our perfectly excellent treasurer does as a volunteer.  For decades we've been hearing about feminism, and the men have abdicated to the point we can't begin to get near 50% representation from men at Presbytery or Conference, and many congregations are very short of men.  Will we turn around and make a rule that there HAVE to be 50% MEN on boards and committees, and faculties? 

We're in a serious crisis here and we're banging on all the wrong drums.  The millenials love myths and stories, but we've allowed them to reject our story!  Why?  They want connection, but they're getting it largely in cyberspace instead of with family and friends in community and at church. Why?  How do we impress them with the story, the fellowship, the joy, the challenge, the purpose, the learning, we enjoy at church? 

help

Within a very good list of issues ....

and highlights the issue of relevancy that the opening article comments on.

Perhaps my impression is wrong but I get the feeling that the denominations, including the UCC, losing the greatest numbers are those attempting to operate like a corporation - with one set of rules to fit all including day to day operations.  This model may work fine for producing cars but it does not work well with service industries where the unique needs and desires of the community sometimes supersede conformity.

Weeze comments that the $250 for the ADP is a burden that the benefits of the programme do not offset.  It is not relevant to their congregation but they are compelled to conform.  It is this form of interference into day to day operations that starts the process of disconnect from the larger organization.

To some this may seem trivial - what is $250 - but to those where such a sum is large it is anything but trivial.  It is here that the need to acknowledge the demands of one community become clear in order to maintain the integrity of the larger whole. 

There are two types of organizations: one that demands conformity of all and the other that operates on flexibility.  The latter requires a lot of faith - faith in the foundational structure that it can support the organization and faith in the people within the organization to achieve the goals.

I believe that the UCC could flourish with a flexible model; the foundation is strong and the people are capable.  All that is needed is a little faith.

LB

Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.          Thomas J. Watson, Sr

I've been reading this post with interest. Some excellent points have been brought forward, but it still makes me "beg the question", "What is more important? Ensuring the UCC (or any church that is not growing) survives or the belief in what God wants us to do?

Two church groups that spring to mind are the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Community. I'm not sure if they are a "growing church" or not, but whenever I even just say their names, I immediately coincide these names with a body of people that are "called" to serve the community. They are examples of a few churches that I see actively placing themselves amongst the "less fortunate" on a consistent basis and I think even the unchurched would say this. Their name is synonomous with helping. These churches don't just raise money for aid they actually enact their beliefs with their physical presence. (build barns, clean up after tornados, floods.set up food for the workers,etc....) They are more prepared than FEMA!

I'm wondering, is it so wrong to ask from any member that belongs to a church for more than a year that they MUST include a committment of some sort to reach outside of the church walls and contribute to society (such as the food bank, ministering to shutins or single moms/dads, natural disasters...) in Christs name?

More and more I am becoming convinced that people want to be directed in some way as to how they can help beyond the church and if someone doesn't approach them with a need they could fulfill they lose interest with just the worshipping and singing and "social aspect". Even the less fortunate seem to want to "give back" in some way. I truly believe that tapping into the area of "service" is key. To me it doesn't matter how many people you have in a church, but how effective you are within the community with what you've got. One way to recognize if you're walking the talk is how the community in general perceives you. Just conducting a poll and asking people what they think of when the UCC(or any church) is mentioned should give one a huge clue as to the reality of the image that is being conveyed.

Being active with our faith by serving is essential because just sitting in church and enclosing our faith with only the church walls and each other, stagnates Gods purpose.

Yes, waterfall, I'm scratching around in my imagination wondering how the church as we are now, can be the church in the world--DOING something, regardless whether folks are coming in on Sunday morning...really need to break out of the mold we've been in (of course if you take a few minutes to delve through your congregation's history, you realize how much we have changed with the times, but we haven't really met the challenges).  Our particular congregation has a pretty good reputation in the community but the younger generations don't know or don't care. They want to use us occasionally but not make any kind of commitment whatever--and when I think of how much there is to learn about the faith and the church, how long it takes to grow into a healthy spirituality, I think, "that's a major commitment." You can't just nip in now and again and expect it to offer any kind of satisfaction or fulfillment.  The church doesn't GIVE you that. The church helps you grow into and find that. You have to be part of it.  And I think, the more rules we make, the further back we slide. BUT we have been taken advantage of rather seriously (again, as Christians we can expect that, we give and give and give) but in a consumer culture we don't like that. We expect to get what we pay for, and when a few members are supporting a congregation to meet a $100,000 /year budget, they don't want to be used by folks who never darken the door between weddings, or ever offer 5 cents in financial support. It's a hell of a conundrum.

Hello weeze,

Thank you for your comments, they resonate with my experience. I began as a lay leader in rural Manitoba. The community was struggling with many issues related to land use and the centralization of social structures, leaving small third and fourth generation communities vulnerable to many social costs. For example, regional mega-stores displacing long standing community merchants and service providers.

In this context our small pastoral charges, I served on four, received communique after communique pressing congregations to process and actions of little or no immediate concern, requiring energy we could barely muster for sustaining local initiative and enterprise. My reading of the phenomenon suggest 'Upper Canada'  bureaucratic necessity trumping lived experience in rural Manitoba. To be sure, it will be perceived and presented quite differently from those vested in such bureaucratic necessities; governance being no easy task.

I won't go on, having intended only to appreciate your insight and concern.

Thank you for the clear assessment of the matter and its implications. Also appreciate your affirmation, with which I fully agree.

LB and GeoFee, we understand each other!  I suspect now that more than ever, Toronto thinks it is all of Canada. The stuff they send us is so inappropriate to our context, it's almost laughable.  A recent example--last April I prepared an article for the Observer about the rich number of lay leaders we have in our congregations, and they edited the article and I reluctantly agreed to some of their suggestions, but then they changed it from: "Lay Preachers: Filling the Gap, or Leading the Way?" to, "Substitute Preachers".  I would not have approved that change; we don't use those terms; it sounded insulting to our folks, and reflected a kind of clericalism from a place that doesn't value their lay leaders as we do.

And at Epiphany Explorations, a fellow named Michael from the GC preached and told us that part of the reason for the formation of the United Church was to form a bastion against Roman Catholicism.  WHAT??? On the prairies where the movement started, there was no whiff of that!?!?  We scolded him for not checking his sources. Several times I have run into this now, the inability for the mega-city east to fathom what our context is...

But we can ignore that, mostly. We have bigger problems. Like figuring out what God wants us to do now.

weeze,"Yes, waterfall, I'm scratching around in my imagination wondering how the church as we are now, can be the church in the world--DOING something, regardless whether folks are coming in on Sunday morning...really need to break out of the mold we've been in (of course if you take a few minutes to delve through your congregation's history, you realize how much we have changed with the times, but we haven't really met the challenges).  Our particular congregation has a pretty good reputation in the community but the younger generations don't know or don't care. They want to use us occasionally but not make any kind of commitment whatever--and when I think of how much there is to learn about the faith and the church, how long it takes to grow into a healthy spirituality, I think, "that's a major commitment." You can't just nip in now and again and expect it to offer any kind of satisfaction or fulfillment.  The church doesn't GIVE you that. The church helps you grow into and find that. You have to be part of it.  And I think, the more rules we make, the further back we slide."

Yes it's interesting how we seem to be able to determine what is needed for other cultures in a different part of the world (water, wells, teach agriculture, etc...with no expectation of reciprication.) but we are unable to determine what is needed to bring the young into our own churches within our own culture. Do we necessarily have to bring them "into the building" to be the church for them? Or is the first step akin to being missionaries to our young and teach?The gap may have become too great to expect the first step to be "come to church" for some. 

 Weeze, "BUT we have been taken advantage of rather seriously (again, as Christians we can expect that, we give and give and give) but in a consumer culture we don't like that. We expect to get what we pay for, and when a few members are supporting a congregation to meet a $100,000 /year budget, they don't want to be used by folks who never darken the door between weddings, or ever offer 5 cents in financial support. It's a hell of a conundrum."

Yes we tend to think the maitenance and appearances of great structures (churches) give us more credence and acceptability as a legitimate religion don't we? A church that functions out of a rented space in the mall appears dysfunctional----and yet............how freeing that would be in some ways. To be able to start again and value people for their spiritual gifts and not just the monetary gifts they could contribute. Unrealistic, at this stage of the game for most established churches. Perhaps this becomes the life cycle in the life and death of some churches. Everything seems more invigorating in the beginning and the middle until money and financial woes begin to take precedence and we begin to think of new members as a financial resource.

We may consider Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus under cover of darkness. He is wholly immersed in a milieu of rule fetishism, probably quite aware of the inadequacy of that dominant understanding and increasingly curious concerning the alternative Jesus makes present authorized only by the Spirit.

Waterfall says: "Yes we tend to think the maitenance and appearances of great structures (churches) give us more credence and acceptability as a legitimate religion don't we? A church that functions out of a rented space in the mall appears dysfunctional----and yet............how freeing that would be in some ways."

Yeah, waterfall, but it's the building and the building alone that the folks want when they're coming to get married here...so it's still a conundrum.  We don't have a fancy place; but you can bet they wouldn't be coming to us if we were just any ordinary space...

We're not maintaining it to impress anybody; we're keeping it up because it's our responsibility and we have no way out. We can't sell it. If we gave it away, no one would want it. What are we supposed to do?

That was a very encouraging report from my perspective.  I've quoted what I think are the most significant findings below:

Those numbers aren't quite as high as I would have expected them for teens, but at least they're moving in the right direction.  With education and time, kids today are abandoning the faith of their parents, mostly because they just don't believe.

You can debate about who should "reach out" and to what extent, but they just don't believe.  And based on what you can truthfully tell them, they aren't going to believe.  These kids aren't stupid.