Rob Crosby-Shearer on his blog “waiting for the believers,” has issued a stirring call to Christians to consider how we might respond to the reality that “there is trouble afoot” in the church.
Basing his thoughts on the work of Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze, Rob outlines three responses to the challenges confronted by the church:
1. We could “bail on the organization/denomination/parish/ congregation/ community.” Rob sees the attraction in this option but offers a stern warning that there may be drawbacks to just walking away.
2. We could simply give in to “apathy,” stay in, keep the machinery turning over and find our spiritual nourishment elsewhere. This response Rob suggests is simply not an option we can entertain with credibility “if we are called to be passionate followers of Jesus Christ.”
So, is there a third way that might make it possible to stay within the church while resisting the danger of being overwhelmed by the tradition, and bureaucracy that can cause dynamic ministry to sink into stasis?
3. Rob holds out the possibility of staying connected to the established institutional expressions of Christian faith, while we “walk the edge” in pioneering ways that “build new systems which nurture deep community,” while continuing to “take care of each other and ourselves.” See Rob’s whole post at: http://waitingforthebelievers.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/walk-out-walk-on-and-the-death-of-the-church/
Numbers 1 and 2 are the cheap easy choices. They resolve the tension of dealing with the often difficult realities of community life by wandering in the spiritual ozone without deep commitment trying to create a spirituality that suits our individual tastes. But they also miss the richness that is available if we can hold together and work out new ways of being.
So how do we avoid #’s 1 & 2 and move to #3.
In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton famously promised that “the gate of heaven is everywhere.” But, as much as we may long to see “the gate of heaven,” we need always to keep Merton’s caution in mind when he admitted, “I have no program for this seeing.”
The deep renewal of the church is less about what we do than it is about how we do what we do. And we will only get the how of church right when everything we do is deeply rooted in Christ. There is no preset program that can guarantee to usher all communities through “the gate of heaven” into the promised land of relevant dynamic ministry in the context in which we find ourselves at this time.
The crisis of the church is more a crisis of culture than curriculum. If we are going to move forward it will only be as we develop an ethos that starts from a profound awareness of God’s presence and action at work in our lives, in the church, throughout the world, and in all of creation.
We need to develop hearts that perceive where the Spirit is moving in our experience and wills that long to cooperate with that work. There may be “no program for this seeing.” But there are practices we can adopt that have the capacity to make us more susceptible to perceive where the wind of the Spirit may be stirring.
Our hearts will open as we let go of our agendas, needs, desires, pre-determined ideas about what must be/ought to be/ should be, and spend time listening. The practices of an open heart begin with deep trust in Christ and proceed with gentleness, flexibility, silence, stillness, surrender, and courage. We need to find inner stillness and open to the mysterious work of God all around.
The church will sing with the vibrancy of God’s Spirit, when our hearts sing with the awareness of the power of Love that sustains the universe. For this truly there is no program.
In A Spacious Place 
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January 10, 2013 at 8:42 am
Steve
Well said.
I ran across this article a few days ago “A Subversive Appeal for Religious Reform” by Joseph Loconte, Ph.D. in which he discusses the book “The Praise of Folly,” a satirical critique of the church by humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam published in 1512. Reading this article gave me a new perspective on statements like “‘there is trouble afoot’ in the church”. This passage make it sound like Erasmus had the same conviction as you in regard to the crisis in the church.
“‘The Praise of Folly’ laments the decay of vital Christianity. Legalistic religion, he insists, had failed to transform the human heart. The problem was not sectarian zeal. The problem was the decline of genuine, heartfelt faith”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-loconte-phd/a-subversive-appeal-for-religious-reform_b_2369619.html
January 10, 2013 at 8:42 pm
John
Similar thoughts have been on my mind since last Fall, and I turned to Diana Butler Bass’ new book Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (New York, NY: HarperOne) to see some focused analyses and answers: http://www.dianabutlerbass.com/books-mainmenu-4/132-christianity-after-religion.
I finished carefully reading the book over the Christmas break. Being an American, she likes statistics and anecdotes and turns out – unsurprisingly – to be an optimist … In general – she says – everything is okay. Deep cultural trends are pushing us toward spirituality on a global scale.
Is Bass’ vision of the present and the future a bit on the cheery side? Perhaps …
I’ll share a few quotes from her book below, but I would add that it’s not just the church that is in trouble: most of our modern institutions are either failing us or highly dysfunctional. This is true of our schools, many of our hospitals, our political system, our economy, the environment, our culture, our technology … we are passing through a generalized cultural crisis. I wonder if we need answers not just for church, but for the culture at large?
So, here are those quotes:
“Religious expression is not immutable; it changes all the time. Faith roils right along with other global pressures. Christianity is no exception to the historical transformation of our times, and to view faith as either irrelevant to or outside of the purview of global cultural change is foolish.” (p. 7)
“… the Western world has grown weary of doctrine … Christianity itself is changing – shifting away from being a belief-centered religion toward an experiential faith.” (pp. 108-109)
“Christianity was never intended to be a system or structure of belief in the modern sense; it originated as a disposition of the heart.” (p. 119)
“Experiential belief is integrated belief, that which brings back together capacities of knowing that modernity ripped apart. It is only in the territory of the heart where faith makes sense.” (p. 128)
“The Christian tradition speaks of progress in [spiritual] practice as maturity … The path to Christian sainthood … may be a matter of putting in the time to practice … churches should not be lecture halls. They should be more like a yoga class.” (p. 166)
“Conventional religion is failing and a new form of faith, which some call ‘spirituality’ and can also be called religio, is being born. This is a new spiritual awakening … part of a complex web of spiritual renewal throughout the world, which is in the process of reshaping most religions by emphasizing relationships, practices, and experience that connects people to a deeper awareness of self, to their neighbours in global community, and to God.” (p. 259)
January 10, 2013 at 10:58 pm
Karlos
John 17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
The only thing that will bring the Church back from the brink, is returning whole-heartily to God’s Word. Adhering to His commandments… sanctifies us from the deeds, values and lifestyles seen in this last generation, as it did for a time Israel of old.
However, when it comes to paying the price, many Churches find the cost far too high, and so compromising with the values, standards and deeds of the World, are, apart from the trappings.. indistinguishable from the World.
Psalm 11:3
When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
We aught always to remember that we follow Christ and not the Church, thus if a Church departs from His commandments, then we must depart from that Church, that we might remain in Christ from whom we draw our strength. For unless we remain in the vine, we the branches cannot bare fruit, and shall be cut-off and cast into the fire.
John 15:4
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Jesus warned us that much of the visible Church, would become apostate…
Matthew 13:31-33
31- He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.
32- Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
33 – He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
I believe that the C of E already has many ‘birds’ perched in its boughs… and the lump is almost leavened. She is becoming a ‘type’ of last-days Babylon.
Revelation 18:2
With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
The C of E has brought so many souls to salvation, when its light burned true and bright. That pure light neither not hid nor obscured sin… but revealed it for what it was, so much so that those who chose another… way did so knowingly.
No so today, for its flame sheds an unsure light, shifting and casting ever changing shadows… to the point that those peering in, no longer know what is acceptable before a Holy God and what is pleasing in His sight.
How I pray that we will turn with our whole hearts, and by adhering to His Word keep His commandments.
John 14:15
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.
January 11, 2013 at 9:50 pm
Rob
I cannot publish such knowledge and prose as shown above though I have to believe if Jesus said follow me and when two of more of you are together pray to the Father, an approximate.
We have gone out to multiply and bring the Good Word and of course as man we established a church to belong to with like believers.
We now live in a complicated world and are in touch with other believers much quicker than prior, The days for the CoE to wait six months for the next ship to arrive and new instructions or books or persons for support and growth are gone.
Many of us in the Church broke away as we found a slight different interpretation as Christians and so went forward to establish a new Church but still with Jesus’s teachings. CoE clings us together from all aspects of the World and trying for agreements further than the base core beliefs of following Jesus is a challenge.
I believe the key is at the grassroots we open our hearts and minds that the total scripture is not cast in stone , we adjust to what the Living God tells us today as we follow our hearts in todays interaction with ourselves and our neighbours.
My words are not as rich as yours , my view
Cheers