Fifty years of gray

I was outside the church for basically 22 years. I was in the world, in corporate America, in the Godless society that is journalism. When I came back to the church, I came back with a new DNA, basically.

I came back with hues of the world and the culture I had lived in and I came back with strains of the church I grew up in. That blend is what I've lived for 16 years. I believe we all live into what we know and think to be true, no matter how many seminars we attend or lessons we learn. We are a very subtle mixture of what the Bible says, what we say, what culture says. All of us, from the most learned progressive to the most stubborn traditionalist, lean on what we know, what we've known and what beliefs we've been taught or we've absorbed.

Can we change? Of course. Redemption is all about change brought about by the agent of change, the Holy Spirit.

And some of that DNA, that old-time religion, is strangling the church, the mainline church that is suffering numbers-wise.

Tom Ehrich writes this for Christianity Today, "This will be year 50 in the decline of American mainline Protestantism. The decline is a source of pain and anxiety among church leaders. Church doors are closing faster than they are opening. The decline has many factors, but in general, was caused by churches' doomed efforts to stay the same even as the surrounding world changed. That means year 50 brings good news: The ranks of this who remember 1957 -- the high-water mark of mainline Protestantism, which ran out of gas around 1965 -- are dwindling. Gone -- or going -- are those who remember when Sunday worship was enough, when being in church was comfortable and fun (mainly because we were children), when we had the world's respect and when belonging didn't require much. Now fresh ideas and younger leaders can operate more freely, taking us beyond comforts of childhood."

Fifty years of gray. Nights of longing. Days of slumping. Mainline Protestantism, which is where I landed after spending formative childhood in an off-shoot of Wesley called Holiness Church of God.

The irony is we've been talking about how to fix this so long we're starting to feel like the boy who cried wolf, when in fact the wolf has been attacking the sheep for decades.

Maybe down-sizing and simply starting a new model is the answer. Maybe circling the wagons never was going to work. Maybe trying harder really, really isn't the answer. Maybe training and going to seminar after seminar and conference after conference isn't the key. Maybe working longer hours and praying harder and longer and, and, and ...

The pure answer is we don't know exactly what to do or we would do it, for we all long to turn this ship around, and the iceberg still sits out there in the dark of night waiting for us.

Fifty years of gray, and we're still doing Sunday School when no one really wants to be there. Fifty years of gray, and young folks don't necessarily seem to want to come to small groups during the week. Fifty years of gray, and lectures don't work.

What does?

(Here's my feelings and opinion, which no one in their right mind would pay too much attention to, though I believe we need to get out of our right minds on occasion).

Missions and meals. The mission is the people. The meal is what Jesus told us to remember him by. Mixing the two, feeding the people physically and spiritually, is the ideal.

I believe younger folks want to help others. I believe younger parents are very interested in how to raise children more wisely. I believe feeding the homeless and helpless and hungry is the way to make a difference. I believe youth programs that are both fun and meaningful make a difference. I believe relevant music can bring with it a moment of clarity. I believe heart-felt sermons still matter. And I believe we need to be out of our buildings as often as we are out of our minds.

I believe the church needs to be more loving than judging. I believe we need to reach out more often than we reach in.

And in honor of one Andre Crouch, who died yesterday at the age of 72, through it all, through it all, we need to be able to explain to one other person (who then explains it to one or two or three) why Jesus matters to us and what difference having a relationship with him has made in our lives. Matrix doesn't count. Numbers don't matter. Lives do.

If we can't do those things, maybe even putting a little color into the next 50 years of the church, it won't matter. We will have some awfully nifty office buildings where some awfully meaningful church buildings used to stand.