This post is a portion of a longer posting by Priest-in-Training, Jared Cramer. I could not resist sharing it.
You know those folks who point to the decline of mainline Christianity as a
sign of its rejection of God’s will, claiming that it is not transforming people
the way non-denominational evangelical Christianity does?
Well, I for one have never bought it. I don’t know about others, but I know
that being in the Episcopal Church has changed me in some profoundly good ways
(e.g., On Not Having It My Way).
When I was in Israel I read Diana
Butler Bass‘ book Christianity
for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith.
The book description sums it up well:
For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America’s mainline Protestant
churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and
religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is
the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive
churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite, that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so
without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style.
Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon and offers a how-to
approach for Protestants eager to remain faithful to their tradition while
becoming a vital spiritual community. As Butler Bass delved into the rich
spiritual life of various Episcopal, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ,
Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran churches, certain consistent
practices, such as hospitality, contemplation, diversity, justice, discernment,
and worship, emerged as core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover
authentic Christian faith and witness today.
When I was a campus minister for a Church of Christ in Abilene, I started
leading a morning prayer service on the campus of Abilene Christian University.
I had long been drawn to monastic spirituality and was intrigued by the idea of
the Daily Office. I went online to see what I could find and eventually came
across a site
that arranged the Office for you with the appropriate prayers and readings for
each day. It even alternated the canticles.
I wasn’t familiar with the canticles, but the rest of the service looked
great. I started cutting and pasting it into a Word document until I put
together a service leaflet that included the entire service. I substituted
common hymns and praise songs for the canticles and reserved the Chapel on the Hill for
7:00 AM every morning, Monday through Wednesday. I posted signs on campus and
showed up for that first service. I think two people came, one of them being my
roommate. The second day it was two or three again, this time one was a girl in the undergraduate
bible program who told me she was an Episcopalian–a tradition that I was not
terribly familiar with.
After the first week I decided to do it Monday through Friday. Every morning
at 7:00 AM I gathered with two or three other students in the chapel and said
morning prayer, singing worship songs within the set service. By the end of the
semester it certainly hadn’t grown at all, but I thought it was a good ministry
to have with those students. Including the time for the service, it took up
about 6 hours of my part-time work week.
Then I sat down with the senior minister for the congregation along with one
of the elders of the church. We had met to have lunch and discuss how my first
semester had gone. I went through everything I was involved in, how the
different programs I had worked with went, and my general feelings regarding
campus ministry in this congregation. One thing that stuck out to this elder was
that morning prayer service.
“You mean to tell me that only two or three students come? And that sometimes
it’s just you and one other student?” he asked me, a bit confused.
“That’s right,” I said. “I know the numbers aren’t high, but I think it is
good. There is a night and day difference in my own spirituality since I started
doing this every morning. I think the students that come appreciate it as
well.”
“Well,” he responded, “Two or three students isn’t a lot. It seems to me that
it’s not the best way for you to use your time.”
We went back and forth, I got particularly angry that the only thing he
seemed to care about was a mathematical equation between the hours I put in
during the week and how many students were impacted by those hours. He just
simply could not see the benefit of a service that only had a couple of people
attending. So I walked out of Los Arcos restaurant with my tail between my legs
and canceled the whole thing.
I think that one of the students who had attended regularly may have kept it
going for a while. I’m not sure.
Towards the beginning of the spring semester I had realized that I had been
doing the Morning
Prayer service from the Episcopal Church’s Book of
Common Prayer. At the end of the fall semester I had attended the local
Episcopal parish’s 8:00 AM Rite I Eucharist a few times, in the spring semester
I began to attend it regularly. You can imagine my surprise when I started
attending morning prayer at the parish and found that it was usually only myself
and the officiant.
A year or so later I was talking to Fr. Scott about it. We had some bad
weather and most churches in town canceled. Fr. Scott sent out a message urging
everyone to stay home instead of driving on the icy roads, but noted, “We’ll
still have services.” He said that sometimes just being here, being open and
available, is what is required for faithfulness. That our commitment to being
here and doing the church with care and intentional hospitality is more
important than how many people show up.
So I don’t think numbers are the end of it. And Bass’s research seems to
confirm that opinion.
However, it is still nice to know when the numbers do work in your direction.
Sewanee
(b)log points to a news article in The Age entitled: World
Anglican Church growing again (forgive the inaccurate use of “Church”, just
substitute “Communion” if you must),
The Anglican Church is now growing again, after a generation of steep
decline, according to the worldwide church’s top bureaucrat.
Anglican Communion general secretary Kenneth Kearon said the global church
now had 85 million members, and though most of the growth was in Africa and
Asia, the church in Europe and the United States had ‘turned the
corner’.
I’ve long believed that the particular Episcopalian approach to Christianity
is one that should draw people in, that if more people were aware that this was
a possible way of practicing Christianity, we’d probably have a sizable group of
interest. And though the article just says that we’ve “turned the corner” and
fails to give some statistics, it is encouraging that maybe people are finding
out about our church and responding in positive ways.
Numbers surely aren’t the most important. Indeed, numbers can be downright
misleading when it comes to areas of faithfulness, pastoral presence, and
hospitality. Perhaps, though, this turning a corner is a good thing. Perhaps it
indicates that there is more to this TEC story that is yet to be told.
I think that just might be the case.
Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all
truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is
in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is
right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided,
reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen
This is not only a time to remember that there is a thin boundary, set between the living and the dead, it can be a time to contemplate that which is coming for all of us. I think that too often Christians think that Eternity is some spiritual existence, all fluffy white with harps and wings. But that doesn't seem to be what the Scriptures tell us.
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