Why the Mainline is dying?

In the most recent book I have begun to undertake, Almost Christian (you can see the book cover and link to the right of this post in the "goodreads" box), the author Kenda Creasy Dean makes several arguments about the current state of affairs in the Church.  While this entry is not a critique about the entire book (of which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to understand not the future but the current state of the Church), I did want to share one aspect of the book which connected with me deeply.

The argument is that there are some youth who are very devoted to the Church and the mission and ministry of the Christian Way (about 8%) and there are four characteristics these youth possess that other youth do not in regards to the Church:

1.     A Creed to believe 

2.     A Community to belong

3.     A Call to live out

4.     A Hope to hold onto

Of those youth in this category there is a higher proportion of LDS (Mormon) church members than any other denomination.  The next most represented denomination in this "devoted" category are members of Evangelical Non-Denoms.  The Mainline is the next represented group, with Catholics near the bottom of the list.  

As I reflect on my local community of faith, we take a lot of pride in fostering the second of the four characteristics.  We use words like 'family', 'connect', 'belong', 'fellowship' and even 'get together' a lot in our faith community.  While not nearly as dominate, we also take some pride in the first characteristic of the four and put a lot of effort in making sure we are teaching 'good theology' striving to remain 'open' to different theological perspectives, and using gender neutral language for God as best as we can.

However, these third and forth characteristics are hidden at best in my faith community.  I do not believe this is intentional at all.  We do not disregard Call/Vocation or Hope/Future but these seem to take a backseat to our Creed/Teachings and Community/Family emphasis.  And it I wonder if this imbalance actually firmly locates my faith community in the past/present unable to advance into the future and vision?

It seems to me the ability to call people to live a certain way or the ability to share a certain hope for the future is understood as “divisive” by some who want to foster a community and a common creed.  It is difficult for some to see how we can be “divisive” and also maintain a community and a unified creed.  So these individuals,, for the sake of Community and Creed, do not spend much time on potentially “divisive” issues of Call and Future.

Could this be one of the reasons the Mainline Church is on the decline?  We are living in the past and present out of a potentially “divisive” future?  

FEAR OF FAILURE TO EMBRACING OF FAILURE

Previous posts have looked at what it means to shift from being Church focused to becoming Kingdom focused and shifting from maintenance leadership to missional leadership. All of these efforts are in an effort to explain what it means to be a “cultural architect” in the life of the church. This installment invites us to look at something that every successful group in the history of the world has understood. We all know the story of the invention of the light bulb, specifically the number of failed attempts it took Edison to perfect what he was looking for. (As a sidebar, Edison did not create the light bulb but only improved it. Humphrey Davy actually is credited for “inventing” it.) It is not a matter of needing to share about the need to “get back on the horse that bucked you”, it is a matter of recognizing that we need to find the bucking horses! The Church has a bit of a reputation for playing it safe and looking “old fashioned” (take a look at the book Unchristian), and it might very well be rooted in our fear of failing. As argued in previous columns, the fear of failure is directly tied to the Church’s felt need to get members of the institution rather than seek to make disciples of Jesus Christ. When we are seeking members over Disciples everything we do will be pushed through the lens of “will this upset or drive people away”? Jesus did many things which did not make people feel very warm and fuzzy (driving out the money changers, pointing out the woman at the wells situation, not throwing stones at another woman, ignoring Pilate’s questions, etc.). God’s desire is not that we build up a wonderful institution with many members. Rather it is God’s desire that we build up the many members of the body of Christ! It is our call by Christ to go out into the world and Make Disciples, but it is hard to make disciples when we are fearful that we might fail and people might leave the institution. Of course this does not mean we fail for the sake of failing, but that we learn to fail forward. When (not if) we fail we must fail in such a way to learn from our failures so that we can advance the Kingdom of God. Perhaps one of the greatest numbers we do not count in the UMC is the number of failures we have had. I would argue that the rate in which we fail forward is directly tied to the amount of growth a community of faith sees. So the question is, have you failed forward this week/month/year?

Wanna travel through time. Fear the future.

For the first time in many years (the vast majority of my life) I do not have to prepare for classes. With the completion of my Masters in May of this year, this is the first time I can recall when I do not have the pending doom of class to countdown my summer to.

However, Estee still has her countdown to her classes. She will graduate in December of this year so this makes for her last semester.

As she and I were talking the other day and she said something that I have said in the past but not really thought about it.

"Uh. Class starts in like two weeks. This summer has gone by so fast. I cannot believe it is over."

Possibly the only reason I even made note of this comment was because I noticed that I did not feel the same way. My summer had not gone by fast at all. In fact I was excited for the summer to be over!

It could be that she and I had different summer experiences and thus made time 'move' differently for each of us. Or it could also be the more we worry/fear the future the more quickly time seems to pass us by.

Estee not only begins her last semester but also moves to a full time position in the beginning of September. These both are high stress anxiety laden events. Time moved quickly.

I am just doing what I am doing with no big changes in the coming future. Time moved slow.

Although this is not the most thought out of ideas and could be written more eloquently, the point is made. If we fear the future, does time move by us faster than if we do not fear the future?

What are the implications of those theologies which use fear as a way of behavior modification? What are the implications of those theologies which focus on dismaying fear?

Do you fear the future? How is time moving for you?