“It seems to me that the biggest hindrance to mainline churches in Canada is a wishy-washy stance on the resurrection. Without resurrection, there is no hope past the grave. Without resurrection, death is the end.
Is that why so many denominations are holding onto crumbling buildings and keeping on life support congregations that should have long ago died? Without the belief that God can do a new thing, or that the dead can be raised to new life, we’re only left with the sheer force of will required to preserve that which has been until now.”
Andrew Stephens-Rennie posted this brief but provocative thought on Empire Remixed this week, and I wanted to share the idea here. Is he onto something? Are we mainlining Presbys wishy-washy on resurrection? Are our small congregations in large buildings a mark of our reluctant faith in God’s new creation?
I’m a little troubled with the defeatist attitude under pinning this. Let it die so that God can work. With that thought, we aren’t too far from abandoning any field of effort when the going gets tough because God can work things better than you can. Yes, it’s true. God can. But often God works the seemingly impossible through the efforts of the hopeless.
Still I think that Andrew is right to call us all on our apparent fear of death. If churches exhibit fear, where are we going to witness courage? And sometimes, perhaps even often, it can be said that the passions and resources of a particular grouping of people would better serve God if they were linked to those of another community, rather than fighting the good fight alone. But, at the same time, I think that we are not—institutionally—called to run towards death. Even when death seems inevitable. Instead, we are called to live boldly, to listen for God’s calling in our context, and to spend our talents and our gifts wisely. And I think that our churches, in whatever state they may be, are often seen to be gifts and spaces where our talents might be multiplied.
This question of faith and resurrection rings profoundly right now for me. I have recently taken on a new job. I am working at St Columba’s Church of Scotland in London as congregational development worker. Basically, that means I am the lay member of the ministerial team, filling in whatever gaps I can, be they in program or pastoral duties. One of those duties will likely be conducting funerals. Which is something that I haven’t done before. I have lists of appropriate texts and hymns, and I have the wonderful support of the rest of the ministerial team, but I know that when I am called to conduct a funeral for the first time, I am going to be relying on the God-given strength of the surrounding community. Wishy-washy doesn’t cut it, then. Together, we proclaim the resurrection, just as together we live it out. And some of our traditional mainline structures give us the strength to do just that. Jacqui Foxall, associate minister at Knox Church in Oakville, reminded me this week that a funeral is service of celebration of the Resurrection, and a time to give thanks for the life and witness of one particular member of the body of Christ.
Amen to that, and thanks for the teaching.
What a great connection Andrew Stephens-Rennie has made with Resurrection of people and Churches. Dying Churches. Yup, we see them all around us. When I was at a Museum Conference this week, I was astonished at the number of Church buildings that are now being donated to Museums. Their reasoning? The congregation is old and can’t maintain the build but, for them, the building must be preserved as a Spiritual Beacon for others. Interesting reasoning huh. No minister, no congregation, no worship but a Beacon it remains for all to view. At no time in any Museum’s past (no pun intended) have so many Churches been donated to Museums. Does this mean Christianity is dying? Not at all. This is a time of resurrection (what great thinking with Advent weeks away huh).
Rev Peter Bush has written an amazing book on exactly what Andrew Stephens-Rennie comments. “In Dying We Are Born” by Alban Institute. Rev Peter Bush offers a powerful challenge to this approach, arguing that for new life, energy, and passion to arise in congregations, they must die—die to one way of being the church in order that a new way may rise.
Bush identifies two types of dying congregations. Some congregations need to close their doors, bringing to an end years of ministry. Other congregations need to dramatically change their culture and ways of doing ministry. Such change may not entail literally closing the congregation’s doors, but it will require people giving up deeply held understandings of the life and purpose of the congregation. All congregations, Bush contends, even ones that see themselves as healthy, need to be prepared to die, to take up their cross, so God can make them alive.
A skillful storyteller, Bush shows readers why churches must confront their mortality. He examines the role of the prophetic leader, who proclaims both the congregation’s death and its resurrection. He explores spiritual practices and the habits of wonder, remembering, and risk taking for congregations that know they are dying—or need to die. Only by dying, Bush says, will a congregation find resurrection life, given by God who raises the dead to life. Indeed. (And thanks to Alban Institute for the blurb on Rev Peter Bush’s book).
And a huge congrats upon your new vocation Katie. What an awesome joy for ministry. Indeed I heartily agree with Rev Jacqui Foxall that each Funeral and each death is a Celebration of Resurrection. The Celebrant’s problem always is, how does one share the Celebration of Resurrection with people to whom the Celebrant doesn’t know? A quick answer is by being a Beacon…. just be there. And over time each Celebrant will find a liturgy that soothes the suffering and heals the wounded.
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Katie – Reflecting on my own remarks, and especially in light of this post, I might choose to reframe what I said.
God can and does work in the most bleak situations. God proves this to us time and again. And yet, what I was hoping to get at was that we have many churches have ceased Practicing Resurrection.
It is possible to practice resurrection in a small country church or a large urban congregation. And yet, we have fallen out of practice of letting certain things (practices, programs, etc.) die to permit new things to grow and to flourish. We need good compost to grow the garden, y’know?
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Katie Munnik Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for this reframing. You are right, we do need compost. And I like the idea of “practising resurrection.” I was concerned that the idea might prompt us to seek release from difficult situations rather than to keep standing and serving. But I think so much depends here (and in all things) on faithfully listening for God where we are, and with those who surround us there.
Matt Brough had some interesting thoughts that also furthered this discussion: http://mattbrough.posterous.com/threatened-with-resurrection
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