Gradye Parsons asks the wrong questions

If you are a member of the PCUSA, then you are probably reading the most recent statistics regarding how many people have left the denomination.  

What jumped off the page at me was not the numbers, but the questions Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons thinks are important to ask in response to the membership loss. 

Parsons insisted that “Presbyterians can be evangelists!”
“But we often stumble over the words. Can we not challenge one another to be able to answer these basic questions,” he said. “Why do I believe in God? Why do I go to church? Why do I go to that particular church?”

Of course Presbyterians can be evangelists, but how eloquent we are (or are not) is not the issue.  Dallas Willard spoke about this to a group sponsored by Presbyterian Global Fellowship at the Jesus Way Renovare Conference.  He said, the question for people in the postmodern world is not what is true but what is real.  To be effective witnesses of the Gospel, it is not what we can posit or defend theologically (although that remains important). Rather, to be effective witnesses of the Gospel in today's culture requires authenticity, deep relationships, and sacrificial action for the sake of others.  In other words, we can no longer enjoy the luxury of separating our thinking from our doing. This is much more eloquently flushed out in the Divine Conspiracy, which discusses how the imitation of Christ has lost its central importance in Christianity.  In short, I don't think the question is getting the words right.  I think we have to recover the ability to be Christ-like in world for the sake of our communities.  

The question, "Why do I believe in God?" is not the question being asked on the street in the post-modern world.  Rather, it is "What is the character and substance of the God you believe in."  Belief in general is not an obstacle to most people today.  The question is what do you believe (worldview) and who is at the center of it?  In our case, we have done a poor job of revealing Jesus to people.  As Ghandi says, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."  I don't think the question is helping people communicate WHY we believe in God but rather WHO Jesus is and how we desire (and try!) to be more like him. 

"Why do I go to church?" is indicative of the institutional and attractional model of church that is, according to the statistics, shrinking as an institution and failing to attract people to it.  The question missionally minded people would ask is, "How can we be the church for the sake of our community?"  God is alive and on a mission of love in the world. .  As disciples, we share in the joy of joining this Misseo Dei. The question is not how to get people to GO to church.  The question is how to BE the church in the particular context we are called to serve.  

Finally, "why do I go to that particular church?" can be a good question.  If the question is intended to elucidate the unique calling of a community sent into the world following Jesus Christ, then it is a great question.  Churches are not called to be "all things for all people."  Neither are churches supposed to look like every other congregation in its denomination.  Rather, each church is unique.  As Will Mancini likes to say, each church has a unique great permission within the great commission.  Each church will live out the great commission in its own way according its one-of-a-kind mandate from Christ.

However, I suspect that when many hear the question "why do I go to that particular church" thoughts turn to the preaching, the choir, parking, worship times, or programs for children.  While the practicalities of being the church are important and valid concerns, they are far from the central questions of what it means to be the church in community.  

Frankly, I think these statistical reports are not really helpful. They focus inward on attendance, buildings, and cash.  I would be far more interested in statistics that show how our churches are making a difference in the world for the Kingdom - child abuse rates down; shelters for homeless children out of business; food bank shelves stacked high.   Can we really measure how more Christ-like people become each year?Because at the end of the day, just because we gain members does not mean we have become any more like Christ or helped anyone else on their discipleship journey.   

PGF is a movement of people and churches that are pursuing missional transformation.  And it begins by asking the right questions. 

Comments

[Drew Tatusko]

The other significant statistics we cannot ignore are baptism rates, the behavior of parents for whom children model religious behavior, how we effectively support lifecycle changes with young adults who are expected to be adults without effective training from our religious institutions, and how to support the thousands of disenfranchised singles out there for whom there are not a lot of opportunities for church involvement.

While the theology is important, and a missional stance is, I think, the right way to go, these social problems are the ones we need to address since they are in large part outside of the spectrum of how we typically "do" church. Sociologists have written about these changes for nearly 20 years now. Yet we have not responded.

[Chris]

Note the use of personal pronouns in the Stated Clerk's statement:

"Why do *I* believe in God? Why do *I* go to church? Why do *I* go to that particular church?"

Interesting. I'd be curious to know that Stated Clerk's answer to those three questions.

[Charlie Mac]

These questions sound like the questions of someone who is a life-long church member and can't for the life of him figure out why people won't come to his church. They are indeed the wrong question. The correct question is also not about conformity either to an idea of what an "ideal" church member looks like nor to current cultural mores.

The qeustion is a question of discipleship. We have not only lost the meaning of the word, we don't remember how to make disciples. The real question is, "Why would God give us any of His children - his new born Christians - to raise?"

[Chris in RVA]

"What is needed is something that cannot be explained in human terms. What is needed is something that is so striking and so signal that it will arrest the attention of the whole world. That is revival.

Now we of ourselves can never do anything like that. We can do a great deal, and we should do all we can. We can preach the truth, we can defend it, we can indulge in our apologetics, we can organize our campaigns, we can try to present a great front to the world. But you know, it does not impress the world. It leaves the world where it was. The need is for something which will be so overwhelming, so divine, so unusual that it will arrest the attention of the world . . . .

'Authenticate thy word. Lord God, let it be known, let it be known beyond a doubt, that we are thy people. Shake us!' I do not ask him to shake the building, but I ask him to shake us. I ask him to do something that is so amazing, so astounding, so divine, that the whole world shall be compelled to look on and say, 'What is this?' as they said on the day of Pentecost."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, pages 183-185.

HT: Christ is Deeper Still
christisdeeperstill.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-needed.html

[Byron Wade]

Definitely like your post and you hit some of the issues head on. I really resonate with you statement that it will take on our part authenticity, deep relationships and sacrificial action. Sometimes I think as Presbyterians and followers of Christ that we lack this in terms of sharing Christ with others both within and outside the community of faith. One of the major issues we need to resolve (quickly!) is the supposed luxury of being from doing. To me we have to get to the point that these have to be together to be an effective witness in today's world.

Thanks again for the post!

[Drew Henderson]

Two things strike me- congregations that do outreach without discipleship/invitation to the people they bless, and people who do personal evangelism apart from mercy ministries. Isn't it all mercy ministry?
Project based ministry exhausts people over time apart from fellowship, worship and the sacraments. The key weakness of the later social gospel was its lack of sacramental understanding. Works exhaust, yet grace renews and reminds us of our mutual need and comprehensive weakness. I fear our close attention to non-reformed teachers upsets our sacramental and covenantal foundations.