the future of the church

My church had a meeting about a building project - improvement on the current buildings to incorporate a more 'traditional style auditorium' (one large enough for 400 people and better to have weddings in) - and it was...interesting.

I'm not going to talk about the money involved, but about where I see the future of The Church, not just the future of this church (although obviously the church I'm attending will also be mentioned and referenced as part of The Church).

The church I attend is 100 years old. At some point in the 60s, the 'traditional style church building' that the church must have been meeting in got rebuilt to a somewhat mid-century-modern A-frame building. In the mid-00s, with the church growing through the next gen of kidlets of the faithful, they rebuilt whatever building had been used out the back for a Sunday School and general education centre, and turned it into a centre specifically for education - high ceilings, divisible rooms, storage spaces all along the sides. There was a space for an early childhood learning centre downstairs and a small kitchenette and 'mothers' room' upstairs.

The current set of buildings served all four church services (8am traditional, 10am family, 5pm family modern, 7pm youth modern) up until COVID. Then there wasn't enough space in the old A-frame church building for everyone to fit in, and so 10am, 5pm, and 7pm set up in the 'education centre' with the dividing panels folded away. The kids programs are held in the various rooms and spaces around the church during 10am and 5pm, but 8pm refused to move from the A-frame, so they get set up every week special.

Some of the services are getting bigger. 10am is regularly running into 'overflow spaces', but 7pm is also bursting at the seams. And people don't want to move services and lose their congregational community. I understand that. I haven't been in a church service in months now and the weekly bible study groups and the occasional trivia night gatherings are very much keeping me connected.

I understand the reasons for the desire to build bigger, but some of the underpinnings of those reasons are not concepts that I accede to, or at least, not the way the church board does.

Firstly: the myth of unending growth. The last 40 years have seen unprecedental global, economic, and population growth, and up until about 10 years, an unthinkable social stability. But that can't continue forever; we're running out of oil, we're running out of resources. Our society - our communities - are fraying at the edges. Fearmongering, frustration, the internet, and the social media algorithm are wedging us into smaller and smaller groups.

That isn't going to get better. Not now, not in the next twenty years. Not so long as people cling to the idea that we can get back to the boom years (really, the Boomer years). We are going off-road, baby, and there ain't no maps into this land. Now is not a time to be building up, but to be reinforcing what we have and improving our social connections.

Modern western Christians have a bad habit of thinking that the 'ever onwards and upwards' is going to be a thing forever - most likely because we're steeped in modernity and western thinking and it's hard to step outside of that. We like to cite 'Judgement Day' or the day when time will stop and all things will be made new, but apart from general evangelistic fervour, we live (and vote) as though this world doesn't matter.

Secondly: the myth of church growth. Globally, Christianity across the world has held stable for the last 40 years. However, the number of people IDing as Christians in the west are decreasing while the number of people IDing as Christians in the Global South is increasing.

My church is Anglican. It's in the name. It's a Church of England church. Which means it does things a certain way. Holds certain views. Enshrines certain perspectives.

Those perspectives are not going to hold for the next 40 years. We are going to become a minority, which means - if we want to be effective in ministry - we should be spending money working out how to reach sectors of society which the Anglican church of Australia has been generally kind and loving towards but which is wary of them in authority and leadership.

Notably, the Sydney Diocese is current led by an Archbishop who is of Sri Lankan background, who started off Hindu before he converted. This is definitely a good start, but cross-cultural ministry absolutely needs to be more of a thing, not only in our mission statements but in where we put our money and our leadership authority.

At the meeting, I brought this point up. Perhaps a little baldly: "one does not send a man accustomed to harvesting wheat to harvest sugarcane". I got a few laughs, but I think I also made my point, albeit not as thoroughly as I wanted to.

In essence: we are an Anglican church. We are Anglicised in our manner and our practices. And while we say that the gospel is relevant to and needed across all nations, the points of emphasis and comprehension will adjust according to the culture's understanding. We see this in none other than biblical translation - when a woman, when a black African, when a black American, when a native Malaysian translates the bible, the things they see in the words of Christ shift in importance.

Our current bible is written to emphasise male leadership and authority and to de-emphasise female leadership and authority. The translation of the role of historical women of the church as 'assistants' or 'helpers' rather than 'disciples' or even 'apostles'. The reduction of 'I shall make a shieldmate for him' to 'I shall make a helper for him' in the Genesis account.

It's translated so that 'homosexuality' is the word used almost universally for a number of practices that had no correlation to modern same-sex attraction and marriage, and for which we have no modern equivalent.

Even terms that encapsulate concepts that we might argue haven't changed from then to now don't match the ancient world's perspective: 'marriage' as translated from the bible doesn't really have a concept of a woman joining to a man but still remaining her own person and legal individual, with rights to her property (and his) and to the children of her body. Women weren't people, and so – in the most basic form – marriage was the passing of property and inheritance with a person as the passage.

So my church - conservative, Anglicised, with a typically western way of thinking is most certainly not intrinsically equipped to deal with an increasingly unChristianised west, and an increasingly Christian Global South - unless we're going for a White Messiah complex.

TBH, I think at this point, the best thing Christians in the west can do is to shut up and do the work of bringing in the Kingdom in anything except words. Anything that doesn't involve offering proselytisation. If they ask, by all means. But we're going to have to be something really special for them to ask and we don't have it in us, not yet. Not when the changemakers of the world are largely atheists and agnostics and while your average Christian in the neighbourhood is too busy fighting for the status quo.

That's my thoughts anyway - they're not borne out by any research or any foreknowledge. Nothing from the last eighty years will back me up – although all the scientific evidence points to our world changing dramatically in almost every aspect of life - but the next eighty years of our society, our world, will be nothing like the eighty years before that and nothing like the hundreds before that.

We have to live with it. We have to learn to live in it. We have to learn to love in it.

The current Anglican church of Australia is not as ready for this as they think they are. What too many are still dreaming of is a Billy-Graham-esque conversion of thousands of westernised Australians to Christianity, with attendant social influence, ethics, mores, and morals. They dreamed this back in the late 90s, with a movement (from America, I think) called 'The Harvest', where we were going to reach 10% of the Sydney Diocese for Christ...

That movement failed; people went, but it wasn't what they wanted. That world they wanted was already shifting and changing. The people they thought they could reach had heard it all before and their hearts were hardened.

We're not going to get those soft hearts back.

I don't think we can rewrite the church-as-a-concept's role as a villain in contemporary society. Our society's memory via the lingering records of global technology is now too long for most people to trust us when the church leaders say "but trust us, we're the good guys sent on a mission from God!" The records might not show the majority experience, but those that were hurt by abuse or rigidity or "excommunication" do not forget how they were betrayed or left by the wayside, and they are not quiet.

What we can do is individually and in our local Christian collective (ie. "church") is rewrite how the people around us - the people we interact with and the secular communities we live among - see the church and Christians. And that might mean running counter to the expectations people have of the church when it comes to peripheral matters, whatever those expectations are.

A point was brought up by a guy I know about our church becoming what I'm going to term a "vampire church" (not the phrase he used): basically a big church that pulls believers from other churches, enriching itself at the cost of others. Which nobody wants, but which does tend to happen - the more resources, the more social energy, the more everything a church has, the more that other people's heads get turned and they come and want to stick around in The Church Where It Happens.

That's not something we want to be. It's not something that any minister wants but the risk is always there, particularly as the young ones go to churches where things are happening and end up staying there.

Basically, I don't know that they've convinced me to put my money towards this, and the one question that I'd like to know is not going to be either asked or answered: what would it take to stop this work from going ahead?

they can tak' our media but they'll never tak' our freeeedooooom!

There's a growing theme among Australian Christians, that our society is 'being taken from us'.

It manifests in the increasing attitudes of "well, you can't say anything godly at all anymore without someone coming in to cancel you". It manifests in the persisting belief that "Australia is a Christian nation (or at least a nation founded on Christian values) and we should keep it that way." It manifests in the insistence that "well, we've seen how feminism and wokeness and the modern sexuality has destroyed our society, so why don't we take it back to the old (Christian) ways?"

There's a desire for a simplistic narrative - a 'back to the basics' attitude. These are mostly voiced by older people, white guys, and people who haven't studied history, or use the term 'woke' as a pejorative.

There's also an exaggeration happening around Christian thought. Christians are increasingly using dramatic language to describe the response to the mores and morality expressions of our faith. It's also interesting that the Christians using dramatic language are frequently more invested in the morality expressions of our faith that are contradictory to those of the world - setting up worldly perspectives as an antagonist, rather than coming alongside them as a friend.

Possibly ironically, Sam Chan's Evangelism in a Modern World addresses the matter of coming alongside worldly perspectives as a friend to the person - not necessarily agreeing, but pushing our friends to think further and deeper about what they really believe.

--

Listening to Majority 54 Podcast the other week - the episode release on the 21st April entitled Political Therapy with a conversation with an author, Monica Guzman whose book I Never Thought Of It That Way. The conversation was around a willingness to listen and understand where people are coming from. Ravi was talking about his older brother and how his older brother seems to have no interest in anything Ravi is doing or Ravi's thoughts on anything, and that he feels that sting quite keenly. Then, recently, he learned that his older brother feels like he already knows everything he needs to about his brother because their mom boasts about Ravi and what he's doing all the time.

One of the points that Monica made was that conservatives feel hemmed in by the media, there's nowhere that promotes a 'Christian perspective' anymore and that gets them on the back foot. They have no interest in the specific stories of individuals - liberals, progressives, non-Christians - because they already feel like they know it all and so they don't need to be told.

From a liberal vs conservative POV, without any faith in the mix, I can see that conservatives would be angry and defensive and just prefer to lump all liberals and progressives in together without seeing them individually: and yes, understanding where the specific person you love is coming from is one thing, thinking you understand where "liberals and progressives" are coming from is entirely another.

From a Christian perspective, though, I feel like Christians should be better listeners; better at tailoring our message and our interactions with the specific individual that we're trying to reach. Not just issuing a "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN" notice.

I feel like this is what Sam Chan is getting at regarding how to evangelise, although the cynic in me would have called it "How to Evangelise When You Already Think You Know Everything You Need To Know". Hm. I wonder if I could write a book about that...

why we don't have room for anything they'd recognise as 'love'

There was a conversation over at MF's FB over the statement: "the church should be famous for its love".

And I noted

Where too often "LOVE" is translated a "you're dirty and awful and nasty and should be glad that the God of heaven cares for you (through the [self-]righteous mouthings of his people)..."

I've been wondering the last couple of years that maybe most of us Christians don't actually believe "in Christ alone". There's always a "and you must" clause.

"And you must prioritise the unborn, the nuclear family, the legality of the gospel, the rights of Christians and the church, the moral Christianising of the law, and your life must look like an western middle-class aspirational life...

Do all this in the name of Jesus Christ and you will surely inherit the kingdom of God!"

The bit that I didn't add was:

I am starting to wonder if it's a by-product "fear of losing their salvation by too-close association with The World"? Even (especially?) in certain Christian circles (*coughs*SydneyEvangelicalism*cough*), the implications have persisted that if you follow the "wrong" path on opinions of everything from homosexuality to abortion to transgenderism then your very salvation is imperilled. And yet at the same time, the leaders attempt to reassure me that "my hope is built on nothing less..."

If my salvation is in Christ's hands alone - if nothing I can do or think other than repudiation of His gift of grace will keep me from the love of God (in Jesus Christ) - then I have no fear of walking out into The World and dispensing the love and support that God has graced me with no matter to whom, or even whether it enables further sinfulness in those I love in my actions. His grace is sufficient for me, and also for them, and I trust in that as I witness to others in ways that 'The Church' may not generally approve.

However, if I feel like my salvation (and, indeed, my church acceptance) is based on my reputation within the church, on the way I vote, on my policy opinions regarding hotbutton culture topics, on my association with the right kind of people in a world of sinners...then, yes, I will not just reject the worldview of the world, but reject the people of the world because they represent my likely rivening from the grace of God.

utterly and totestally perssikuted

There's a persisting irony in the, shall we say, religiosity with which we cling to our "WE BE UTTERLY AND TOTESTALLY PERSSIKUTED" cross.

It is only equalled by the insistent demand that news sites treat us with respect and dignity and in a positive light all the time.

Logic, peoples! If we're being persecuted for our faith, then part of that is going to involve the reported news (which is the world's perspective) about us being negative.

Additionally, the church (broadly speaking) hasn't done any particularly standout works worth reporting on. Large-scale advocation for refugees? Nope. Large-scale advocation for social support? Nope. Large-scale advocation for mental (and spiritual) health? Nope.

The three large-scale advocations that I can think of - for the Sydney Anglican diocese, which is hierarchically led (so a single speaking voice from the top) and biblically based - have been:
1. against gay marriage ($1m put towards the 'No' campaign for marriage equality; the archbishop's statement that gay ministers who want to be married should just leave the Anglican umbrella),
2. for the 'Religious Freedom/Religious Discrimination Bill' that allows organisations to hire and fire people in line with their core beliefs
3. for Religious Education in Schools (my church was personally encouraged to send a positive postcard to our local member about it, and I think the encouragement came from the diocese leadership.

Question: do these things benefit anyone other than the church and the church community?

Like, are we advocating on behalf of the ordinary people around us? Or are we advocating solely with an element of self-interest?

And if we're not advocating on behalf of broader society, rather than in our own self-interest, then how are we being any different to any other self-interested, non-Jesus-led organisation out there in society?

"But the gospel needs--"

Whoa, there, Nelly! Hold it right there. The gospel doesn't need us. God doesn't need us. He graciously allows us to be involved. But he doesn't need us.

"If every voice was still, the rocks themselves would cry out." ~ Jesus ~

What have Christians done for others lately? As a whole, not in the charitable arms, and the small groups that do their work on the sides. Those are good things to do - no doubt about it - but they're also out of sight, out of mind. SHould they be? No. But that's not the way that 'news' works: so far as broader society think - and so far as Christians seem intent on repeating - the only thing we have is TO TELL THE GOSPEL. Which is fine, but we really need to be using actions before we use words. And in hierarchical organisations (such as the Anglican dioceses), they need to come from the top, big and showy and positive - so far as the world is concerned.

And if they're not big and showy and positive as far as the world is concerned, then they're going to be scornful and negative, because that's all they see from Christians. And whining about it doesn't make it any better; an attitude of "they should appreciate us because we're nice people!" Not when the 'nice people' who are like us have treated them badly - individually, collectivally, societally - and aren't willing to take a stand on something that matters to them.

Basically, maybe they don't report anything positive about Christians, because - from their view at least - there is no positive about Christians.

do we hate sin more than we love other people?

A person who took the lives of women in some part because he had learned to hate sexual sin to such a degree that he believed killing other women vs working on his understanding of those issues within himself was a good plan…

His faith community told him to hate sin more than he loved other people.

I am reminded of a story - a medieval murder mystery - where the local priest of a village is found dead in the river. The man had been chosen by the abbot of the nearby monastery as a man upright in all things, knowledgeable and educated, and more than fit to teach the parishoners all they needed to know of the things of God.

More than suitable, right?

Well, a newborn was birthed and considered sickly, and they ran for the priest to baptise it, but he was at his devotions and wouldn't rouse from them, even for this. He came afterwards, but the baby was already dead. And because it wasn't baptised, in the tradition of his faith, he wouldn't allow it to be buried in consecrated ground.

A mentally deficient young woman would sleep with any man who cozened her, and ended up giving birth to a child out of wedlock. But when she tried to return to the church, the priest told her she was an unrepentant sinner and excommunicated her. In grief, she went and drowned herself.

Yardage between the priest's allotment and a local man's plot was considered 'flexible', and the local man had used it to drive his cattle acrosss with the blessing of the previous priest. But now the new priest demanded that it be tilled for his usage all the way to the edge, cutting off the local man.

A freeman born operated a piece of ground that was traditional serf-held, and the priest required that the freeman prove his status or else he would be held bound to the land. The town elders held the freeman's freedom and the priest backed down, but claimed he had done nothing wrong.

The priest was theologically sound, legally within his rights, morally correct... But he had no heart for people. For 'sheep without a shepherd' as we are taught Jesus looked upon the crowds.

I did a little questionnaire about men's mental health this morning - teenaged son of the pastor of our church - and while I know the stereotypes of masculinity that tend to be bruited about, I also know that I follow a faith that grounds itself in a God - divinity, authority, power - who clothed himself in fragile mortal flesh, endured the little twinges of human existence, wept, grieved, submitted to brutality, and is still considered the lynchpin of our faith. Like, the Jesus of the gospels - whose harshest words were for those who led others astray with religiosity, whose most brutal action is against the bleed-em-til-they're-dry monetary systems of the day, who refused to take up arms against armed soldiers who came looking for him - is everything humanity should be, and he embodies so few of the 'masculine' traits that a group of kids would probably pick if you asked them to choose.

But back to having a heart for people - not just 'the lost', as churches like to phrase it, but people. Even those who have cast Christianity away. Do we still love them? How capable are we really of hating the sin and loving the sinner?

Because I think that, in our Sydney Evangelical context we hate the sin far more than we love the sinners. And this is a big problem going forward.

Sin is something to be wary of - absolutely. But one of the tensions of human existence is where it is better to restrain sin or sinfulness and where it is wiser to show love. And Jesus walked it perfectly - mostly by showing love to the 'sheep without a shepherd'. We can't hope to match it perfectly, but I think we should try to follow in love more than in hatred of sin.

platforms and pulpits and 'free speech'

I am getting the feeling that a lot of the Australian Christian response to Twitter dumping the US Prez's personal account is anchored in a fear of our own deplatforming on account of "saying things that are true but which lefty liberals don't like to hear".

Are we aware that our 'Christian platform' isn't Twitter or Facebook or Parler? Our 'Christian platform' isn't even the pulpit or our church services or our Christian events.

Our 'platform' is our lives - the intimate struggle of day in, day out that our neighbours and regular interactions bear witness to. That argument you had with your kids last night with the screen door open? Platform! That frown you always wear when you pick up your coffee in the morning? Platform! Picking up your neigbour's bin and refilling it after the teenaged vandals in the area spilled it? Platform! Offering eggs when the neighbour hasn't had breakfast? Platform! Growing a verge garden for people to freely pick from? Platform!

I mean, it's just living, and not as exciting as the thrill of knowing hundreds, nay, thousands, nay millions of people are hanging breathlessly on your every character. But a handful of people who love your character? Ask Paul how loving the people who were around him worked for 'platform'.

We don't *need* social media. We don't need to boycott it if we haven't been banned - it's not an either/or proposition. We just don't *need* it to continue to live lives of love and care and thoughtfulness to our society and people.