How to get more young people into the church; advice from Alaska worth hearing

Greg Rickel, who is the bishop of the Diocese of Olympia (Seattle), posted this on his Facebook the other day. It comes from a blog from an Episcopalian in Alaska, the owls & the angels, and this is so gently delightful. I wish I had come across this sooner. Anyway, below, in full, is a posting on what it takes to grow the church. Hold on, it is not about rock bands and happy-clappy spirituality. It is much more radical, and much more ancient. Please read:

ah, the church

Tonight Jon and I went to a meeting at the local Episcopal church; it was a dinner and get-together with the new Bishop of Alaska. Apparently, Alaska hasn't had an Episcopal bishop for a while, so this is exciting news that there is now a bishop. The dear little Episcopal church here, which is called St. James the Fisherman (how cool is that name?!), is tiny and doesn't have a priest and is run by well-intentioned older women. Which is the story of so many rural Episcopal churches.

I left thinking, "ah, the church." Not "ah" like a sigh of relief, but more just a sigh. I feel like buried in the center of the church (and I mean the church as a whole--all the Christians worldwide) is this amazing, redemptive, beautiful thing. But it's in a deep cavern somewhere, and meanwhile people have stacked old broken chairs in front of that cavern, and shoved all the old Halloween decorations up around the doors of the cavern, and there are cobwebs, and way up above the cavern, in the church building, people are arguing over whose pew is whose and how to correctly iron the cloths used during Eucharist. And, of course, they're arguing about whether gay people are really fully human.

When I was an Episcopal chaplain--for four years--all the time people in the church would ask me, "Why don't young people come to church?" or "How do we get young people to come to church?" I have some suggestions now, so listen up.


Here is a step-by-step plan for how to get more young people into the church:

1. Be genuine. Do not under any circumstances try to be trendy or hip, if you are not already intrinsically trendy or hip. If you are a 90-year-old woman who enjoys crocheting and listens to Beethoven, by God be proud of it.

2. Stop pretending you have a rock band.

3. Stop arguing about whether gay people are okay, fully human, or whatever else. Seriously. Stop it.

4. Stop arguing about whether women are okay, fully human, or are capable of being in a position of leadership.

5. Stop looking for the "objective truth" in Scripture.

6. Start looking for the beautiful truth in Scripture.

7. Actually read the Scriptures. If you are Episcopalian, go buy a Bible and read it. Start in Genesis, it's pretty cool. You can skip some of the other boring parts in the Bible. Remember though that almost every book of the Bible has some really funky stuff in it. Remember to keep #5 and #6 in mind though. If you are evangelical, you may need to stop reading the Bible for about 10 years. Don't worry: during those ten years you can work on putting these other steps into practice.

8. Start worrying about extreme poverty, violence against women, racism, consumerism, and the rate at which children are dying worldwide of preventable, treatable diseases. Put all the energy you formerly spent worrying about the legit-ness of gay people into figuring out ways to do some good in these areas.

9. Do not shy away from lighting candles, silence, incense, laughter, reallygood food, and extraordinary music. By "extraordinary music" I mean genuine music. Soulful music. Well-written, well-composed music. Original music. Four-part harmony music. Funky retro organ music. Hymns. Taize chants. Bluegrass. Steel guitar. Humming. Gospel. We are the church; we have a uber-rich history of amazing music. Remember this.

10. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

11. Learn how to sit with people who are dying.

12. Feast as much as possible. Cardboard communion wafers are a feast in symbol only. Humans can not live on symbols alone. Remember this.

13. Notice visitors, smile genuinely at them, include them in conversations, but do not overwhelm them.

14. Be vulnerable.

15. Stop worrying about getting young people into the church. Stop worrying about marketing strategies. Take a deep breath. If there is a God, that God isn't going to die even if there are no more Christians at all.

16. Figure out who is suffering in your community. Go be with them.

17. Remind yourself that you don't have to take God to anyone. God is already with everyone. So, rather than taking the approach that you need to take the truth out to people who need it, adopt the approach that you need to go find the truth that others have and you are missing. Go be evangelized.

18. Put some time and care and energy into creating a beautiful space for worship and being-together. But shy away from building campaigns, parking lot expansions, and what-have-you.

19. Make some part of the church building accessible for people to pray in 24/7. Put some blankets there too, in case someone has nowhere else to go for the night.

20. Listen to God (to Wisdom, to Love) more than you speak your opinions.

This is a fool-proof plan. If you do it, I guarantee that you will attract young people to your church. And lots of other kinds of people too. The end.

Focusing on the mission, looking around corners

Over the years I have heard a few people say that the church should be “run like a business.” By that they sometimes mean the church should spend as little money as possible.

It is true we should not be wasting money. However, the most efficient way to run the church would be to close it. We don’t produce anything. Closing the place would be cheaper than paying for salaries and upkeep on the building.

That probably won't work real well.

Yet there is another way to look at how the church should be run like a business.

On Monday evening, I saw an interview of Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, the cellular telephone and communications giant, on the Charlie Rose show. Seidenberg made two points about business with broad implications for any organization including churches.

First, he said, successful businesses stay true to their core mission. The people in the organization know exactly what they do, and they do it with excellence.

Second, Seidenberg said, leaders “look around the corners.” They figure out what is ahead and get there first.

The challenge, Seidenberg said, is being lulled into complacency by concepts that work well now but which will not work well when the world changes. And since the world is constantly changing, leaders must always be looking around the corners to see what is ahead and be ready to get there. It isn’t easy and leaders don’t always get it right.

Let me reflect on his points as they relate to the church.

First, we need to know who we are and what our mission is: We are the people of God and our mission is to proclaim by word and deed the reality of the Resurrection. Our tools are many: liturgy and music, education for all ages, pastoral care, and reaching into the community with justice and compassion, to name only a few.

But the tools are not the mission. The tools change and adapt to changing circumstances while the mission never changes. You might say our mission can be summed up as “Giving Hope.” We must be creative in finding new tools even as the mission never changes.

To keep our mission steady in our gaze, it helps to have a succinct and clear mission statement (though most church mission statements I’ve seen usually say more about the tools than the mission). We ought to be able to measure what we do with the yard stick of our mission statement. Here’s St. Paul’s mission statement, and when you read it, ask yourself whether specific things that we do fits the mission:

The Mission of St. Paul’s Memorial Church is to celebrate and
bear witness to God’s love in our community, the University of
Virginia, the region, and the world beyond us. By our worship,
our teaching, and our outreach we seek to make known God in
Christ, equipping our members for service in the world.

Keep in mind the mission statement is not the mission; it is only another tool to focus on the mission. We should not be overly focused on creating the perfect mission statement. We should be focused on the mission itself. If we do not keep our focus on our mission we have no reason to exist as an institution. In other words, maintenance of the institution is not the purpose; the mission is the purpose.

And that brings me to Seidenberg’s second point:

To be truly faithful to the mission requires looking around corners to see what is ahead. For us it means we cannot be content to do things the way we’ve always done them. Ministry must adapt before we round the corners.  

What worked 40 years ago – or even 10 years ago – may not work now. For example, the clergy cannot assume that providing Sunday worship and weekday pastoral care is all they need do even though that worked before. The clergy must be in the classroom and in the community, and exploring new ways to deepen and expand our core ministry. 

Meanwhile, laity’s role in ministry is expanding at every level. One recent example: our university students launched a highly successful Taize worship service on Tuesday evenings which will be back in the Fall. Another example: We have a dedicated group of hospital visitors who provide pastoral care beyond what the clergy can do. Each of those tools is working well now, but we must be ready to adapt each of these tools as circumstances change. The laity and clergy together need to find new ways to work as team in providing ministry at every level.

I would be remiss in not mentioning one other corner we need to look around: communications. At St. Paul’s, we have joined the internet revolution with websites, blogs and electronic newsletters. But there is much more that we can be doing if we are to reach new people and continue to be faithful to our core mission. I will say more on that in another post.

Fitting in: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

Lori and I have been here almost a year, and we definitely still consider ourselves very new. It takes time to figure out a new community, the customs, the personalities, and the simple details of daily living that we took for granted in our previous community. 

When new people join a group, any group, it takes time to fit in. And that is true of new people joining a church. I bring this up to point out a few things as we work on our hospitality as a welcoming and inclusive faith community.

First, new people shouldn't be expected to simply "blend in." For one thing, expecting new people to adopt all of the ways of the established people puts all of the burden on the new people, and is not welcoming. 

For another, it doesn't really work that way. If new people find the circle so tight they can't enter, they will simply leave. And that deprives everyone of their gifts and talents.

It might help to know a little about group dynamic theory: Every healthy group goes through at least four stages of group life (different theorists have different words for this, but it is the same theory). Healthy groups are (1) Forming (2) Storming (3) Norming and (4) Performing.

Forming occurs each time someone new joins a group, or someone leaves the group. The group becomes a new group when the membership changes. In a church, whenever new people come into the community, or leave (or die) the church is a new church in big ways or small. Each time a new person arrives, the church is in a state of forming once again.

If you think about, St. Paul's is very accustomed to forming and re-forming. Every Fall new students, faculty and staff arrive at the University of Virginia and many land in our parish. Every Spring many move away. This annual cycle of forming has repeated itself now 100 times at St. Paul's.

Forming creates a certain degree of tension, or storming. In this stage, the group members work out who fits where and how the group will operate. Unhealthy storming manifests as a struggle for control, or defensiveness about "we've always done it this way" or "we tried that, it will never work here." The circle closes, and if the storm is fierce enough it will keep out anyone new. Unhealthy storming will lead eventually to the death of the group, either through attrition as the old members die off and are not replaced, or through a certain atrophy of the group's soul because the group forgets why it exists.

But there can be healthy storming: Healthy storming is creative, and brings new energy, new ways of looking at the group, and sees new people as seeds of growth, bringers of new energy and new perspective. The existing group members begin to adjust to the new members, and the new members begin to adjust as they learn about the richness of the old group. 

Storming, done well, leads to the next stage. The group is new, and it creates itself in a new way, leading to norming, or a new normal. The group looks both the same and differently, and acts both the same and differently, sometimes subtly. And that brings the group to the next stage: performing. 

The group is thriving, productive and everyone in the group is working together in ways that are new but echo the old. The new seeds have sprouted and everyone benefits from the growth, and the group is performing like an orchestra, each member playing their individual instrument yet in harmony with the whole.

These categories are a bit simplistic. Truthfully, every group of people can be in each of those stages at different times of the day sometimes. Most groups are in one stage more than in another, and may slip back and forth between stages. Churches have many subsets of groups, and those groups are in various stages at any given time. The larger church can be seen as working through those stages over and over, and in a macro sense, it can take years to get from one stage to the next. 

Yet, I also find these categories helpful; as we grow in our life together as a faith community, it helps me to recognize these cycles so that I understand what we are going through. If we all recognize the stages, we might be better equipped to surf our way through each stage.

And that brings me to a point made by Lyle Schaller, one of the more perceptive analysts of church dynamics of the last few decades. In his book, Create Your Own Future, he notes that good church leaders (lay and clergy) work together in understanding the group dynamics in the church, and then use their understanding for building of God's Kingdom:

These are the leaders who are convinced God has given to them the freedom to plan, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the future of that particular worshiping community. They can study, reflect, plan, articulate their dreams, formulate goals, and implement those plans. With God's help all things are possible.

Cartoon by Dave Walker

What kind of church will we be? Who will we reach? How?

I posted this video a few months ago from the Diocese of New Hampshire, and I've had requests for it again. This is a promotion for a conference coming up on May 9 in New Hampshire. The underlying message applies to all of us in the Episcopal Church (and to yesterday's post). Here you are, and watch for the dancing bishops at the end ...