Ten or 15 years from now, there won’t be much left in most of today's churches...or in most church bodies.
- Look at what’s unraveled in the last 5 years.
- The believers coming behind us don’t want to inherit much of what we want to give them. (Ask them!)
- Look at your own denomination…do you sense positive, forward momentum coming from the HQ?
- The wonderful 70 and above crowd? It becomes a few.
- Most church bodies, mine included, are mostly white…in an increasingly racially diverse future (43% of millennials are not white!).
One thing I can tell you is that even if the pews remain more full, the people in those pews are generally not Lutheran in identity or faith (not their fault since they are not taught to be Lutherans). Furthermore, the people filling the pews tend to be (and statistics support this) not unchurched who are seeking church for the first time or even those who are coming back to church but the church shoppers who look for new churches like they would the latest and greatest new restaurant -- and they are gone to visit the next best newest church when it opens its doors.
So, though I do believe their motivation is on target, I do also believe their guidance will not help us be faithful as Lutherans to our Symbols OR help us reach out to those burned out and turned off or who do not see themselves as people of faith at all. What I do believe will help is a congregation serious about what is believed and taught, sober and reverent in worship, and using music as a servant of the Word instead of personal preference. Furthermore, I remain unconvinced that Lutherans are failing because they are Lutheran but are failing more because they are failing to be Lutheran. And if you have read this blog before, you will not be surprised by that statement.
Below is one comment from the Zerohedge article that makes sense:
ReplyDeleteThe Number Of Americans With "No Religion" Has Soared 266% Over The Last 3 Decades
"Many Christians are fed up with the actions of those running 501c3 churches today. They’re sick of the hypocrisy and being preached thinly disguised socialism. When a church supports policies which undermine your own country- such as no borders and mass migration of foreigners who have no intention of assimilating into American culture, - it’s time to no longer support that church.
Our faith is in God and in Christ, not these corrupt churches."
My response: Two close relatives of mine have quit church after viewing the LCMS as a front for various (social justice) RSO organizations. Some of those that have turned off my relatives are the Lutheran Church Charities, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, various (gay friendly) Lutheran adoption agencies, the (gay friendly) Concordia University system, etc.
The Daily Mail has a different understanding regarding why people quit Church:
Is America becoming Godless? The number of people who have no religion has risen 266 per cent - one third of the population - in three decades
"Another (theory) is that the religious right kind of cleaved moderate Christianity and a lot of moderate Christians who were moderately attached said they didn't want to defend Jerry Falwell … and all the anti-gay and anti- abortion religious rights leaders,' Burge said. 'So they said, 'You know what? I'm out.'"
I counter: This does not make sense, as the Church was neither founded by nor for the benefit of liberal Christians clamoring for a watered-down, social justice message. For example, churches that have embraced homosexuality as "normal" and "not a sin" are continuing to decline in membership.
Pastor Peters wrote:
"In other words, I would like to see the statistics themselves unpacked to determine if the congregations losing the highest proportion of membership (or better attendance) are those who have also lost the liturgy and any functional Lutheran identity on Sunday morning."
I respond: Lutheran pastors who have gone "all in" with copying the non-denominational, big box church model to their congregations would never agree to allow such a study to be commissioned. The results would make them look bad. No one wants to be viewed as a fraud. What would it take to get certain Lutheran pastors to acknowledge their mistakes and to rediscover confessional Lutheranism?
Our faith is in Jesus Christ. "Faithfulness" to the external, man-made forms of the medieval liturgy and its accoutrements (every daily post on this blog trumpets the word "faithfulness" like clockwork) has nothing to do with faith alone in Christ for our justification, sanctification, and eternal salvation.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous (@ April 7, 2019 at 3:29 PM) wrote:
ReplyDelete"Our faith is in Jesus Christ. "Faithfulness" to the external, man-made forms of the medieval liturgy and its accoutrements (every daily post on this blog trumpets the word "faithfulness" like clockwork) has nothing to do with faith alone in Christ for our justification, sanctification, and eternal salvation."
All that confessional Lutheran stuff seems so boring, stale, and stiff. I now see the alternative to "medieval liturgy and its accoutrements": Me-centered, man-made forms of Classic Rock with no threat of damnation nor little to no mention of repentance. Awesome! Thank you, Anonymous! How could I have been so naive?
The Hillsong Generation...
A faithful pastor will lead his members to put all their faith in
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ. An effective sermon focuses on law and gospel as we
live our lives to love, serve, and obey our Lord. The pulpit is
a forum to help people get closer to Jesus Christ, it is not a
place to offer self-commentary on the social problems of society.
A healthy parish has a pastor who is a servant of the Lord and
and humbly serves the congregation with the Good News of Jesus.
Medieval liturgies? Well, it is long,long before that. Blame God for the pattern, structure, songs used for the historical Western rite used in liturgical Lutheran Churches.
ReplyDeleteHere's great ideas, remove Jesus as the center, remove Scripture and put in more drama, more stuff about me, have music that 80% of the time could be sung by a Jew, Mormon and call it Christian. Make the service more entertaining, more about me and my relationship, me and my feelings.
The crisis of men not coming to church can be answered by having the sermon about self-help, relationship advice; sing love songs; have the service geared up with drama, emotionalism, sentimental music and act. Because everyone know men love that stuff. Focus on feelings.
Correction:
ReplyDeleteIf you do watch the Hillsong video I have linked in the comment above, please be sure to skip the section forcibly shoehorned into the documentary from 13:00 to 26:00. The argument that churches should pay taxes is a stupid one. It originates from enemies of organized religion, namely agnostics and atheists.
Anonymous April 7, 2019 at 4:50 PM
ReplyDeleteNotice what's missing in this comment. Tells you all you need to know about the people who come on here and bash the "medieval liturgy".
First of all, the LCMS is NOT a front for social justice or any other organizations or causes. That is a joke. Surely the ELCA could be described thusly but not the LCMS. We have our own World Relief cause, we promote the cause of life, we participate in other organizations where we can without wholeheartedly endorsing or supporting them, we rally our people to good causes (Lutheran Disaster Relief), and we are all about promoting work of any kind that connects to Word and Sacrament and the means by which the Lord calls people to faith and grows His Church. To say otherwise is to be ignorant of the facts.
ReplyDelete[IF] contemporary worship is the panacea for church decline, I challenge all those LCMS churches that have both liturgical and contemporary services to direct all your resources into contemporary worship. If what you say is true, that COWO will reach more people for Jesus, you should implement it immediately to the exclusion of the ancient, liturgical forms of worship. Yea, it is your duty to do so because it is unconscionable not to do what you know will reach the lost in larger numbers. Those who might prefer the liturgy will go with the flow once they see the pews filled and must admit that, “Hey, we must be doing something right.” [IF] the liturgy of the Divine Service is such a drag on evangelism, then it is incumbent on LCMS churches to do away with it forthwith. Do I have any takers? Pastors, is this a fair challenge? If not, why not?
ReplyDeleteIt's no joke. If not serving as a front for social justice or some other organizations or causes, LCMS and its leadership have certainly leaned over the line at times.
ReplyDeleteIn its December 27, 2012, article, "Lutherans advocate for anti-malaria support in D.C.," the Reporter wrote glowingly about the lobbying efforts of LCMS leadership (along with foreign citizens) in trying to gain support for LCMS LMI social justice efforts, to fund another social justice group, and to change U.S. foreign policy (although the latter would seem to fall under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)).
And there's also the LCMS financial and other support of a leftwing (and non-RSO) LIaRS (Lufauxran Immigration and Refugee Service), which in 2015 named the LCMS SP as a Walk of Courage Award Gala honorary co-chairman, along with XXXA Presiding Bishopette Eaton and some of the most notorious, left-leaning, socialist, anti-Christian, unintelligent Demonicrat politicians.
And, of course, there are the pro-LGBTQ perversion groups and diversity policies that have been allowed at the LCMS Concordia universities.
"[IF] contemporary worship is the panacea for church decline, I challenge all those LCMS churches that have both liturgical and contemporary services to direct all your resources into contemporary worship. If what you say is true, that COWO will reach more people for Jesus, you should implement it immediately to the exclusion of the ancient, liturgical forms of worship."
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous: Your post sounds like a church consultant giving a sales pitch circa 1994. Worship wars died out in the LCMS 15 years ago. Why would anyone aggravate tensions in a congregation that offers both traditional and CoWo services by killing traditional worship?
A former LCMS pastor of mine (who has since moved to a different state to plant his own LCMS church) once told me "Hymnals are for old people." Are hymnals for old people? I get suspicious when a "CoWo only" LCMS congregation is planted near struggling, "hymnal only" LCMS congregations. The LCMS DP wouldn't have some sort of agenda to force the traditional LCMS congregations to wither and die.....would he?
The Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) wants to make sure that the loans are repaid. What better way to do this than to look at attendance numbers and then pressure the congregation to introduce Contemporary Worship? A different way of doing church means more butts in the pews, which translates into more money to repay the LCEF at a faster rate.....right? Who knows? The congregation may morph into a mega-church and would need to take out an even larger loan!