After some days of thoughts on and off about the report, it occurs to me that we are all looking for a plan and some sort of planner to tell us what to do and then to inspire us to do it. It would be nice. It would be good if it all came printed in the mail in full color or downloadable from some website or presented in visual form for all of us visual learners. It would be nice but it is not going to happen. Renewal seldom happens from the top down. This is no different.
What the statistics tell us is that the problem and the solution lies not in some office in a headquarters or from the latest book off the presses or even from the halls of academia. Both the challenges and whatever response we have to those challenges are squarely on the parish level. The decline overall is born of a decline in the parishes of our Synod. Quite bluntly, we have fewer people coming to worship than we have had since our earliest of days. The number of congregations is declining but at a very slow rate and one that looks bigger because the number of mission starts is also very low. Though the last two decades have seen the total number of folks in worship on an average Sunday drop to half of what it was, the actual number of altars and pulpits has not dropped as precipitously (2.8%). In fact, the numbers of active clergy on the roster is a bit higher than a generation ago (2%). No, the problem is that we are no longer a culture of church going folks as the ratio from those baptized members to attendance is now only 3 out of 10.
The fact that we are not alone or that we are doing better than some should not be consolation to us. We have to admit that the loss is being felt first of all on the ground level with the congregation and any renewal will begin on the ground level with the congregation. Furthermore, we will need to face the hard fact that innovation and creativity are not the answers anymore than doing what we have been doing wrong over the past 20 years or so will help us reverse the trend. Books and programs and experts are not the means to reversing this decline. We all know that but none of us wants to believe it. Neither will we reverse the decline by finding convenient suspects to round up and accuse. It is a fool's errand for Rome to blame all their problems on Vatican II and it is a fool's errand for us to blame all our problems on any one thing or any one group (not even the Boomers so many love to hate).
Our problem is that we simply have forgotten how to be the Church. We have engaged in so many different activities over the years that we have either been distracted from or lost confidence in the one way the Church grows -- the means of grace. Luther's explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed has become a shibboleth of orthodoxy but we may just have forgotten to actually believe what we insist upon saying. Worship has become merely one of many programs within the congregation and the style of worship has become the battleground. We have made worship into a toy that little children are fighting over in the sandbox instead of the awe filled moment of Christ's epiphany to us and His gift to us of the food of everlasting life. We argue over sins as if any one of us were righteous and we confess more the vague generalities or systematic sins that do not accuse us instead of praying for mercy before the Lord who is rightfully offended by what we have said, thought, and done. We entertain people to death and then insist to them than unless they are leading something or taking part of the service, they are not really participating. We have more Bibles than any one but do not read them and plenty of great religious books that sit unopened.
The reality is that many of our congregations have forgotten why they are there in the first place and the Lord's visitation has been bumped down the list while relevance and feel good emotions top it. Covid is hardly to blame but the mere fact that it happened and we acquiesced to the reality that the liquor store is more important than our gathering on the Lord's day in His house only sealed the deal. We have lost more than people in the pews; we have lost our reason for existence. Without a renewal that is built upon this positive and powerful affirmation of who we are as the people of God and what we do gathered around His Word, water, and table. We do not have to draw people to this unless what we are doing is no longer this glimpse of heavenly glory and this taste of the food of immortality. As long as worship is merely optional, it will become occasional and as long as it is occasional it will become irrelevant. There is no apology or embarrassment for this statement of fact. Renewal begins on Sunday morning. Is this a radical thought? It should not be and if it is then all the programs and technology on earth will not save us. We will have condemned ourselves.
3 comments:
What we see as mere mortals often conflicts with how God sees things. Being omniscient, Our Lord watches over the world and knows the beginning from the end. Whether or not the LCMS or any church body gains or loses members may have little to do with innovation and programs, but is more widely the result of sin, of cultural malaise, of human indifference, and popular rejection of the word of God. If over time a smaller synod results but it is stronger and faithful, would such a purging of the synod be a bad thing, or a sign of a healthy spiritual renewal? Did our Lord not speak clearly about useless branches being good for nothing but the fire? What we know about the coming Final Judgment is that there are many unsaved people even in all of the churches, not just outsiders. It is a hard thought to consider, but true, because Jesus said it Himself. The sincerity of one’s profession of faith, repentance, and complete trust is the saving grace of God, and redemption through Christ alone are not mere words, but intrinsic to the heart of the matter. We cannot predict the future, and whether the LCMS will endure except as a shadow of its former size and influence, but that reality is in God’s hands. In my life experiences, it has been that the things I feared most never happened, but the things I had not considered came about. However, it seems that blessings and sorrow each have a season. In this troubled and fallen world, it does appear that evil is waxing worse and worse in our time. Divisions in our country alone have grown to tense levels. One wonders how much suffering lies ahead, and how the prospect of apocalyptic wars on a scale never before experienced will destroy civilizations overnight. Despite the doom and gloom reports, Christians will have to walk by faith, not by sight, relying on the Lord fervently. It is better to hold securely to one’s faith, than to perish in unbelief. Soli Deo Gloria
This is 100% correct. We, meaning not just LCMS, but Americans as a whole, are not a churchgoing people. The societal changes since the 1960s have resulted in a culture that largely prides itself on having evolved beyond the need for God. This started in the West by the government actively removing religious instruction from the schools in Germany and France at the beginning of the last century. German theology texts began to read like agnostic existentialism, while their Swedish counterparts came across as studies in psychology and sociology. Theological liberalism was championed across the board.
It is no surprise that the LCMS always placed great emphasis on the establishment of schools alongside churches, to provide religious education for children K-8th grade. The health of these schools has been challenged over the decades by rising costs and accreditation standards, as well as the perceived value provided to families regarding academic and religious instruction.
It is one thing to say just prioritize your schools because they have always provided the gateway to religious instruction and membership. But funding is increasingly problematic, as costs ever increase and membership overall trends downward. Low teacher salaries, low prestige, and stress dissuade many talented Lutherans from pursuing the profession. Neighborhoods rapidly change, and a successful school may find itself struggling after just a few decades. Parents that take advantage of educational grants may not have any interest in religion or church membership in a nation that no longer sees itself as even mostly culturally Christian.
There are no easy answers in a post-Christian America, of course. But let us continue to work in the areas that God has placed us, not losing heart for the sake of the Gospel.
This is primarily due to a decades-long trend of LCMS congregational members having significantly fewer children per family, thus leading to the increased average age of congregational members, and subsequently fewer people coming to worship. More information about the birth rate decline and its effect on LCMS membership can be found in the March 10, 2025, Ad Crucem News article, "Must the LCMS Accept Its Orderly Extinction?" (https://www.adcrucem.news/p/must-the-lcms-accept-its-orderly)
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