I heard of another church that is due to close this week. It is in a place some distance from me but a church community that I once knew and like many church closures, it seems incredible to me that this particular one is closing down. As it happens it is one of the very many Church of Scotland closures that are currently going on. The congregation in question, such as it is these days, will be invited to join with another congregation. It is a rare merger of churches which produces a church with the strengths of both congregational parties. The strong likelihood is that the resulting congregation will be less than the sum of its two parts.
My own denomination is not immune to this kind of thing. Some of our churches are very vulnerable. Some of them are coming to the end of their natural. However, our decline feels a little different to that of many churches.
Scottish Episcopalians have been here before of course. We’ve already been wiped out.
I’ve read articles recently that have been well trailed online suggesting that the Church in Wales and the Anglican Church in Canada face complete wipe out within a short number of years. Existential collapse is a real risk. Those writing the articles that I’ve been reading are firmly of the view that it is all the fault of the wicked liberals with their desire to stamp out the true faith by treating men and women alike and with their perverse notion that stability and love should be foisted on same-sex couples as a possible way of living on this earth.
Life is more complicated of course. Much more complicated and much more interesting.
When you witness these things from the perspective of a church that has already been wiped out, maybe they feel different. The Scottish Episcopal Church came within a whisker of being wiped out in the years following 1689. Politics started it. In the same way that trains stop because of the wrong kind of leaves on the line, the Scottish Episcopal Church pretty much hit the buffers because of the wrong kind of king on the throne. The organisational structure of the church died. But its spirit never did. And I want those who are in churches which face terrible demographic change over the next few years to know that. It is relatively easy to close church buildings. But the essence of a denomination is harder to kill off if it does its basic business and leads people into the presence of God.
One of the signs of organisational collapse in church structures is increasing desperation within regional and national jurisdictions.
The trouble is, desperation is not a successful mission strategy.
Few mission strategies are terribly successful to be honest, and I find myself thinking a lot about that.
Might God be telling us something in this area?
The mission strategies which seem to aim to turn every Christian into a little missionary to recruit more people into the fold seem spectacularly unsuccessful.
I think we need new and more interesting metaphors for doing all of this. If it is just about turning people into recruiting agents, I’m not sure I’m interested and from all I can see, God doesn’t seem to be all that interested either.
I think instead that Christian communities that provide the space and the resources for people to live life in all its fullness tend to be magnetic. The dominant way that faith seems to be being passed on now that Christendom (the expectation that everyone belongs to the faith already) is over, seems to be the simple force of attraction.
People are attracted to those living lives that are full of old-fashioned joys like faith, hope and love.
And people are attracted, deeply attracted, attracted more than most church folk can imagine, to places where they can find the space and the resources to simply be and find themselves loved by God. Some of that is played out in the “thin place” spirituality with which we are very familiar in Scotland. But church folk have lost the basic plot if we lose the idea that crossing the threshold of a church means something. To enter a holy place is a holy thing and there’s work to be done to tell people that the God of the mountaintop has a heart for the city and the God of the island pilgrimage is waiting for pilgrims back at home in the spaces we can find where the buzz of life is at its most exuberant. Churches have always been places where the experience of the unexpected and the uncanny can lead people to all that is holy and all that is true.
Pilgrimage may be a more useful word than mission for a lot of modern people. Conversion for a great many people seems to feel more like a walk in company to a holy place than the turning on of a light.
That’s not to say that everyone has the same experience. They don’t, and we should rejoice in those who find themselves suddenly experiencing the overwhelming and shocking love of God. But we should pray that the same love also gives them a heart to know that this won’t be the experience of everyone. It never has been in Christian history and I suspect it never will be.
Churches still have a purpose whilst they are places where people can discover the God who lurks in the world offering change for the better and good news and redemption for all.
From the perspective of a living congregation in a denomination that has been wiped almost off the face of the earth in the past, from the perspective of a city where Episcopalians were persecuted and still held fast, and from the perspective of a denomination that has more than its fair share of modern problems, I still feel remarkably and ridiculously hopeful.
It isn’t just that there’s work for us still to do. It is that there’s work for God to do in us. And God might well have some good news for those who have reason to pause in holy spaces and wonder for a while.
A distinctive glimpse of heaven managed to survive the organisational collapse that we faced in the past.
Will it survive current challenges?
Well, I wouldn’t bet against the Holy Spirit.
We’ve been here before.
I do think it’s important to remember that the sectarian persecutions of the past happened within a context that regarded itself as Christian – whether Episcopalian north of the border, or Reformed south of the border, the majority culture just saw itself as the ‘correct’ church.
Our context is of overwhelming apathy towards religion at the best, and at worst, assuming that anyone religious is a fundamentalist with a scantily concealed desire to kill infidels.
But I agree that we would be wise to trust in the Holy Spirit.
Kelvin
I always value reading your thoughts. May I suggest you give consideration when you use the word ‘church’? While the Church of Scotlad is closing many buildings, (s)he is not closing churches!
I’m aware of a C of S congregation which merged with a congregation that was a union of (I think) 7 congregations a number of years ago. This union of 8 has now announced its building will close and it will unite with another one making a union of 9. There is a plan to merge this with another congregation and there are discussions ongoing about which building should be kept.
You can say that all those churches are still open if you like but I’m not sure that people local to this actually do see it that way.
Indeed. See my separate comment.
Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh is a united congregation which over the years has worshipped in 17 places. Worth a visit to see the 17 leg communion table crafted by its social enterprise arm Grassmarket Community Project.
Hi from Nova Scotia. You mention the Canadian Church in passing. Church demographers told us recently that the last Canadian Anglican will disappear by 2040 and the update is, maybe sooner as a result of the pandemic. My take is that parties, whether ‘liberal’ ( mine) or conservative ( some one else’s) are more consequence than cause. Our current decline is tied in with the decline of religion in Canada in general. Ethnicity is also an issue. Anglicans here are as ethnic as any one else. Our ethnic cohort stopped having large families over two generations ago. Urbanization, rural decline and with it regional outmigration in historically Anglican strong areas like Atlantic Canada are part of the picture.
I think one can distinguish between the decline of the grand old institution
( Anglican Church of Canada, previously The Church of England in Canada) and the future of a communities of faith with an Anglican heritage. Pace demographics, there are just too many stories of parishes and other entities being fully alive, full of The Spirit, doing creative things, holding a place in the community.
Kevin, as your article notes, anecdotes and stories matter. They not only provide hopeful pause for reflection: they also testify to the creative perseverance of a Spirit filled people.
Fr. Kelvin, last para, my apololgy for the typo in your name.It was either auto correct or a inattentive scribal error on my part. I know several ‘Kevins’ indeed too many perhaps. lol. please fix if possible. R.G.
I think people are done with man made religion but spirituality well that’s a different thing. I feel that you are correct people are drawn to love, inclusivity and holy spaces I think our church is such a space and I know it is growing. I remember Mission 21, it appalled me. Statistics and money. Surely we are beyond that. I have faith, what will be will be. But it might be different to what we think we should have or it should be. Exciting times.