A problem with an easy answer

[Ploutos]

My church is closing, and I don’t know what comes next — for me, or America

This was a really interesting article, written by a social scientist who moonlighted as a part-time pastor of an American Baptist church. While he became famous for writing about religious trends in America, he simultaneously watched his aging church dwindle from 50 to 10, sell its building, and then finally decide to shut down.

It's a fascinating article, but the headline and indeed his entire journey can be answered, in true David Tennant fashion, with just six words - six words to which the author seems to have never given any serious consideration in his entire life:

"Have you thought about the gospel?"

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

My church is closing, and I don’t know what comes next — for me, or America

This was a really interesting article, written by a social scientist who moonlighted as a part-time pastor of an American Baptist church. While he became famous for writing about religious trends in America, he simultaneously watched his aging church dwindle from 50 to 10, sell its building, and then finally decide to shut down.

It's a fascinating article, but the headline and indeed his entire journey can be answered, in true David Tennant fashion, with just six words - six words to which the author seems to have never given any serious consideration in his entire life:

"Have you thought about the gospel?"

It's really sad that he treats the decline of the church and his own church as some sort of demographic inevitability, rather than something in which he has a share of the blame. If, as a pastor, you lose every last sheep in your care, how do you not stop and ask yourself if you did something wrong along the way?

 

[iainduguid]

All this is true, and I had a similar reaction when I read the article, since the author seems more of a mainliner than an evangelical. Nevertheless, you can preach the gospel faithfully and still see your church close, as I can personally attest. It is one of the hardest things a pastor can go through, and of course you ask yourself if you did something wrong along the way (or rather, you remember many of the things you did wrong along the way and wonder if you are really fit to be a pastor). There is no guarantee that if we just preach the gospel our churches will prosper and grow. Sometimes God is going to do something in us through showing us our weakness and failure that is more important to him than having our church grow.

 

[Edward]

It's really sad that he treats the decline of the church and his own church as some sort of demographic inevitability

Sometimes it is. That town is smaller than it was in 1940 (appears to have peaked as the last of the boomers were heading toward college - highest census was in 1980). In other mainline news, the PCUSA church there reports 27 members, 16 attending with $51,000 in giving (with their last report in 2022). That's not a viable situation, either.

Would a properly trained pastor have made a difference at that church? Maybe, but probably not. But one shouldn't overlook this line "An ill-advised sermon drove off a few key families". I do know that our family left a church when I was a child some time after the pastor in a sermon made a comment about people who drove a certain model car, the only one of which in the church parking lot belonged to my father. (The car was bought used, by the way). Unnecessary, uncalled for, and inappropriate.

 

[Ploutos]

Sometimes it is. That town is smaller than it was in 1940 (appears to have peaked as the last of the boomers were heading toward college - highest census was in 1980). In other mainline news, the PCUSA church there reports 27 members, 16 attending with $51,000 in giving (with their last report in 2022). That's not a viable situation, either.

Which part? The 16 members, or the fact that it's in the PCUSA?

But one shouldn't overlook this line "An ill-advised sermon drove off a few key families".

What pastor can preach, year-in and year-out, without an ill-advised sermon once in a while? If the ill-advised sermon is all it took, that statement says more about the families than about the pastor. On the other hand, it's would seem rather likely that would be more to such a situation than just an ill-advised sermon, but still.

It's really sad that he treats the decline of the church and his own church as some sort of demographic inevitability, rather than something in which he has a share of the blame. If, as a pastor, you lose every last sheep in your care, how do you not stop and ask yourself if you did something wrong along the way?

I think he makes pretty clear in the article that he did wrestle with those questions. I think he's processing this with the same questions and doubts that any other pastor, sound or heterodox, would wrestle with. One of our pastors led a church plant that closed after ten years. He can hardly be questioned for his doctrinal integrity, but no doubt he wonders how much of it was inevitable and how much was his fault.

To me there was no problem with the author's "psychological profile", so to speak. What he describes is a perfectly normal way of going through such a situation. What's remarkable about it to me, as a believer, is that this man - a pastor - never once gives any indication that he's even thought about the gospel message or the spiritual content of his preaching. It's all well and good to wonder what was his fault and what was inevitable, along with every other parent, spouse, and job-holder in history who has experienced failure.

But to be a pastor, and to never think about the spiritual component of his job, to never connect the dots between the sterility of his counterfeit religion and the sociological trends to which he has dedicated his life - to never ask whether he has faithfully preached the gospel or to evaluate his job performance in the context of who is writing his eternal performance review. This is what is astounding to me. That is where the real blindness lies. So long as he is so utterly oblivious to even the concept of spiritual realities as this article would indicate, he will never gain a single ounce of profit from this experience, where others such as my pastor and Dr. Duguid might, though with excruciating sorrow, profit a great deal.