What if the iMonk is Right - Finding Hope in the Coming Evangelical Collapse

“I sit in church every Sunday morning…for a full hour…and I feel nothing.  I get nothing.  I experience nothing.  You say you wonder why some parents don’t bring their children to youth group, don’t make them come to Sunday school and seem not to care that their children aren’t involved with church.  I say you should just look around.  Nobody really cares about this stuff.  Most people come because it looks good...People are leaving because God’s Spirit is leading them to the one place where they’re sure to hear God speak – private devotion, friendship and family.  I’ve taught Sunday School for ten years and I’ve never seen things this bad…this empty.”  (From a recent conversation with an anonymous Sunday School teacher)

A few months ago, Michael Spencer, A.K.A. the internet Monk, wrote an important and heavily blogged about piece about the impending collapse of evangelicalism in the West (particularly America).  The full-text can be found here.  The iMonk chronicles six main reasons why he thinks evangelicalism is on a quick descent into possible non-existence:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism


2. Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people the evangelical Christian faith in an orthodox form that can take root and survive the secular onslaught


3. Evangelical churches have now passed into a three part chapter: 1) mega-churches that are consumer driven, 2) churches that are dying and 3) new churches that whose future is dependent on a large number of factors.


4. Despite some very successful developments in the last 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can hold the line in the rising tide of secularism.


5. The deterioration and collapse of the evangelical core will eventually weaken the missional-compassionate work of the evangelical movement


6. Much of this collapse will come in areas of the country where evangelicals imagine themselves strong...At the core of this collapse will be the inability to pass on, to our children, a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.
   
   

I’ve had plenty of time to think about the iMonk’s assertions and so, although I’m incredibly late to the game, I’ve got a few thoughts of my own derived – in part – from my experience over the past six years in youth ministry in “mainline churches.”  Granted, six years isn’t an eternity in ministry but I do think it’s long enough to notice some important cultural shifts.



In my experience, mainline churches - even in the South - don't conceive of themselves as "evangelicals."  Despite this phraseological discrepancy, I think the Mainline churches must be included in the iMonk's assessment.  Among the most prominent factors is the growing dissatisfaction with the top-down hierarchical nature of most of the mainline denominations.  I think people - baby boomers and their children - are beginning to figure out the institutional church's big secret: that the clergy class is just as clueless as the rest of us.



For all our theological education, our "leadership skills" and our cultural engagement, pastors and other ministry workers are increasingly unable to provide compelling reasons why others should live engaged lives of Christian faith.



Case in point - a local church in my area is planning a revival.  The publically stated purpose: to bring the "un-churched" back into the church."  Ministry leaders are increasingly out of touch with the reality that, by and large, Western culture stepped outside the doors of the church about 30 years ago and most of them simply aren't looking back.  Language of “churched” and “unchurched” either sounds foreign, silly or creepy to most folks to whom it refers.



The reality is this: I work in a "traditional" mainline church and I love what I do.  I pray that God will continue to work in all of the forms of church as we continue to move into the future and work for the coming of the Kingdom of God.  In spite of my work and my hope, however, I have the distinct feeling that I'm riding a big wave on a sinking ship.  I believe that there's a future for intentional and communal Christian formation in the 21st century and beyond.  I am highly skeptical, however, of the ability of any institutional form of Christianity to truly "be" that sort of community.



In the past, I have been critical of folks like Frank Viola for criticizing and speaking out against practices of institutional churches which have no basis in scripture.  The main reason I think I've been critical, however, is that the logical conclusions of such assertions leave me without a job.



I wonder how many others are in similar situations: seeing so much that's wrong with the church but failing to speak out in order to survive.  How long can ministers continue to reap the benefits of "working for the Lord" while at the same time stubbornly hardening our hearts to what God can do perfectly well without our help?

What options are there for a class of people - the "minister" class - whose major skill sets are "preaching and visiting?"  I'm reminded of a lecture that Wendell Berry delivered during my year at Duke Divinity School in which he more or less said that most pastors today are useless outside the safe walls of what we so arrogantly call "Church."  Pastors, he said, ought to learn a trade so that they can actually make a meaningful contribution to their communities.



I think he's right.  At the very least, those who minister in today's institutional churches ought to start looking outside the church for sources of income.  The current situation of the church is unsustainable.  I, of course, am writing this as one who benefits from this unsustainable system.  And, of course, I am more than willing to admit that I don’t have all the answers.  What I’ve got is a wife and a son that I love more than my own life so I’m willing to make some compromises so that we can pay our bills.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love working in youth ministry at my current church.  But I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with deriving all of my livelihood from money that could just as easily go to start a community garden or provide food for the homeless or any number of other forms of community development.



I find hope in the emerging / emergent conversation at the same time that some (including, sometimes, myself) are also disappointed with its (lack of) direction.  I don't have a lot of answers but I believe there's hope for the church.  I just pray that people will begin to see the potential beauty in this mess we call church.