Moderator's Address Part II
Part I - A Key Moment
Part II - Contemporary Mission
Part III - The Local Church
Part IV - A New Framework
Part V - Key Areas
The Real Driving Force for Contemporary Mission
We are not to be driven by guilt concerning our
decline nor by a desire to give people what they want; rather, mission is
our thankful response to what God graciously supplies for our need.
As we struggle to be a faithful church, we are often
pushed forward today by two driving forces: on the one hand our most recent
performances of being church and on the other the social and cultural
upheavals we are facing. Both need treating with caution.
Concerning the first driving force, we know that the
zenith of Nonconformity came in the middle of the nineteenth century and
that thereafter our church tradition has been in numerical decline, with a
marked increase in the rate of that decline from the 1960s onwards. While we
must beware of equating ecclesial health with numerical strength, the
statistics clearly do not lie completely. Nevertheless, our experience of
decline is heightened by a Victorian legacy, namely, the material results of
an obsession for church building without giving due attention to population
movement. This has left us with far too many church buildings where we don't
need them and arguably a lack of them in some places where we now require
them. Often, the institutional competitiveness generated by wealthy
Independent Christians simply added to the over-provision of church plant in
the Free Church constituency. I am told that in Heckmondwike during a
supposed hey-day of Nonconformity that, with a little squeezing, the three
Independent chapels could accommodate the entire seven thousand population
between them as though there were no other denomination there at all!
It may also be the case that as membership rolls plummet numbers of
adherents in our congregations are rising, but, when we are finished with
analysing the statistics, the bottom line is simply this, if I may risk
possible accusations of ageism: my generation and that of my children are
largely missing from most of our congregations. Going to church these days
is one of the few places where I still feel young! Unless we accept the
ridiculous notion that church-going is largely a retirement activity, we
must find ways of attracting a much wider age-range. Our motivation for
doing that, however, ought not to be a deep worry about how we can keep the
institution called 'church' alive; rather, it should be a Spirit-driven
conviction rising Phoenix-like out of the dying embers of past ways of being
Church and generating a felt need to draw others into the abundant
generosity of God's love.
Secondly, and concerning the other driving force, the
culture within which our mission now has to be set has been in a tremendous
state of upheaval during my lifetime. Treasured values, traditions and
institutions no longer hold sway as perhaps once was the case. However, in a
culture in which 'heritage' is a niche market, we need to note the way in
which our perceptions about change often veer towards nostalgia. It is easy
to view the past in a more positive light that it actually deserves and
thereby to react to the present rather more negatively than is helpful.
What has happened to Christian believing and the
institutional church is a good example of the seismic changes we are facing.
Where once Christian teaching could be taken as read, we can no longer take
it for granted that what we believe will be accepted in a vibrant
multi-faith society. We now find ourselves having to enter into dialogue
with others and argue our case sensitively. Nor does the church possess the
standing in society it once did. In fact, a major challenge today concerns
how we address those who dismiss us as irrelevant, or who have given up on
us because of what they perceive are our sexist, racist or homophobic
tendencies. While many people are at best critical or at worst apathetic to
the church, they still often react positively to the words and witness of
Jesus, and it remains significant that in a so-called secular age they still
search for personal fulfilment in a 'spiritual' realm that they clearly
believe lies beyond all the seemingly unfulfilled hopes of their 'material'
world.
It could be that people who at present are hostile or indifferent to us
because of the way we "do" church would be interested and committed to new
forms of being church, ones that seek to be faithful to Jesus at one and the
same time as attempting to be relevant in our age. There undoubtedly is a
world of spiritual searching beyond the church to which the church needs to
respond with some urgency. Nevertheless, we must beware of 'dumbing' the
gospel down to what our individualistic culture will find acceptable.
Authentic, cross-bearing discipleship challenges a great deal in current
society's ethos. Bonhoeffer warned us against operating with 'cheap grace'.
Equally, we need to avoid living off 'stale grace', perceptions and
practices which have lost touch with the counter-cultural essence of the
Christian witness of faith. A key to a faithful future will be our ability
to re-learn the art and normality of swimming against the tide.
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