I wrote a piece on the CRC Network on the CRC and Angst. It came out of a far longer discussion on CRC-Voices.  We get ourselves into a tizzy or we fall into despair. I wrote this to afford a bit of perspective.

Are things worse today than they’ve been in the past? I don’t know.

The CRC has always had problems. Read old Acts of Synod. Read old Banners. We usually swap some problems for others.

If we look at what is ailing us through the lens of viability of local churches we feel the stress.

Yes, the CRC in terms of its history at this level is in more distress. Why?

It is likely the CRC is doing better in what we call “evangelism” as we’ve ever done. We take in more people who were not raised CRC than ever before. We are more ethnically diverse than ever before. We are more successful planting new churches than ever before. I think these are indisputable. Do we do any of these things well enough to address hemorrhage left right and center? No.

Why not? The work done in evangelism and church planting isn’t really connected with the reason for the losses. If you look at churches in the denom you’ll see that some conservative churches with KWOO (Keep women out of office) are growing nicely. Some churches that have WICO (Women in church office) grow nicely too. Some that are very conservative, preach sin, hell and substitutionary atonement are making disciples. Some churches that are doing nice seeker things that give people a lift and make them feel good about themselves are growing nicely too. Churches of all of those categories are declining too. Add your issues: third wave, gay or anti-gay, etc. None of these issues are accounting for what is eating at the denomination.

While the URC split (or PRC) split subtract from Synod and ministry shares, I don’t think of them as exiting “the system” really that much. They gain new enthusiasm for a generation but that diminishes.

Why then is the CRC in trouble? A better question is why are many CRCs in trouble?

1. Large cultural changes make common evangelical Christian assumptions less gripping. There is slippage in the plausibility structure felt often among the educated young. Read Rachel Held Evans and a host of other bloggers like her. Yoga, Starbucks, Kid’s sports, TV, a better job, a better romance, a cause to rally around can easily replace what cold old church was supposed to provide, at least for a decade or more.

2. Newer, hipper, megas have honed the consumer religious angle and anger better than your inter-generational small church. Most CRCs really can’t compete well in this market, even though CRHM has tried. Now many are not even trying because on the coasts those formulas are fraying too and succumbing to point #1. Most churches in America are small. Most church goers in America go to mega churches. (I don’t know the situation in Canada, I would imagine it’s more of #1 and more like Europe.)

3. I don’t know that we’re more sinful or have worse leaders than in the past. We can probably not afford it more.

What to do?

1. It all does start local in your own church. Repent, pray, breath, live the gospel, love your neighbor, bless your neighbor at your own expense. None of this is new. You can do it as a conservative or a liberal.

2. The denom will likely shrink. It will morph or things will close. We had a lot of pride about being affluent and generous enough to do some impressive things. Our pride will take a hit. The denom thing will adjust and contract normally, just like it expanded. That stuff is more like economics. Maybe some helpful things will come out of it to help some churches. That happens often too. I hear enough anecdotes about some program or person in an office helping a local church. There will also be hurtful and boneheaded things.

3. Being conflict avoidant or trying to make everyone happy (on whatever side of whatever issue) won’t really work. As a community we’ll have to figure out what to say and what to do. We’ll get lots of stuff wrong, and we’ll compromise to try to keep peace and say things that don’t make sense, committees do that. Some will get pissed off because we won’t treat gays well. Some will be upset because we won’t stop making political noises they don’t like. Someone’s always mad. Things that work by majority vote will most of the time find a squishy middle that most will seem to tolerate or ignore. That’s how these systems work.

4. Deep down inside all of us know the kingdom is bigger than the CRC. We love it, and hope it can still be useful to God. We hope that through it we can be a witness not only to mere Christianity but to some of the things we think we’ve been blessed with. I don’t know what will come. I can be pessimistic, but then there are people and things that give me hope.

I think we buy into a business model barometer when we think about the CRC.

• Amazon never turns a profit but the market says “buy buy buy” because they think there will be growth in the future.
• Microsoft makes billions every year like clockwork but the market yawns or is anxious because they don’t grow or they worry they will decline eventually.
• Apple is a darling for a while because it seems to grow, and grow it does, but since Jobs died it doesn’t quite reach market expectations of growth, even with 100 billion in the bank (off shore) so the market sells and they have a “correction”.

We look at the CRC, or even our little church and we prognosticate: “it’s going to die”.

People walk into my little church and say “it’s a dying church”, but then a few young families come in and they feel differently. The truth is we don’t know. Knowing isn’t ours. What will we do, look for some hot _________ church because we think the CRC is going under? Most of us won’t do that. We go to OUR CRC because it is our family and we love it even if it hurts us or says things we don’t like. Others leave. We soldier on.

So yes, much ails us. Pastors like David Snapper (On voices who wrote started the thread this responded to) long ago knew he wasn’t going to (probably) have a mega church. He has to deal with his expectations and disappointments (and learn enough to write about them) but stay with his small church he does because he loves Jesus and he loves them and he is their pastor. He would take a bullet for them and all of us know it. He worries because he loves. Many of us do too.

What we should do is hope in the LORD because the church has always been in miserable shape.

Read John’s letters to the churches and ponder the audacity. These tiny, struggling groups in the empire, persecuted by Jews and pagans alike, and John says “you will inherit the kingdom” and there was no reason on earth to imagine it was true, but those little churches conquered the Roman empire by loving their neighbor, and turning the other cheek, and taking in abandoned baby girls and having hope even when they were killed and even while many of their church brothers and sisters recounted and defected only to crawl back when the heat was off.

Read what Paul, Peter and Timothy had to face and don’t wear rose colored glasses about those churches or what their common folks believed. Lots of legalism. Lots of worldliness.

I am regularly amazed at how God often uses one simple, small, quiet, faithful believer to do a world of good in quiet ways. I believe God hasn’t stopped and he’ll keep building his kingdom until he comes.

Yes things suck. yes Jesus lives. The situation is pretty normal. pvk