Re the decline in church ministry: most of the student pastors at my UCC church have gone into chaplaincy - uses more spiritual muscle than writing sermons. (Did you see the nyt article this morning about AI sermons?) very hard to console parents of a child who’s been shot - a frequent occurrence here in St. Louis. I think digital won’t replace “hands on.”
Thank you for doing this. Much needed conversation. I wonder, though, if maybe we need to depend less on our own insight, vision, plans, etc. I heard a presentation recently on Acts 1 and the rush of the apostles to appoint a successor to Judas. The presenter asked, humorously but pointedly, how many churches today are named after Matthias. The point was that God will show us the way. Still, I'm as concerned as you about what comes next.
When reading the paper above, I was once again reminded of (haunted by) a past change in college ministry run by a local church. They had what they called Group meetings, where student from the ministry would simply get together where they could on a Tuesday night to talk and be part of a Christian group. It was nice, as a incoming freshman, to have a place that I could be Christian and discuss Christian things, but also how everything else reflecting in my faith. Conversation would go over the time and we would find ourselves in the parking lot, just discussing how we felt. The next year, it was decided that they would do away with the "Group" meetings and now would call them Bible meetings. They would go over selected passages from the Bible, and would be a guided study to the items that they would be going over in the larger conventional church style meetings.
My gosh, did it suck. What started as new groups of friends forming in context of faith became something boring and completely mundane. I watched people that needed the intimacy of friendship stop coming because they got "Ministry" instead. I was always told that it was "training" issue with the student leaders, but... four years on, it just didn't matter.
There was a certain evil to watching something that was about building a identity in faith with others turn into a church handing out identities. Like a bunch of college students couldn't be trusted with the decision.
Where do you see honest, real intimacy of friendship coming from in the digital world to come? What are the skill necessary to curate that or foster it? How do you keep it from becoming a anonymous game of polarizing opinions? How do you keep people that come from different walks of life whose habitual response to protect their emotions is to check out and never check back in again?
I miss lasting relationships in churches, or at the very least the illusion of it. After going through gender dysphoria in the South, nothing was really found to be lasting in that crucible. How does the modern church make a community that matters and can stand up to the challenges that it promises to face?
Thank you for sharing your story. Perhaps the hardest part of it is the fact that you saw and experienced something that worked wonderfully, and that was jettisoned for instruction. The "something" that made it special was yanked from the equation.
Building relationships online is indeed possible. I've done it myself. I know others who have as well.
Don't get me wrong, the challenge is still real. It's not just about making connections, but actually building relationships. It's helping people get in touch with themselves and one another in a way that forms a sense of wider community. It's going to take a lot of work.
I would also submit (and am doing research on) that clergy need to be trained in how to run a small nonprofit, because that's exactly what youre doing when you accept a call.
I think the reason the church is in massive decline is because we opted out of the great commission and into something far less purpose-giving. Christianity decided that making decisions is enough and that making disciples is too much. Pew warming head nodders love it.
But, we need not wonder why the passionate, change makers, life livers, love givers are gone. They are out finding someone to follow, someone to lead and somewhere to celebrate.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it.
As I mentioned in a previous article in my last series, Christianity is becoming less of a hand-me-down religion and more of a choice. People are turning to religious frameworks because they are seeking something spiritually. That's why I believe we need to shift spiritual disciplines (making disciples) front and center and sideline the main event known as Sunday worship service.
@DaveDownUnder What you describe here resonates strongly with my journey as a member of various churches and denominations over the past 40 years. Thanks for sharing!
I am excited about where this conversation is headed.
I think you present one of the problems the American church is facing going forward well. Ryan Burge, here on Substack, has some good data that speaks to this. My question would be: Is the problem not that the church is unwilling to adapt to the culture, but that we are trying to adapt too much and instead need to return to our roots? By the roots, I mean the part of our history when we were on the margins of society, speaking into the culture rather than trying to become a part of it. I think your concept of digital ecclesiastical is a good container for this. I look forward to reading next week.
Thank you for your comment. That's a really good question and fair concern. I don't generally think in terms of religion vs culture. I see authentic religion as a culture's way of framing spiritual resonance.
I agree that we need to return to our roots. When I think of what that means, though, to me it isn't about religious or cultural content. It's about a way of faithfully engaging spirituality through culture. To flesh that out a little more, next week I'm going to lean into the earliest apologists.
I'm clergy (Church of England) in the UK. The situation here is different in some ways - training is funded and individual churches don't directly employ ministers. The challenge is that we are on the same journey but our system allows (some of) us to have our heads in the sand and not do the necessary work of making the church relevant.
I've found my place in chaplaincy, first military and now educational.
That's interesting. Are clergy paid by the C of E as a wider institution then? Is there a danger of the coffers going dry? Fwiw, I can only speak for my American context. But I suspect what I say over the next few weeks can be translated to others. Maybe anyway.
Yes, I suspect what you say will translate and it's already resonating with me.
Generally, with some exceptions, in the CofE each parish in the diocese contributes to diocesan funds and then clergy are paid by the diocese. The amount each parish is asked to contribute depends on factors like congregation size and level of deprivation in the area. The idea is that the wealthier support the less wealthy. Recently some churches are pulling against this as they don't want to support churches they see as not orthodox.
That last bit sounds like a fun denominational dynamic! Now I'm kind of interested in knowing whether the wealthier churches are the more Orthodox ones.
I'm glad your resonating.I hope what I write ultimately ends up being helpful across the board.
Start with Sunday school, please! Can you believe kids are getting the same Noah’s ark I got in 1946? Yes, we need to save animals from us humans, but as a community, with thought to their own lives. Isolating them on an ark won’t work.
We definitely need to emphasize more the interdependence of all things, including that between humans and animals. As a science-based, force-free dog trainer, I'm especially on board with that.
What is more likely to happen is that reformed denominations will merge, much like they did in Canada. The episcopal church just cleared the way for PCUSA ministers to serve in their churches. The first true step to union will be the merging of clergy support structures, such as insurance and pension. Denominations don’t die- they just evolve.
I think that is not only a necessary response by institutions, but also a good one. I think denominations will be enriched by merging with one another. It creates an opportunity to officially value different theological traditions under One roof.
Definitely inevitable. I guess my question is, "Then what?" The decline will surely continue. So I see the solution (which is a great step forward) as a bandaid to stop the bleeding for a while.
The financial dynamics certainly match the situation here in Maine. We are down to less than 30 full-time churches. COVID forced many of us to be digital pastors and I have tried to embrace a hybrid model of church since then. It's working, but I realize I'm in a unique situation because we have plenty of money due to wealthy retirees moving to the area. Plus we attract a lot of summer residents who stay connected through our digital ministry. Glad to read your thoughts for the first time and I will look ahead with interest.
There are so many angles to address. Full-time clergy salaries are bumping up over $70k/yr with pension and housing. (Not that they shouldn't be!) As you also point out, my observation is that a decent-sized church is around 75+. That's a lot of stewardship and finance education for folks with many different non-profit appeals hitting them all the time. Also, I've noticed a divide between new clergy (with large student debt) being more focused on what they need to be earning (focus on the money) with troubled finance committees cutting budgets to the point that service ministries suffer (which cuts the legs out from under our purpose.) It's a very interesting tangle of solutions required. Glad to be engaged here!
Thank you for your sharing. That's interesting that newer clergy are focused so much on money, and understandably so. I was unaware of that new dynamic.
Thank you for sharing your story. There is so much in here to think about. I'm sorry you and others had such a difficult time finding positions when she got into the system. Sadly, it will only get worse. Thank you for introducing yourself.
Btw, if you are not following my friend Fr. Cathie Caimano, you may want to. She's an Episcopal priest who is also working on a way forward. You can find her through my recommendations list.
The dean of my seminary (who was not the dean when I attended) responded to my question about how they might address the changing dynamics - that is, fewer full-time jobs in shrinking churches - said, "our graduates all get good jobs." Well, as someone who came into ministry as a 2nd career, it took me 10 months after graduation to find one of those "good jobs." So one of these days, I will go back and revisit this subject with him, I promise! 😇
There are [still] biases in hiring - my fellow graduates who were older women like me all struggled to find that "good job." I was one of four in that coterie:
One wound up in ministry for the homeless in a large eastern seaboard city, sponsored by a local, large, well-funded parish;
another bounced from part-time here to part-time there, eventually nailing a full-time job in a "cardinal" parish in Canada, before finding a solid full-time position in a mid-western city;
a third was expected by her bishop to find both a part-time clergy job and a part-time other job before he would ordain her. She died a few years back, and she had finally been ordained, but it was not a happy career path.
I spent nine months floating through four parishes who had a rotation of priests for Sundays, before I landed a full-time position in the Midwest, where I slowly burned out over 9 years. Now I do pulpit supply, where the demand for supply clergy is greater than the number of available supply clergy, let alone clergy for a part-time position: small congregations with shoestring budgets in little towns scattered around the state.
I'll upgrade when I get past the Christmas expense blowout, although I'm not sure what "digital" will do, or what I could bring to it, at my level of computer tolerance. I suspect we will need a serious discussion of all options. Of which digital is certainly one!
I'm glad to have found your substack. Thank you for broaching the issue!
Thank you very much for taking the time to say all that. I apologize for the delayed response. Apparently the reply I sent earlier today didn't go through.
I'm sorry to hear you and others struggled so much to find your place in the system. And I'm very sorry to hear about the burnout.
Thank you very much for considering an upgrade. I appreciate all the help I can get.
Re the decline in church ministry: most of the student pastors at my UCC church have gone into chaplaincy - uses more spiritual muscle than writing sermons. (Did you see the nyt article this morning about AI sermons?) very hard to console parents of a child who’s been shot - a frequent occurrence here in St. Louis. I think digital won’t replace “hands on.”
No, I did not see that article! I'm going to have to hunt that down. I did not know that so many were going into chaplaincy. That's very interesting.
Thank you for doing this. Much needed conversation. I wonder, though, if maybe we need to depend less on our own insight, vision, plans, etc. I heard a presentation recently on Acts 1 and the rush of the apostles to appoint a successor to Judas. The presenter asked, humorously but pointedly, how many churches today are named after Matthias. The point was that God will show us the way. Still, I'm as concerned as you about what comes next.
Thank you for your comment. Fwiw, I believe it is through our insight, vision, and plans that such revelations come to us.
I support you in your efforts!
I appreciate that so much!
When reading the paper above, I was once again reminded of (haunted by) a past change in college ministry run by a local church. They had what they called Group meetings, where student from the ministry would simply get together where they could on a Tuesday night to talk and be part of a Christian group. It was nice, as a incoming freshman, to have a place that I could be Christian and discuss Christian things, but also how everything else reflecting in my faith. Conversation would go over the time and we would find ourselves in the parking lot, just discussing how we felt. The next year, it was decided that they would do away with the "Group" meetings and now would call them Bible meetings. They would go over selected passages from the Bible, and would be a guided study to the items that they would be going over in the larger conventional church style meetings.
My gosh, did it suck. What started as new groups of friends forming in context of faith became something boring and completely mundane. I watched people that needed the intimacy of friendship stop coming because they got "Ministry" instead. I was always told that it was "training" issue with the student leaders, but... four years on, it just didn't matter.
There was a certain evil to watching something that was about building a identity in faith with others turn into a church handing out identities. Like a bunch of college students couldn't be trusted with the decision.
Where do you see honest, real intimacy of friendship coming from in the digital world to come? What are the skill necessary to curate that or foster it? How do you keep it from becoming a anonymous game of polarizing opinions? How do you keep people that come from different walks of life whose habitual response to protect their emotions is to check out and never check back in again?
I miss lasting relationships in churches, or at the very least the illusion of it. After going through gender dysphoria in the South, nothing was really found to be lasting in that crucible. How does the modern church make a community that matters and can stand up to the challenges that it promises to face?
@TheFaith&SinsOfTrans Such good questions!
Thank you for sharing your story. Perhaps the hardest part of it is the fact that you saw and experienced something that worked wonderfully, and that was jettisoned for instruction. The "something" that made it special was yanked from the equation.
Building relationships online is indeed possible. I've done it myself. I know others who have as well.
Don't get me wrong, the challenge is still real. It's not just about making connections, but actually building relationships. It's helping people get in touch with themselves and one another in a way that forms a sense of wider community. It's going to take a lot of work.
But, I do believe we can do it.
I would also submit (and am doing research on) that clergy need to be trained in how to run a small nonprofit, because that's exactly what youre doing when you accept a call.
Yes!!!!!
I'm actually going to dive into something like that in a later article.
Lmk how I can help.
Thanks
I think the reason the church is in massive decline is because we opted out of the great commission and into something far less purpose-giving. Christianity decided that making decisions is enough and that making disciples is too much. Pew warming head nodders love it.
But, we need not wonder why the passionate, change makers, life livers, love givers are gone. They are out finding someone to follow, someone to lead and somewhere to celebrate.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it.
As I mentioned in a previous article in my last series, Christianity is becoming less of a hand-me-down religion and more of a choice. People are turning to religious frameworks because they are seeking something spiritually. That's why I believe we need to shift spiritual disciplines (making disciples) front and center and sideline the main event known as Sunday worship service.
@DaveDownUnder What you describe here resonates strongly with my journey as a member of various churches and denominations over the past 40 years. Thanks for sharing!
I am excited about where this conversation is headed.
I think you present one of the problems the American church is facing going forward well. Ryan Burge, here on Substack, has some good data that speaks to this. My question would be: Is the problem not that the church is unwilling to adapt to the culture, but that we are trying to adapt too much and instead need to return to our roots? By the roots, I mean the part of our history when we were on the margins of society, speaking into the culture rather than trying to become a part of it. I think your concept of digital ecclesiastical is a good container for this. I look forward to reading next week.
Thank you for your comment. That's a really good question and fair concern. I don't generally think in terms of religion vs culture. I see authentic religion as a culture's way of framing spiritual resonance.
I agree that we need to return to our roots. When I think of what that means, though, to me it isn't about religious or cultural content. It's about a way of faithfully engaging spirituality through culture. To flesh that out a little more, next week I'm going to lean into the earliest apologists.
Now, I just have to finish writing it. :-)
“I see authentic religion as a culture's way of framing spiritual resonance.”
I am eager to read your thoughts on this!
Thank you.
I'm clergy (Church of England) in the UK. The situation here is different in some ways - training is funded and individual churches don't directly employ ministers. The challenge is that we are on the same journey but our system allows (some of) us to have our heads in the sand and not do the necessary work of making the church relevant.
I've found my place in chaplaincy, first military and now educational.
That's interesting. Are clergy paid by the C of E as a wider institution then? Is there a danger of the coffers going dry? Fwiw, I can only speak for my American context. But I suspect what I say over the next few weeks can be translated to others. Maybe anyway.
Yes, I suspect what you say will translate and it's already resonating with me.
Generally, with some exceptions, in the CofE each parish in the diocese contributes to diocesan funds and then clergy are paid by the diocese. The amount each parish is asked to contribute depends on factors like congregation size and level of deprivation in the area. The idea is that the wealthier support the less wealthy. Recently some churches are pulling against this as they don't want to support churches they see as not orthodox.
That last bit sounds like a fun denominational dynamic! Now I'm kind of interested in knowing whether the wealthier churches are the more Orthodox ones.
I'm glad your resonating.I hope what I write ultimately ends up being helpful across the board.
Start with Sunday school, please! Can you believe kids are getting the same Noah’s ark I got in 1946? Yes, we need to save animals from us humans, but as a community, with thought to their own lives. Isolating them on an ark won’t work.
We definitely need to emphasize more the interdependence of all things, including that between humans and animals. As a science-based, force-free dog trainer, I'm especially on board with that.
What is more likely to happen is that reformed denominations will merge, much like they did in Canada. The episcopal church just cleared the way for PCUSA ministers to serve in their churches. The first true step to union will be the merging of clergy support structures, such as insurance and pension. Denominations don’t die- they just evolve.
I think that is not only a necessary response by institutions, but also a good one. I think denominations will be enriched by merging with one another. It creates an opportunity to officially value different theological traditions under One roof.
Yes. They will be grounded in their theology rather than their polity. I think it would be better. It is inevitable that this will happen.
Definitely inevitable. I guess my question is, "Then what?" The decline will surely continue. So I see the solution (which is a great step forward) as a bandaid to stop the bleeding for a while.
The financial dynamics certainly match the situation here in Maine. We are down to less than 30 full-time churches. COVID forced many of us to be digital pastors and I have tried to embrace a hybrid model of church since then. It's working, but I realize I'm in a unique situation because we have plenty of money due to wealthy retirees moving to the area. Plus we attract a lot of summer residents who stay connected through our digital ministry. Glad to read your thoughts for the first time and I will look ahead with interest.
I love that you're still embracing the hybrid model! That's fantastic. I believe that definitely gives you a foothold into the future.
Thank you for the kind words of support.
I totally agree
Thank you. 🙂
There are so many angles to address. Full-time clergy salaries are bumping up over $70k/yr with pension and housing. (Not that they shouldn't be!) As you also point out, my observation is that a decent-sized church is around 75+. That's a lot of stewardship and finance education for folks with many different non-profit appeals hitting them all the time. Also, I've noticed a divide between new clergy (with large student debt) being more focused on what they need to be earning (focus on the money) with troubled finance committees cutting budgets to the point that service ministries suffer (which cuts the legs out from under our purpose.) It's a very interesting tangle of solutions required. Glad to be engaged here!
Thank you for your sharing. That's interesting that newer clergy are focused so much on money, and understandably so. I was unaware of that new dynamic.
Thank you for sharing your story. There is so much in here to think about. I'm sorry you and others had such a difficult time finding positions when she got into the system. Sadly, it will only get worse. Thank you for introducing yourself.
Btw, if you are not following my friend Fr. Cathie Caimano, you may want to. She's an Episcopal priest who is also working on a way forward. You can find her through my recommendations list.
(Episcopal priest here)
The dean of my seminary (who was not the dean when I attended) responded to my question about how they might address the changing dynamics - that is, fewer full-time jobs in shrinking churches - said, "our graduates all get good jobs." Well, as someone who came into ministry as a 2nd career, it took me 10 months after graduation to find one of those "good jobs." So one of these days, I will go back and revisit this subject with him, I promise! 😇
There are [still] biases in hiring - my fellow graduates who were older women like me all struggled to find that "good job." I was one of four in that coterie:
One wound up in ministry for the homeless in a large eastern seaboard city, sponsored by a local, large, well-funded parish;
another bounced from part-time here to part-time there, eventually nailing a full-time job in a "cardinal" parish in Canada, before finding a solid full-time position in a mid-western city;
a third was expected by her bishop to find both a part-time clergy job and a part-time other job before he would ordain her. She died a few years back, and she had finally been ordained, but it was not a happy career path.
I spent nine months floating through four parishes who had a rotation of priests for Sundays, before I landed a full-time position in the Midwest, where I slowly burned out over 9 years. Now I do pulpit supply, where the demand for supply clergy is greater than the number of available supply clergy, let alone clergy for a part-time position: small congregations with shoestring budgets in little towns scattered around the state.
I'll upgrade when I get past the Christmas expense blowout, although I'm not sure what "digital" will do, or what I could bring to it, at my level of computer tolerance. I suspect we will need a serious discussion of all options. Of which digital is certainly one!
I'm glad to have found your substack. Thank you for broaching the issue!
Thank you very much for taking the time to say all that. I apologize for the delayed response. Apparently the reply I sent earlier today didn't go through.
I'm sorry to hear you and others struggled so much to find your place in the system. And I'm very sorry to hear about the burnout.
Thank you very much for considering an upgrade. I appreciate all the help I can get.
Thank you for your response. I'm getting over the burnout - with Covid and all, it was probably inevitable.
I'm interested in all the ways we can, as clergy, provide spiritual support in a society that is far from uniform or unified!
There is definitely a lot that needs to be done.