FPC Log: Ride the Tiger or Die (1)

The windmills of Lewis County, NY

At its November meeting, the session (Presbyterian speak for council or board) of First Presbyterian Church, Lowville, conducted a review of the church's finances and realized that the church can afford to employ a full-time pastor for only a few more years.  Like so many mainline churches, FPC, Lowville, has been in decline for well over a decade, and like virtually all of those churches the central reason for decline is that it has failed to change at the pace the world is changing.  For FPC, it is the 1950s.  The church still worships, behaves, and organizes itself largely as it did 60 years ago.  There's nothing unusual in this.  It is, as I say, the situation facing thousands and thousands of mainline churches.

It is possible, however, that FPC, Lowville,  might have a different future than the great majority of those churches.  This past Sunday, November 20th, I preached a sermon that described the church's state of decline and its three basic options: OPTION ONE: let the decline be; OPTION TWO: seek to manage the decline wisely; or OPTION THREE: enter a period of discernment seeking to discover how to be a 21st century church—i.e. commit  itself to learn how to change dramatically.  The congregation has generally greeted the open acknowledgment of its condition with acceptance and even appreciation, and there may be a willingness to embrace the Third Option, a spiritual investigation of how it can become a church of the future rather than the past.  Or, maybe not.  Like many Presbyterian churches, it has a wealth of leadership ability and an impressive potential (spiritually and organizationally) to be something different than what it is, but that does not mean that it will embrace the challenge of the 21st century.  It might—or it might not.

At present roughly 25% of the church's members carry out 75% of the work of the church.  Another roughly 24% is somewhat involved and carries most of the remaining 25% of the load.  The other 50% of the membership does 1% of the work and mostly goes out of its way to stay uninvolved.  These figures may actually be a fair measure of the church's spiritual and institutional life.  Like most mainline churches, it is better at being a religious institution (albeit, one still living in the 1950s) than it does at being a faith community.  People feel that truth without being able to express it, and most of them don't see the point of getting too involved.

In any event, over the next 12-18 months FPC, Lowville, is going to have to make some fundamental choices about the future.  My personal hope is that it will go for Option Three, embrace the challenge, and see where that challenge takes it.  I believe that the decline of the mainline church is within the providence of God in ways that I don't really understand.  God has built exponentially accelerating change into humanity, and churches either ride the tiger of change or die.  As pastor of the church, it is not my place to push or prod the church into any future.  My one task is to ask it where it wants to go.  If it chooses to embrace decline (as churches mostly do, although seldom self-consciously) then my task as pastor is to help it learn how to manage its declining years wisely.  Declining churches can still be vital churches, and Option Two is not a bad option.  Even Option One has its positive aspects.  But I hope FPC, Lowville, goes for Option Three and enters a time of prayerful, studied spiritual discernment seeking to learn how to be a 21st century church.  How cool could that be!