the franchising of the church

I wish it were as easy as 1, 2, 3. A friend recently wrote on his blog that sometimes it might be easier if his job entailed just one thing. Like a truck that paints lines on the highway. I don’t wish for that. I know it would bore me to tears. And I like the challenge of pioneering something new. But sometimes a little help would be nice.

I learned today that one of our churches here in London is credited for helping to pioneer detached youth ministry, that it’s ministry had far reaching results and even that Paul Simon wrote “Sound of Silence” while attending this youth project as a young man. I’m still trying to iron out all of the details, and get a fuller picture of the story, but still, what I know is enough to make me add this story to the ever growing list of stories that fall under the heading of, “What in the world went wrong?”

How did we lose our edge?

Did we become complacent? Did we franchise this church out to people who had no business running their own business? Did we fall out of favour? Did we become too arrogant? Did we lose sight of our original mission, becoming therefore, irrelevant?

Did you ever visit a chain restaurant that had been franchised out by somebody who, you could just tell, didn’t quite get the spirit of the chain?

The world doesn’t need the church any less. And there are certainly churches out there that are growing by leaps and bounds (though, to be fair, very few of those, if any, are mainline denominations), so blaming it on changes in society seems like poor form. So what is it? Lack of good leadership? Lack of humility? Have we taken an extremely relevant message, faith, and mission, and somehow made it irrelevant?

I was in Amsterdam a few weeks ago meeting up with some fellow youth workers there. As we were driving through one of the poorest neighbourhoods there, my chafer explained to me that the Army church in this area was shutting down, that it was no longer relevant there. And before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth, I said, “how can the Salvation Army be irrelevant in a poor community?”

But that question poses a much wider question. How can the Salvation Army be irrelevant in a world that is dying to see faith backed up by action? A world that is seeing more and more people get involved with social action issues? And a world that is seeing a measurable rise of interest in spiritual pursuits? How can the Army be irrelevant in that world?

Could it be that the one thing we base our success on, Sunday morning attendance, is the one thing we do that is the most irrelevant? I’m thinking as I type here.

My wife and I were given an Army church (corps) building about a year and a half ago. Up until that time, though the building was located in a poor community, it hosted no programmes to help meet any of the community’s needs, except a Sunday service, and that service was extremely poorly attended. The Army was shutting this church down, so my wife and I offered to take the building and see what we could do with it. A year and a half later and the building is full every time we open the doors. Right now that’s three days a week. We hope to make it five in September. And, even as we search desperately for the staff we need to open the building up more often, people in the community are asking for more. And I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no excuse for the Salvation Army becoming irrelevant in a community like this one. Except one. We have a singular definition of what church is. Church is the Sunday morning gig.

I don’t share that to gloat. Fact is, my time is spread way too thin and somebody with more time than me could have that building packed out, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. And I really struggle with that. I struggle with the fact that this community is being short changed by a guy who has his hand in way too many cookie jars. But I’ve also proven what I’ve always believed to be true. Reaching people is not the hard part. The hard part is taking those, already involved, to a place where they can reach people. Changing their concept of what it means to be a Christian, and be the church. And, maybe even harder, changing our own concept of what it means to be a Christian and be the church.

Even as I type that, I realize that I too don’t really understand what that means. But I’m beginning to get a clearer picture. I’m beginning to see, more and more, what it might look like to be a relevant Christian, and a relevant church, with the same message and same theme we’ve had for two thousand years. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.