Faith Works 10-5-19

Faith Works 10-5-19

Jeff Gill

 

How changes will change church

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For the last two weeks, I've been attempting to outline some major social changes that, in my opinion, have a major impact on church life not just in Licking County but across the United States (and Canada, for that matter).

 

These aren't things which I'm attempting to forecast or predict, but I'm letting y'all know are happening right now; in most cases, have been happening and are continuing to gather in intensity and scope. Where it will all end is another question – I could just refer you to the book of Revelation, but that's a slightly longer-range forecast than I'm engaged in here.

 

As I've already said, I'm not going deep, and I'm not describing it all, but I am trying to sketch what's rocking and unnerving congregations even as many are unclear about what external factors are creating the internal stresses. And I want to wrap this series up with two areas which are somewhat more subtle, but I think even more momentous for how they have and are changing the lives of gathered faith communities.

 

Entertainment is usually a dirty word when applied to worship and a church organization. As in "that's entertainment, not prayer and praise" et cetera. People use the label "entertainment" to condemn worship styles they don't like and youth programs they don't approve of (there's a whole column series right there).

 

But as both a congregational minister and historian of sorts, I have read lots of old newspapers, including much of the run of this fine publication coming up next year on its bicentennial, since Benjamin Briggs founded the Advocate in 1820. And as I read Ohio newspapers from earlier centuries, and church newsletters from even just decades before, I have to point something out: churches and Sunday worship, both the morning and evening services (remember evening services?), were for most people for a very long time the one form of, well, entertainment they received. They had the Holy Bible and Pilgrim's Progress at home, and they heard music each weekend in church. It wasn't meant to be a concert, and yes, militia companies and other groups would occasionally put together a band, but the one regular musical offering and spoken presentation, telling stories and weaving in current events, was in worship.

 

Traveling performers might come through once a year or so, but until radio and movies and television and earbuds came along, for a very long time church had an unintentional but very real monopoly on visual and aural entertainment. As media became an equally unintentional competition, Christendom still pervaded popular culture enough that it didn't quite feel like competition. But over the last century, and even more intensely in the last twenty years, church is competing and faith is struggling against direct competition for worldview and mindset and tastes and expectations in terms of, well, entertainment. And in a consumer culture, that has implications.

 

If I lost you on how entertainment culture has shifted to change the landscape for delivering a worship and congregational experience, the other topic may find you even more bewildered, but bear with me, because this I suspect will make sense to quite a few. We also, in the life of the church, have seen our former near-monopoly on fundraising change in some very dramatic ways.

 

Again, this was never (as far as I can tell) intentional, but on the American frontier and in early Ohio if there needed to be funds raised to do good and better humanity, the hub was the local church or churches. Those dollars flowed through congregational life, and both directly and indirectly helped maintain the local church while going to causes and families and missions and such wherever else.

 

Today, what checkout can you go through – even self-checkout interrogates you electronically! – and not be asked to give to some charity? And I hasten to note I am NOT implying there's a nefarious purpose there, either: all that money, I'm fairly sure, goes where they say it does. But you now associate the good feeling of giving and your empathy with that cause with [insert major retail outlet here].

 

Giving is by card and by text and by individual choice; group efforts, even non-church ones today, are struggling. That consumer culture again is prevailing in people's hearts and mind; for church life, our former near-monopoly on the concept and impact and practices of philanthropy has long ago ended, but the ripple effect into our contributions and budgets is only recently being wrestled with, by our boards and organizational officers.

 

What does it all mean? Stay tuned, friends…

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still figuring all this stuff out himself! Tell him what you think it all means at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.