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A Note From The Pastor

Spiritual…Not Religious!

In any given week, if I’m ‘out and about’ speaking with people outside the church, friends or acquaintances, I hear the phrase, “I’m not really very religious, but I am spiritual.” For most of my life, I have always felt an affinity toward those who proclaim a spirituality without religiousity. I often respond to these remarks by claiming the same thing; that “I’m not very religious either, but I do consider myself faithful.” I’m beginning to wonder whether these statements really mean anything any more!

I get the part about people’s subtle or not-so-subtle movement away from formal religion. I saw a recent percentage chart detailing the overall loss in ‘worship attendance’ since 1994 in America. Across the Main Line churches - Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and United Methodist, the 10-year Percentage Change in Average Worship Attendance dropped between 1% and 19%! The UCC has sustained and average loss in worship attendance of 16%. That’s huge! People are falling away from organized religion in the years since 1994 like flies to a pile of cow patties! We can assume that the trends have continued downward since 2004 when the ten-year review was calculated.

People are spiritual, just not religious. Just what does that mean? It means that given the option of outdoor activities, visiting with friends, hanging with the family or reading the Sunday Times instead of getting up, getting dressed up and going to church - people are choosing to play golf, or soccer or sleep in rather than head to worship!

My guess is that many adults do not have an active, sustainable faith operating in their lives and that the idea of going to church just doesn’t sound attractive enough, given all the alternatives. In other words, the church is failing to sustain itself in growing healthy, faithful adults! And, rather than going to church “because it’s what you do” in our society nowadays, many people are staying away.

This is a very contemporary and critically real challenge for the main line churches today. I would guess that even the more evangelical churches will begin to feel this same fallout in due time. The more conservative churches have done well to attract members migrating from other churches that no longer meet their needs.

Several challenges face us right now. We need to become serious about discipleship and active spiritual development for everyone still in the church. We need to begin asking questions. Lots and lots of good questions about faith, church, God, Jesus,… the whole thing, with the intent of seeking deeper understanding of our faith for today. “Today” has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. We are no longer the church of 1990 and before! I like to tell people that David Dean was the last pastor of that church. From here on out, we are in terra nova , ‘new territory’ for the how, what, when, who, and why of Christianity. We need to start the conversation about what we can do to revitalize our congregation and its ministry for a new day. Because that new day happened some time ago, and we’re just now figuring it out!

Scary! You bet. Challenging? Absolutely. Hopeless? No way! Our faith is built upon hope. We have the message of resurrection hope. We need to seek new ways to convey that real message of real hope to people who are truly seeking something solid to stand on. People are gravitating toward much more inclusive, pluralistic versions of faith. Much of that is good! But, in my opinion, Christianity offers even more! We just need to figure out how to separate our church’s history from the hope that we offer and proclaim more of that!

We have entered Lent. Lent is a time of spiritual conditioning, like an athlete trains to win the race. Our God is hopeful that we can train ourselves into a deeper, more profound and attractive spirituality that can sustain a growth pattern in active worship and joyfully reach-out to new converts.

It will not be an easy task by any means, but God never promised us that the path would be easy. Jesus walked with us for three profound years, showing us the Way to live a Godly life. Perhaps we can consider what that should look like for Grace Church in the years ahead. It will mean some challenge lies ahead. To be honest, that’s what gets my juices going! I say, “bring it on!”

Now, let us get back to our Lenten studies!