I have been reading the biography of David Watson, the
remarkable Rector of St Michael-a-Belfry in York, England. David was a leader
in the early years of the Charismatic Movement in the Anglican Communion. Born
in 1933, he died far too early only 50 years later.
However in that time he had
laid a very firm foundation in the UK and in the USA with John Wimber, the
Apostle of the Vineyard Movement. He was also hugely influential in many other
countries, including Australia through his visits and his books. His early
death was a shock to all of us who benefited greatly from his ministry. I look
to him and John Wimber as being two of the formative influences in my life in
the Spirit.
In 1997 there was a study carried out to see if
there were lessons to be learned for the wider church from the experience of St
Michael-a-Belfry under David and the other prominent pastors there. The survey was carried out at David's request by ACE, the Archbishop's Committee on Evangelism. The summary of this
report struck me as being very contemporary.
It was a very probing study which tried to get past the hype
of, what was then the first megachurch in the UK. The main points of the report
were,
- People really pray believing God will answer. They were a church of fervent prayer.
- Living worship discloses God as much as preaching. It was the whole “package” of worship, testimony and preaching that brought people into a living relationship with Jesus.
- The large group was important, but even more important was the close fellowship of their small groups.
- The use of all the arts, dance, drama, music, participation in prayer, street theatre, etc, was a very important part of their life. Communication took place at many levels.
Alongside
these very positive comments there were a few issues exposed as a result of the
study.
- There was little community engagement. The Kingdom aspects of the Gospel were not emphasised.
- The membership consisted of 2/3 transfer growth and 1/3 conversion growth. The membership was largely from the “mobile” part of the society. It had minimal impact on the long term residents of York.
- They did not attract or hold working class people, despite serious attempts to do so.
- Women were not well represented in the leadership structure. (Comment: this is probably more a reflection on the general situation in the mid to late 20th Century rather than a specific problem there.)
- Financial issues. I quote this section verbatim:
“On the face of it St Michael’s
does extremely well. It pays its way. It gives overseas liberally. It helps many mission agencies in this country
too. It largely supports work among unattached youth in the city. Through its “households”
(ie small groups) the congregation manages to keep many full time staff in
action. The graph goes upward, but discounting money given specifically for
capital items like renovating church building, the graph turns gently towards a
plateau. When corrected for inflation the total giving is already seen to be in decline.
This trend
is emphasised by a graph showing giving-per-member corrected for inflation.
This has been in steady decline since 1974 (Comment: this was written in 1984).
The ‘worthship’ of the congregation is seen to have decayed as the excitement
of the move to St Michael-a-Belfry wore off (Comment: they moved from another
church, St Cuthberts when that facility became too small), and the area groups
reached saturation point. (Comment: these groups grew to as many as 50 each,
without multiplying ).
Should these facts be preached
about, and ‘put right’? Or is this something God looks after Himself in times
of specific need? One of the strange questions that kept recurring in the ACE
Survey was ‘Does St Michaels always need to be doing something new?’ Maybe
there is an unacknowledged financial
pressure in the answer to that. Regular sacrificial giving if not part of
life-style preaching needs the stimulus of new projects to be paid for.”
Many of these issues can be seen
in our modern situation, especially the questions about reaching the ‘average
person’, reaching the long term residents, and the issue of needing new
projects to keep people engaged.
What do you think?
Here's a few thoughts and some other factors that may be at play here.
ReplyDelete1. As pastors and those higher up in the church, we are conditioned to measure things by numbers. How many we have attending our services, how many attend our home groups, how many people read our latest blog post or newsletter, or responded to our altar calls, or were baptised or whatever it is. Numbers mean souls, so I'm not against numbers. But they often become the only measure of a pastor or churches success. Spiritual things, which are much harder to be measured - and in fact often can't be, don't look as good on a balance sheet or end of year report. That has the resulting effect of doing things that are measurable, with numbers in mind (ie a new project will come with measurable specific goals), not necessarily doing spiritual things that can have a long term effect in building the body or Kingdom.
2. We live in a world designed by marketers. The loudest, brightest, shiniest things get our attention. If we market things right in the church, that is what gets the attention of those attending. If it gets our attention, it will more than likely get our finances - and seemingly "engage" the people. People's attention is usually short, so these projects fill the gap and keep people coming back.
3. In terms of giving, if giving is declining, it usually points to underlying problems. We know people's finances leave the church long before they physically leave. Unfortunately, a new project that keeps people engaged often masks that underlying problem (bad foundation, drifting from the core purpose of the church etc).
4. We give out of a heart of gratitude and out of obedience, but money is rarely talked about in churches and is a taboo subject. Yet the world is quick to talk about it - it is after all the foundation of modern society. People can't give if they don't know biblical teaching on it.
5. Motivation - people may say they are sharing God's love with the community by helping them, inviting them over for a meal etc, but if our motivation for doing it is never mentioned (ie we're doing it out of love for Jesus), it is almost akin to denying the gospel. New projects, if that is the path taken, must have an element of evangelism with it that involves words, otherwise we are no different to secular organisations.
6. Sacrifice. We must be willing to overcome fear, share the gospel and be willing to lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel, just like Jesus laid down His life. If that is not evident, then no matter how good our services are, how great our worship is, we are just there for our own gain.
Thank you Julie, these are well thought out comments. You rightly point to a major problem in our churches today, that of transience and a need for short term gain.
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