Surviving the Deep Winter of the Church
….that I may know how to sustain with a word, him who is weary…
Isaiah 50:4
Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
2 Timothy 4:2
The current economic recession is much more severe than we first thought, and the discouraging thing about it is that it’s hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel. It won’t last forever, but it certainly is feeling lengthy…
Along with this financial downturn, we, as a church, seem to be approaching a spiritual “deep winter.” The church of Jesus Christ has gone through more ups and downs than any other institution in history. Saying “we have seen it all before” is never an overstatement with us. We’ll get through this season as we have prevailed, 100%, in the past. We outlast every other endeavor on earth, over time. Always have. Always will.
Please hear me, I am a militant optimist about the eventual outcome; God will get his way with all creation. But I am also good at reading the signs of the seasons (Remember Jesus talking about the fig tree in Matthew 24:32?).
Many of us came to faith in the heady days of the Jesus Movement, the explosion of Praise Music, the Charismatic Renewal, and the Church Growth Movement. We had spring, summer, and even, as these movements matured nicely, autumn.
You may disagree with me, but I sense the chill of a long winter setting in. It could last a half generation or longer.
Many Christians are just tired. One visitation pastor said to me, last week, over Thai food, “I am just so OVER church.” She echoed the feelings of many young adults raised in our congregations, who are staying away in droves.
Evangelism (actually leading non-believers through Christian conversion) seems like pushing water uphill. If you haven’t had to re-write your “napkin drawing bridge illustration” for salvation, you haven’t been paying attention. Most of our evangelistic tools from the 60’s (including the bridge illustration) are totally ineffective with many of today’s folks.
I can’t tell you the last time we had a wave of “church shoppers.” It seems like we have to create the demand for church-going itself. Many of our churches would not fill up next Sunday even if we offered $100 bills for all new visitors.
Everybody wants to be “spiritual,” but not necessarily committed to church. Record numbers of young adults, raised in the church, are no longer attending anywhere (some 70%).
Remember the times when thousands of young people, after coming to concerts at Calvary Chapel, were baptized in the ocean? Remember the first time you heard “Shout to the Lord?” Remember the first time you saw signs and wonders blowing through your congregation full-steam? Remember when starting contemporary worship and small groups actually led to church growth? We’re simply in a different season now.
Of course there are exceptions proving the rule. But they are getting fewer and farther between. 15 years ago, all of the largest ELCA churches were growing. Now, it’s one or two of them. And I’m talking about North America, not the thriving church in the Global South.
We also find ourselves, as a church, in the razor-blade meat grinder of the culture wars between political right and left, shredding what little stability we had as winter approached. Some of our congregations have literally been torn asunder by this “perfect November storm.”
This winter could last many years. There’s no way of knowing how long this “season” will last.
So what good news is there in all of this? Actually, there’s a lot for which we can be thankful:
1) Church “winter” is a time for study. Picture Abraham Lincoln reading his Bible in the log cabin, to candlelight, in the primeval winters of a younger America. I like to imagine my Scandinavian ancestors huddled around the stove reading the classics, with everything pitch black outside.
We’re too busy planting and harvesting during the sunny days to take study and growth seriously.
2) Winter is a time for relationships. In the Kingdom, we are brothers and sisters for eternity. As some church programs dry up for lack of interest, we can refocus on eating and praying with those people in our fellowships who mean the world to us. When the task-orientation of high summer sets in, it’s easy to see relationships as disposable. In the winter, we have to huddle together for warmth.
3) Winter is a time for prayer. In the frenetic days of summer, it’s easy to be too busy to pray. The darkest days of Advent are the time to light candles. Cultivation of a prayer life is hard when church life is at full throttle. Busy-busy pastors never have time to pray. The best time for that is “winter.”
4) Winter is a time to turn your heart toward home. It is not a time of travel. That comes later. Our church buildings were packed during the Jesus Movement. Now, during an “emptier season,” we can focus on a Josiah-like repair of our houses of worship. You church building has deferred maintenance that needs attention.
6) Winter is a time to safeguard our treasures. The “weather” can be hazardous outside. In past “winters” Christians in monasteries had to safeguard the treasures of the faith while pagan hordes ravaged the countryside. We also need to keep the fire burning in the fireplace. The flame of the Holy Spirit must not be allowed to go out, or we will freeze to death. We need to defend the Bride of Christ, the Church, and keep her warm, at all costs.
7) Winter is a time for dreaming about the coming spring. Planting season is around the corner. The trees will bud. The robins will return. God will do all kinds of new things among us. Many will come to faith. Our churches will fill again. But God will do that in his time. We don’t know the day or the hour, and can’t even predict a simple childbirth, let alone a spring thaw.
8) Winter is a time for faith. The church is sturdier than you think it is. It is not going under or out of business. Jesus guarantees us that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
God must love physical seasons–he invented them. And plainly, by history, he also loves spiritual seasons. As Ecclesiastes says, for everything there is a season.
Not every season is a season of revival.
Don’t beat yourself up as a leader because things are not as they were in the spiritual “summer.” You are not the master of the weather. Another summer will come.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a lengthy winter season is not coming to the church. But I think it is.
Winter is not a bad season. It’s just different. Is it time, in your church to embrace the good parts of winter?
And it never hurts to look forward to spring.
Which always comes.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:2
14 comments
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August 16, 2010 at 7:23 am
JoAnn Renken
I have been reading your posts for about six months and truly feel the spirit moving in your words. Or maybe the spirit is moving me with your words. This post, however, struck a chord so deep that I trembled in my seat. Yes. Winter. The perfect way to describe this church season. As quickly as I read the post to understand the premise, I reread very slowly to digest the full meaning and see where the words applied to my life / my church.
Your friend’s words resonated within me. I, too, feel done with church. Plastic, antiseptic, rehearsed is how I sometimes feel at almost every church service I attend. Is it me? Or is it my disdain with the mundane. Now don’t get me wrong, God is NOT mundane. It is the pastor who pronounces the words without actually connecting with the meaning behind the verbage. We can tell. Or it seems so. Church is not the answer to our issues. Jesus is. But we can / should be able to find Him there……. And as of late, I do not.
Winter. I am in my winter of faith. I have not lost faith. I have not lost my way. I am in my winter. So totally that I find most of your ‘winter’ points to exactly where I am. I study Scripture and read books about Jesus constantly. I am working on rebuilding the relationships I put aside during my hectic church work. I pray all the time. I am working on building up family ties and reconnecting with my large and spread out family. I am dreaming and filled with faith. Contrary to my pastor who told a friend of mine that “those who left will lose their faith.” Huh?? Seriously? My faith is a strong as ever. It’s my church attendance that has dwindled.
I am not sure yet, how to respond to the section on Safeguard. Too many are safeguarding the church building at the expense of the people within and without the walls. That is wrong. The people who have not yet heard the word need to hear it. We need to be out there, not inside the walls of the church. So safeguard the Words of God, but not the walls that bind.
I know God has a plan for me. I know that He will make it happen in His time. But during this winter of mine, I will continue to read and study and learn and reach out to others with the Good News.
Thanks so much for posting these particular words. Winter. Perfect. I look forward to a new spring.
August 16, 2010 at 8:32 am
Jay Egenes
Dave,
Great and thought-provoking post. I’m not sure if what we’re in for is really a “winter” or just another 40 years of “storm” caused by a vast cultural shift.
Since about 1650 (some would say earlier), western (some would say northern) culture was essentially “modern”. One of the great questions of modern culture was finding a “foundation” for knowledge, something that we KNOW is true, on which we can build additional knowledge. While it took slightly different forms in North America and England compared to Continental Europe, both Anglo-American empiricists and Continental thinkers had a foundationalist theory of knowledge. (Dave, maybe you can explain Kant to me sometime–I find him baffling, despite having fooled a couple philosophy profs along the way.)
Anglo-American empiricism is essentially sceptical about the ability to ever find a foundation for knowledge, not trusting our ability to interpret our perceptions of sense data.
Continental thought locates the foundation in the individual’s ability to think: “I think therefore I am”. (Kant I think puts them together–not sure how his thought affects this analysis. Help me Dave.) This is relativizing and results in radical subjectivity.
The net effect of both ways of thinking about knowledge was a trend toward secularization, and to the extent that people remained people of faith, pluralism.
Beginning in the 1950s, the modern paradigm began to break down, as Anglo-American philosphers began to reject the tenets of modern thought, existentialist philosophy began to attract attention for its critique of modern culture, and we went through rapid social and technological change.
So we’ve been in transition since the 1950s. And I think we’ve got another 40 years of transition coming before we find a new paradigm. Right now at least 3 modes of thought are vying for attention and acceptance. By about 2050 I suspect we’ll both be at some cultural consensus and will be firmly into a new technological culture.
Over the next 40 or so years, though, we’re in for a bumpy ride. Churches that figure out to catch the waves will survive and maybe even flourish. Those that don’t will shrink dramatically and maybe close.
The good news is that it’s okay to be “spiritual” again–the new paradigm will probably be pluralistic, but it probably won’t be inherently secular and sceptical about faith claims. The question will be how to reach people who are spiritual but not religious or interested in questions of faith but have no background because of the previous generations’ secular and sceptical culture.
I suspect Dave, that you’re perfectly positioned to answer that, as I believe that both the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements and Lutheran theology (if not typical Lutheran culture) provide great tools for making our way through the transition.
Grace and peace,
Jay Egenes
August 16, 2010 at 8:33 am
Jay Egenes
Trying again–didn’t click the follow-up box.
August 16, 2010 at 8:46 am
Chaplain Paul Slater
In over 40 years of weathering church as a pastor and healthcare chaplain, I agree that there are indeed seasons of the soul.
Analysis of what we mean by church is a task for those for whom winter describes our mood. For so many of us, our feelings are attached to the “come to the building on Sunday morning” approach we often take.
What tremendous days these are for us who are the church — frail people needing God’s grace, forgiven fallen folk — to go into the world, even the world wide web — just being who we are in Christ, even during the winter season.
August 16, 2010 at 8:53 am
Pat Gilbert
I believe we have brought this winter on ourselves. We have equated church health with programs and politics. By doing so, we have become competitive with other congregations and have appeared to be right “wing nuts” to a watching world.
We have forgotten that Christianity spread through the known western world in one generation without a single building, denomination, program, curriculum, or paid staff, all while rulers like Nero were in power. God does not need our politics or our methods, but he does need our hearts. The world will recognize us as disciples of Jesus and will be attracted to the Gospel when they see our love for each other and the Lord.
We look pretty silly and irrelevant to the watching world right now. But the fantastic news is that Jesus will continue to build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He may do so in the southern hemisphere for a while until we stop being known for what we are against and regain a reputation for being for Christ and his kingdom.
August 16, 2010 at 9:16 am
Jolene Anderson
I must say Dave, the “Autumn/Winter fertilizing of my soul came from just such activity as curling up with my Bible & deep study. Honestly, enough cannot be said about the “selah” after reading scripture. Contemplation time must happen for most of us to be enlightened & hence moved by God’s word. After a lifetime of searching for the special “spiritual’ wave or blast of realization of God’s Holy presence, it has come to me as a seeping, slow moving tidewater of His grace. Had it not been for generous amounts of time allotted for reflection & contemplation of scriptures I don’t think I would be at this most wonderful place in my spirituality. An excellent teacher taught me months ago to slow down…listen. Once God’s voice is heard it becomes an addiction as does church. The very root of my truth, trust & security lies within my relationship with Christ, brought to me by my Holy Father. Over time, my feelings for the Heavenly Father rival my oh- so- deep- feelings of my deceased earthly father, a place I couldn’t imagine 8 mo. ago.
I had to take the luxury of Bible reading & reflecting on the Word into my own hands; or shall I say make time for it as I make time for family,friends, eating,tv, or any other important personal time. Once that becomes front & center in your life, I don’t see how one can retreat from it. I pray that I could take each & every life contact- family, friends, & foes on this tidal walk with me. So maybe we should do as my farming forefathers did & prepare the soil (soul) with tilling & fertilizing in the autumn & winter for the bountiful harvest in the spring & summer. Winter doesn’t last forever.
August 16, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Wendy Housholder
I loved your description, and loved how we should embrace this season and do beautiful thing with it, rather than mourning that the other seasons are over – for the moment. This is a time to move closer to God, as if he were our winter coat, keeping us warm and protected from the elements, while we wait out the winter. Let’s remember to offer that same warm protection to others who are out there in the cold, not knowing why they are shivering and alone. There is something so lovely about all seasons, but winter is a great time to slow down, think, contemplate, and really be “in the moment.” Well said, David!
August 16, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Bjorn Lervik
A good clarion call for simplicity, for re-evaluating how much influence our “stuff” has over us, for re-evaluating what is really real in the church, as well as a reminder that our parents had their winters, both spiritually and otherwise…My parents were under domination of the Nazi’s for 5 years in Norway, why has our generation been spared? The coming winter may be part of the “shaking” which God will be doing to ‘remove everything that hinders love.’ (comment from Mike Bickle, in the Omega course)
Fall is usually pruning season, but that would require our cooperation…a hard winter pruning would be more effective in the long term, to bring the church to maturity. “If we want to be raised with Him….”you know the rest….Good sobering thoughts!
August 16, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Bjorn Lervik
Check out Matt Sorger’s comments on a similar vein…
http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/9048
August 17, 2010 at 10:27 am
JS Boegl
The DEEP WINTER is no less than a GRAVE CRISIS!
It’s not a crisis of Theology; neither is it a crisis of cultural relevance, a crisis of insufficient humanitarianism or a crisis of strategy or structure.
If I’m honest, I’ve got to agree with the Holy Spirit! I am at the crux of the problem! I’m more caught up in my own problems than in His promise to meet me in Prayer… I’m more committed to my own grand ideas than I am to simply obey His directions… I’m more fascinated by my own creative ingenuity than I am in yielding to the revelation of His glory.
At this point the crisis requires more than adjustment. It requires a revolution that radically alters the lifestyle of believers across our culture and massively restructures Christian organizations, churches, programs, schedules, and staff! This is not an adjustment that is easily, nor will be tolerable, for many to make.
(Although some are…) It is nothing less (and nothing more) than a (Matt. 11) “violent” response to Jesus’ own (Revelation 3) diagnosis of the church.
August 22, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Kathy McDougall
When I read Hous’s comments my first thought was that I agreed with him. The church I have known through my life was heading to transition and as such was in a fallow season. But there was one thing I could not reconcile to this theory. What about the amazing spiritual growth in the young people.
Today at church we had a group made up of young adults from another church fill in as music. The spiritual maturity of some of the members blew me away. There their prayers before the service focused on God using them to speak to the people coming to the service and not on themselves. They prayed over their music and then chose songs that were a perfect compliment to the message spoken even though there was no discussion before hand.
Hous says that wherever God is moving that is where we should focus. I think we should focus on what the young people are doing in our congregations and support them however we can. It would be a shame if God threw a party and we did not attend.
If we are in the
August 22, 2010 at 6:59 pm
David Housholder
The young adults will bring us into the new springtime…
August 22, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Kathy McDougall
I get that. They are the future. The thing is that the future is now and how do we talk about the “Winter of the church” when the young adults are creating Spring. I think that, although this is the Winter of the church of our youth, Hous, it is the Spring of the new church. God’s calendar is not the same as ours and there is no reason he cannot combine the ending of the old with the beginning of the new.
There are things that I miss from the old way church was done. I miss an alter rail and the progression of Holy Week. Lenten soup suppers and the Calla lily cross. But I understand that without change you cannot continue to grow. And without growth you die.
I would rather celebrate the new church than mourn the old one.
December 27, 2010 at 6:08 am
Christopher Hopper
I’d be interested to know how demographics and geography play into your hypothesis. While I agree we go through seasons as a Church, I would be more inclined to call them micro-cells than global weather changes.
Our church in–of all places–northern New York, is experiencing rapid growth. And not from church-hoppers, but from brand new believers. We’re finding it easier than EVER to share the Gospel here.
Our international requests to minister to teens and young adults in Europe have also increased, which is ironic as most mainline denominations have pulled their missionaries out citing “unbelief,” whereas we’re seeing more miracles than ever before.
I would most certainly agree that our methods have to change (we’re not in a 1950′s tent crusade era anymore), but my sense recently has been that people are so disenfranchised by post-moderism, self, and unbelief, that hope is Jesus becomes a plausible and therefore “likely” answer.
Like Jesus, I tend to point to the laborer, not the harvest as culprit. The Enemy, therefore, tends to distract and dishearten whatever “few” laborers there are as often as he can. My focus, as a result, leans then to encouraging the laborer.
My views, however, are influenced by my own bubble. ch: