The Exodus: Part Three by Nick.
Nicholas Fiedler is a singer/songwriter/worship leader that most recently was a Youth Worship Director for three years at Sugar Hill UMC, in Sugar Hill, Georgia. He has since left ‘church work’ and works on his excellent blog and podcast as a venue for his ideas on the church. Nick now lives in Birmingham. I consider him my cohort, partner in crime, and friend.
Recently, Josh had an idea for his blogrollers to do a series based on our struggles with the Institution of the American Church and in response to the claim that a large number of our generation is leaving the church, especially the Saddleback/Willow Creek program driven Church.
Josh wanted us to explore, from personal experience, why this mass exodus is happening. I’ll start with a little background information.
My grandfather was a Wesleyan minister and my first memory of church was his church. Next I remember a big Baptist Church in Virginia where I was baptized – this particular church had old women that protested outside the church on Sunday mornings. Thirdly, I remember another big Baptist Church in Alabama, I left that church while my family was still attending and went to a small Church of God (family came later). During the time of the last two churches I was attending a Presbyterian Christian High School, my Freshman year of college I took an internship at the Church of God. During one of those years I complimented the Church of God with a Holy Spirit Bible Study that met at an old train depot, (it was here that I ‘got the spirit’), this was complimented further by a trip to Brownsville on my High School graduation trip. Three years into college I moved to Georgia and started an internship at a United Methodist Church that turned into a full-time job, currently my wife and I don’t belong to a church in Birmingham where we live.
With all this background you may assume that I have a handle on this ‘church thing’, but I am more confused about it than ever. I can’t say why many of my generation is leaving the church, but I can identify some things that make me hesitant to find a place. I broke it down into three main parts. Not listed in order of importance, just listed.
Money
In this past year I read that if just the Evangelical Christians gave 10% of their money to the hungry of the world, there wouldn’t be hungry people in the world. Later on reading things like the Embezzlement Report a lot of people my age have been looking at where the money the church gets is going. 90% of the money the church gets goes to. . . the church. When I was younger I couldn’t tell you what big business was, I couldn’t name a large business, but today I know all about WorldCom, Healthsouth, and Enron. Because the world started caring about where there money was going, we care where the money of the church goes. I just want to help the world, I don’t want to make a building. Working in a church during the some large global/national crisis’ has show that people do want to give, but tithes were always the lowest during Katrina, 9/11, and the Tsunami that hit Asia. The reason the tithes were low was because people in the congregation were overtaken by the tragedy and gave to a specific cause, they did this, often times in lieu of their tithe. It hurt the church, but I think it also said something about how they thought their money worked. Their money would work better if they gave it to a secular/religious aid group than if they gave it to the church. What if the church operated so that the vast majority of the money went to vital global and local change the church body could group together to give to a cause, and the idea of giving to the church remains intact. Many house churches and even a group called Relational Tithe are doing things just like this. I think my generation finds this extremely appealing.
Community
The majority of churches want to be big, they yearn for it. That defines success for them. To be Willow Creek, Saddleback, or North Point, would be their goal. Numbers is the name of the game. This means sacrifice, it means a structuring that is program driven and goes at all costs to be all encompassing. It also means loosing a personal feel, loosing people in the crowd, sometimes trampling people, it means you need appointments to meet with your staff or congregation, it means you know less about a greater number of people, or worse you know a lot about a few people but you have a lot. It also means that your congregation looks a lot a like. When growth happens like that it is usually people that look the same, sound the same, have the same number of kids, vote republican, are white, whatever, during this growth you loose diversity and intimacy. I think my generation needs smaller close-knit groups. Book clubs, coffee house meetings, pub studies – small groups, not as a program but as the church size. This would mean you could have all the congregation in your cell phone, know not only the person that sits next to you on Sunday, but know there screename, their blog, and there Netfilx preferences. I know a pastor in Atlanta who is basing his church off similar ideas, he bought new property that was smaller than the original church, when it fills up, they start a new community. They cap the size of the congregation. This drawls me, and I think my generation as well.
Ethos
Ethos takes two forms. One could be the general aesthetics of the church. I think everyone has a different preference for what they want their church to be like. For me it would be in a coffee house with wireless internet and a good on tap beer selection, or it would be an old abbey that had historic flare. Either way it would not be standard, it would not be pews, colored carpet, manufactured alters with a large bible and golden cross, etc. It would be personal, there would be art. It would inspire wonder and community. Most of our churches don’t inspire wonder anymore. I get wonder when I walk into a coffee house or bar and it is bustling, everyone is talking, laughing, and being themselves. When most people enter a church building they change themselves into what they feel the building represents – stuffy, religious, and conservative. I don’t like to change myself, I don’t like to have to be someone else in front of different people. I think that may be a trend not just with my generation though, but I think my generation won’t go to a place if they feel they must change. They want a place that represents where they are at. Modern American Churches often fall very short here. The second part of Ethos is the feeling that is created by the church leadership and the people that attend the church. Many times churches can’t help where they meet, well they could sell there building, give the money to the poor and meet in coffee houses.
BUT the second part of Ethos is made up usually by the leadership of the church. I think at least my friends and I are looking for a certain type of feel in a community. The top of the list is Conversation. Sermons are not conversations, they are lectures. In my life I have recently finished my college and lecturing is still fresh on my mind. I am not interested in attending lectures (Unless they are guest lectures on the psychology in David Lynch films). I am interested in working out theology, I am interested in someone who leads a discussion not a ‘talk’, I want to challenge the person speaking, and I want them to challenge me in turn. If church is an hour of someone telling me how to be a better person using a highly interesting book as a base, I want to be able to engage with the speaker and the text. Speak about practicality of it. Remember when talk shows started, and the audience could start asking questions, they could even call in. I thought it was fascinating that Sally Jesse Raphael could be on the Television talking to someone and I could call in and give a question to that person. The show became partly Sally Jesse and Nick. Isn’t the church one body? Shouldn’t it be Jesus, Lead Talker, and Nick, and Leslie, and Nick’s Friends, and the congregation? Some people say no, it should be church leadership and we listen. Some say we should work things out all together. A lot of those that are leaving the church would probably be with the later group. Another part of this ethos is how we respond to each other, what we think we have right and what other people have wrong. I am looking for a church where embrace is the central foundation and we work things out with that as the center. Most churches think that Salvation Prayers, or Right Thoughts/Beliefs are the center. This leads to getting pissed at believers who just won’t believe right, or believe like you. This leads to division, when perhaps differences in point of view could lead to a much more robust church. They feed that conversation ethos, they lead to relationships when people feel like they can talk about what they are learning, or what they are questioning. Churches seem scared of questions. Usually it is because the questions, however they are asked, offend the church as being an assault on the sacred scriptures or their divine doctrines. When in actuality it is only a questioning of an interpretation of such things that could lead to conversations pregnant with learning opportunities. Churches also seem scared of questions because questions bring change. They bring change in belief, change in tradition, change in people, change in church. Maybe this is the ethos my generation is looking for, an ethos of productive change. God forbid Jesus gets as stale as those wafers that bear his name.
Summing this up, well it doesn’t need a sum up. I don’t know how accurately I have answered the question posed by Josh, ‘Why Doesn’t Our Generation fit in Church?’ I can speak for myself though, I don’t fit because I haven’t found a community that works for me in the three stages listed above. I hope to God I do. If I don’t find a building that contains it, I have plenty of mentors that write books, blogs that keep me engaged, and people to love, so I think I will be alright, but maybe, just maybe. My generation can group together and make our own communities. As always, thanks for reading.
These posts are not our attempt at being critical. But are the autobiographies of a bunch of 25 and under former staff members and leaders in the traditional model of church who have now found alternative ways of experiencing community and living the way of Jesus. These writings will be compiled and circulated among some local pastors with the attempt at rebuilding some burnt and broken bridges.
james
Wednesday, 6. September 2006 um 1:40 pm Uhr
“90% of the money the church gets goes to. . . the church”
I think this is huge. I’m encouraged to learn that more and more house churches are reversing this trend. Thanks for the word Nick.
Dan
Thursday, 7. September 2006 um 5:21 pm Uhr
I love that – “Most of our churches don’t inspire wonder anymore.”
The funny thing is that you would think they would, with $40 million dollar buildings and giant crosses and postmodern architecture and polished bands, or even ancient crosses and ancient architecture. But they don’t.
It’s the people and God that inspire awe, and perhaps fresh God-inspired art and community that make us aware of God.
The Exodus: Why Young Leaders are Leaving the Church at atypicalspirituality.com
Friday, 8. September 2006 um 1:17 am Uhr
[...] Josh’s Post Leslie’s Post Nick’s Post Eric’s Post Anna’s Post [...]
“My Exodus” To Wordpress and “The Exodus” To Alternative Forms of Church at atypicalspirituality.com
Friday, 15. September 2006 um 10:49 am Uhr
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