Two Songs
The high tide of Christendom in England was reached in the early 1960’s. Churches everywhere were doing well. Sunday Schools were full. Church buildings were hives of activity, and centres for the neighbourhood. New churches were being built. Massed choirs bellowed the victory of the church. In Manchester the churches went, at Pentecost, on Whit Walks proclaiming their faith. The Catholics, and quite a few Anglicans, would have sung the old hymn, which I remember from my childhood in the 70s, "Faith of our Fathers".
“Faith of our
fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword.
O how our hearts beat high with joy,
Whene’er we hear that glorious word!
Faith of our fathers, holy faith,
We will be true to you till death
But a disturbance began to occur. A distant song began to attract the attention of the crowds, and compete with the massed choirs sing of the faith of their fathers. The song grew in volume, coming closer and closer. And suddenly from out of an alley appeared another parade .... a less well dressed parade:
We shall overcome,
we shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day
Deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome some day.
Somehow to my ears they seemed to be singing and saying the same thing. And yet when they met at the junction, there were no handshakes and embraces. Evidently, they were not singing and saying the same thing.
Roots
Church institutions are obsessed with their roots. They desperately want to acknowledge them, celebrate them, and, above all, preserve them. Perhaps this obsession is not surprising. The last decades of the 20th century have been ones of revolutionary change.
It used to be that a new generation appeared every 30 years or so; now a whole new generation appears every 3 years. Every three years a new generation of our children emerges with values, behaviour patterns, and assumptions which are foreign to previous generations. No longer can a 16 year old teenager speak for the youth of the world, because 13 year olds are now a complete mystery to them.
It used to be that some medical breakthrough would astonish the world. “Amazing!” “Fantastic!”, people would say. Today people accept it as inevitable. “It’s about time,” we say. Revolutions have become common place.
When change happens that fast, it is natural that institutions like the church should begin to panic. Are they being left behind? Is their identity becoming irrelevant to culture and community? Do they have a place in the brave new world? Who are they, anyway? And so we become obsessive about our roots.
In 1965, many mainstream denominations reached their maximum growth. Never before, and never afterward, would the church be as large, as well attended, or as wealthy. At that time, the church was just keeping pace with the world. It’s technologies, communication systems, organizations, and facilities were equal in quality to all the other institutions around them. Oh, but how nearly 40 years have changed the picture!
Changing Technology
The technologies of the world have developed by leaps and bounds. We now insist upon computers in classrooms, and listen to surround-sound music in our living rooms and cars. But in so many churches we use Victorian musical instruments and are glad when they have good quality toilets! The average church cannot display visual images to more than ten people at a time, and cannot amplify sound without blowing every electrical circuit in the building.
The internet is as essential now as the daily newspaper, e-mail is replacing the Post, fax machines are located on the kitchen counter beside the microwave, and neither housewives nor corporate executives survive a busy day without a mobile phone. But in our churches we are content with a single telephone line, a crackling answering machine, an outdoor signboard designed to be read by those passing by. The average church treats Sunday worship as the primary vehicle to communicate organizational information.
The organizations of the world have been downsized, flattened, streamlined, and empowered. Everyone from major corporations, to local councils, to charities, has let go of consensus management in favour of entrepreneurship ....... except the church. We still try to function with the old bureaucracy . The world has adapted marketing strategies 50 times in one week, and the church still requires many stalwart members, to spend 10 weeks and a combined total of 600 volunteer hours, spent in drafty meeting rooms, just to change the colour of the sign on the front. And then there will be 10 petitions to the Regional Elder just to change it back again. The average church member describes their spiritual journey and Christian ministry solely in terms of office holding and committee membership and brags if they think their job is "important" and moans if they think it is not.
Shoots
And yet we long for our “roots”. We want to maintain continuity with our past. What past? Do we really want to have continuity with our past 40 years of decline? Do we really believe that we can return to the good old days of the 1960s, and still expect people to come to church?
The truth is that while our institutions are obsessed by their “roots”, the spiritually hungry public is demanding to see “shoots”.
There is more than one part of the plant that is important. People don’t need to examine our roots. They need to see our shoots.
That’s what they need! They don’t need to celebrate the roots. They need to see the shoots!
Heritage
I find that when church people celebrate their heritage, they are remarkably selective about what heritage it is that they are celebrating. They tend to remember their past clergy and organists. They share old photographs of former Elders and Stewards. They name great sacramental traditions, remember well-attended Sunday School classrooms, and recall the dear-departed friends from former Couples Clubs. Digging a little deeper, church people celebrate a history of great religious music prior to the 18th century, great church architecture prior to 1920, great church liturgy prior to 1950, and great church hymnody prior to 1960. “Heritage” means the stained glass window dedicated to great-grandmother.
These are not roots, however. These are mere tendrils. A tendril is a slender, leafless plant organ that must attach itself to another body for support. They may look like roots ..... but they are not roots. They rely upon a supporting denomination to hold them up. They serve a purpose for awhile, but once the plant has grown to be straight and tall and self-supporting, the tendrils are supposed to let go and disappear. Unfortunately, church people think they are roots. They tend them, nurture them, and preserve them ..... and they never let go.
Real Roots
The real roots of the church are deeper and dirtier. You have to dig down into the earth to reach them ..... deep down where the worms and the grubs are ....... deep down where human misery and hope are ...... deep down where the Real Gospel and the Real World touch each other.
There you will find the Reformers dying for their core values and bedrock beliefs. There you will find the Wesley’s converting popular songs from the bar rooms into hymns of praise. There you will find the Methodist class meetings that are the real predecessors of any lovely building, and there you will find the average lay people whose mentoring and faith-sharing transformed the lives of the neighbours and work associates.
There you will find the risk-takers who declared their former buildings to be inadequate, and put their finances on the line to build a new building that would be adequate. The faith-sharers, the itinerant preachers, the risk-takers, and the Christian entrepreneurs are the roots of the church ...... but they may be too scary, too risky, to dirty, and to daring to celebrate.
They surround something deeper still. A living organ that drives still deeper into the earth ..... even to the molten core of the planet. It is the “Tap Root”. This is the chief root of the plant, the primary conduit through which the life fluids flow to the tiniest blossom waving in the sunlight above. Without the “Tap Root”, all the efforts of the faith-sharers, itinerant preachers, small group leaders, and Christian risk-takers will ultimately come to nothing. Without the “Tap Root” the plant may linger for many years, but it will surely and inevitably die. That “Tap Root” is Jesus.
It's all about Jesus
Ultimately, there is only one root of the church: Jesus. There is only one nourishment for the church: the love of Jesus. And there is only one fruit of the church: the Gospel of Jesus.
The “roots” and the “shoots” are the same. If the purpose of the root is not fulfilled in the growing of new shoots, then the whole plant will die ..... sooner or later. If the church is not totally and exclusively, expending every ounce of its energy, solely for the purpose of helping more and more people experience the transforming power of God and journey daily in relationship with Jesus ....... then what on earth is there to celebrate about the church? It is a carcass. It is mere mulch. And God will beat it back into the soil from whence it came.
In the 21st century, all the sacred tendrils which we once mistook for roots have been revealed to be unimportant. All that matters is the Gospel ...... nothing else. All that matters is the “Tap Root” ...... and the new shoots. Nothing else. Not the building, not the organ, not the stained glass windows. Not the location, not the liturgy, not the clergy. Not the history, not the artefacts, not the memorials. Nothing matters but the Gospel ..... the root and the new shoots.
This is why growing churches and dynamic church leaders are doing what their ancestors did before them. They are relocating, rebuilding, upgrading, and generally revolutionizing the church for a new age. And if anyone asks why, they answer: “It is for Jesus, and we can do no other.” Grow or die. Fulfil your destiny in Jesus, or surrender leadership with Jesus. Live the Gospel for the 21st Century ...... or become irrelevant to the 21st Century.
There are two parades at the start of the 21st Century. One marches in circles and sings Faith of Our Fathers. The other marches out of Egypt, steps boldly into the wilderness, and heads toward the sunrise of a new Promised Land. That is where Jesus is. That is where the beleaguered people of the 21st century yearn to go. And they will get there. It may be without their beautiful buildings, and historic traditions, and pomp and ceremony. But they will get there.
Deep in our
hearts, we do believe,
We
shall overcome some day.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.