The Churches Could Fill Their Pews If Only

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might bless them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.  
Mark 10:13-16

The latest in a long list of blog posts and feature articles how the church could attract more millennials came to me this week from Christian Chiakulas, a writer and musician from Chicago, courtesy of the Huffington Post. The profound skepticism with which I approach such articles was not greatly altered by my reading it. 

The ambitious title proclaims, “Churches Could Fill Their Pews with Millenials If They Just Did This.” The answer is that we should tell people about the concrete demands of the gospel to make the world a better place and then actually get to work doing it. 

Of course. That’s true. Why didn’t I think of that?

The fact that the answer is basically a cliché does not mean we shouldn’t pay attention.

A century ago Walter Rauschenbusch wrote an impassioned plea to pastors and leaders to embrace the Social Gospel, to combat the poverty of cities and rural areas, to stand up against the exploitation of workers, support the rights of women, promote universal education, and join in building the Kingdom of God. If churches want to save souls, he argued, then they must also save bodies. 

Young people, he said, already understand this. They are already committed. And if the churches do not join with young people in this struggle, then they will lose a whole generation.
A great deal has changed in the past hundred years. Women can vote. Workers are protected. We have Social Security and Medicare. We have made great advances in combating racism and sexism. We protect people with disabilities and we treat mental illness with more humanity. We have made great progress.

And the churches can take credit for playing a major role in this transformation. In the Methodist Church we created a new liturgical season between Pentecost and Advent, called Kingdomtide and devoted to studying and celebrating the biblical foundation for building the Kingdom of God. This was never a unanimous effort. There were always individual churches, and sometimes whole denominations, on both sides of every major issue. But overall, there was a shared commitment to advancing equality and justice.

Unfortunately, today much of that commitment can only be described in the past tense, and in many ways, we are in the same place we were a century ago. 

Half a century ago, when the churches were at the height of their institutional power, one of the great leaders (I think it might have been Harold Bosley, but I cannot find the reference) said that in the future our greatest challenge will be keeping a vision of the Kingdom of God alive in the human heart. Today, when we have a widening gap between rich and poor, and a reluctance to do anything about it; when we are willing to cut food stamps rather than increase taxes, we seem to act as if Jesus was only kidding when he talked about economic justice. Our vision of the Kingdom of God is faded and distorted by self-interest.

Today Christians are better known for gay bashing than for social justice.

George Barna, a Christian Evangelical and social researcher, reported that among young people ages 16-29, the most common perception of Christianity was that it was “anti-homosexual.” This was true for 91 percent of those who identified themselves as non-Christian, and for 80 percent of those who called themselves Christian. This same age group is overwhelmingly accepting of gay people, and approximately two-thirds of them support gay marriage.

The anti-homosexual agenda is wrong. And it is self-defeating. It is pushing young people away.

This doesn’t just damage the individual churches or denominations that pursue an anti-gay agenda, it hurts all churches. When J.P. Morgan lost $2.8 billion in a misguided trading scheme, it wasn’t just J.P. Morgan whose stock went down the next day, bank stocks were down across the board. When people see a video of a pastor telling his congregation that they should smack a son who isn’t acting like a real man, or another pastor saying that gays and lesbians should be kept behind an electrified fence, it doesn’t just hurt those individual churches. 

No one who knows anything about the Gospel accounts would believe for a nano-second that either of those ideas would pass the Jesus test. We might not always know what Jesus would do, but we can be fairly sure of some things that he would never do. Unfortunately, for millions of people those pastors and their congregations are defining Christianity.

If we want to bring young people into the church, we first need to bring the church back to Jesus.

*This post borrows heavily from one written in May of 2012

A Prayer for Mother's Day

Walter Rauschenbusch

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:13-16

For several years it has been my tradition to use Walter Rauschenbusch’s “Prayer for the Family” in the Pastoral Prayer for Mother’s Day. Rauschenbusch is remembered as the greatest prophet of the Social Gospel awakening of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His theological analysis of the social situation and his application of biblical principles to social issues provide a continuing legacy for Christians who want to understand the practical meaning of the Gospel. But during his lifetime, Rauschenbusch was known and loved for his prayers. He lost his hearing at an early age while serving a church in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, and the isolation this imposed made him a keen observer of the people around him. He was often moved to tears by the simple scenes of love and caring and pain that took place silently around him. On this Mother’s Day, as we celebrate the Festival of the Christian Home, our prayer begins with his prayer for the family.

“O God, we who are bound together in the tender ties of love, pray thee for a day of unclouded love. May no passing irritation rob us of our joy in one another. Forgive us if we have often been swift to see the human failings and slow to see the preciousness of those who are still the dearest comfort of our lives. May there be no sharp words that wound and scar, no rift that may grow into estrangement. Suffer us not to grieve those whom thou hast sent to us as the sweet ministers of love. May our eyes not be so holden by selfishness that we know thine angels only when they spread their wings to return to thee.”

On this Mother’s Day, we pray for those who have lost their mothers this year and for those mothers who have lost children or lost pregnancies. We pray for those who are struggling with infertility. We pray for the mothers who feel overwhelmed and inadequate, and we pray for those whose mothers were never able to give them the love and support they needed. May they be surrounded by your loving presence.

We give thanks for our mothers, and grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, and for all the women who have nurtured us and cared for us on life’s journey, for sisters and aunts, for Sunday School teachers and Girl Scout Leaders. We pray for single moms, and step-moms, and foster moms. We give thanks for adoptive parents and for those mothers who have courageously given their children for adoption. We give thanks for all the ways in which you have loved us as a mother loves her children.

We lift up our prayers for the people of this church and for the friends and loved ones closest to us. Heal, protect, and strengthen them according to their need. Comfort those who mourn with the assurance of your presence. 

We ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together with sisters and brothers all across the whole human family, saying as he said, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

A Prayer for the Family

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband too, and he praises her:

“Many women have done excellently,

but you surpass them all.”

Proverbs 31:25-31

One of the best things about Mondays for me is the gathering of moms and toddlers for “All God’s Children’s Story Time.” As I write this, they are done with the stories and the songs and are enjoying a beautiful spring day on the playground. Running feet and happy voices, what could be better?

But there is also a counterpoint.

On Mother’s Day I am always aware that the celebration of mothers and motherhood is not a universally positive experience. Not everyone lives in a Norman Rockwell painting. Looking out at our congregation yesterday, I saw one young mom whose husband died just a year ago, and another recently diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy, and one with multiple sclerosis. And then there are those who want to be moms and are coping with infertility. Others have recently lost their mothers, and still others have lost a child. And that is just a small sampling.

This has me thinking about Walter Rauschenbusch

Rauschenbusch is remembered as the greatest prophet of the Social Gospel awakening of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His theological analysis of the social situation and his application of biblical principles to social issues provide a continuing legacy for Christians who want to understand the practical meaning of the Gospel. But during his lifetime, Rauschenbusch was known and loved for his prayers. He lost his hearing at an early age when he caught the flu while serving a church in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, and the isolation this imposed made him a keen observer of the people around him. He was often moved to tears by the simple scenes of love and caring and pain that took place silently around him. In remembrance of Mother’s Day, his prayer for the family is especially appropriate:

O God, we who are bound together in the tender ties of love, pray thee for a day of unclouded love. May no passing irritation rob us of our joy in one another. Forgive us if we have been swift to see the human failings, and slow to feel the preciousness of those who are still the dearest comfort in our life. May there be no sharp words that wound and scar, and no rift that may grow into estrangement. Suffer us not to grieve those whom thou hast sent to us as the sweet ministers of love. May our eyes not be so holden by selfishness that we know thine angels only when they spread their wings to return to thee. Amen.