Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/91

Contributor - Rev. Dr. Jonathan Gerstner

Title - Vitalization Report - Preliminary Draft

Topic - Reformed Church In Canada

Is this church ever dead! How many times has this thought crossed a hidden part of our souls. Young people desert it, visitors shy away from it. One gets the feeling that the only reason anyone is here is a sense of duty. It breaks our heart I see a church in this state. Yet many of us fear that this is the state of our congregation, or that we are rapidly heading in that direction. Whatever happened to make it this way?

As we turn our attention to the issue of church vitalization, I would like to say that the data on which this report is based came directly from the Reformed Church in Canada itself. Some of the most fruitful discussion took place in living rooms over coffee. Consistory retreats were also times for two way thinking an, planning from which I learned much. My colleagues in ministry were so helpful as were our lay leaders. I have no doubt that some of my "sources" will disagree with some of my conclusions, however this is only a preliminary draft, and you comments are welcome as we work towards a final form.

"Whatever happened to make a congregation in so desperate need of life?" This best answer to this question is, "That really is not important." We need to centre on the future, not the past. Our congregation needs to come to life now. Whether it was more alive ten years ago or not, is not the question. Some churches may never have been truly alive, even when they had a larger attendance. That is the major reason this study has rejected the term "revitalization." We don't need to look to the past for examples of vitality, we need to look to the future to see what God calls us to become.

We need to differentiate at the outset between the general need for spiritual growth in all our churches and the special need for vitalization in churches who are undergoing sharp, significant loss in attendance. It is absolutely essential that congregations experiencing "long-term or rapid decline" be placed under the direct oversight of the Classis as is provided for in the Book of Church Order (l.II.7.sec.1l.g). The Classis can through its appropriate committee (perhaps CP&D) implement a program of emergency vitalization.

General Vitalization Needs

1. Emphasis on conversion of those inside and outside the church. The key truth regained by the Reformation was justification by faith alone, i.e. that one is made right with God only through personal trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord. The Reformation was thus a return to an emphasis on the need of personal conversion, and a rejection of the concept that being a member of the church meant one was automatically saved. Ever since the Reformation the Reformed Church has been blessed with those who emphasized the need for personal conversion. As a general rule I have learned from my study of church history that a church that stresses conversion within the church generally grows to become a church which also reaches out with the good news outside its walls. We need to be on guard against unbiblical distortions of covenant theology which remove the emphasis on personal conversion of children of the church (and parents).

2. Emphasis on personal, family and small group Bible study. Our Lord warned the church of Sardis that although in name they were alive, they were in fact dead. (Rev. 3-1) We are in danger of being a church with the name of being Reformed (according to the Word of God) and being biblically illiterate. How many of us are "one hour Christians" without the slightest desire to take advantage of any other opportunities to grow in our knowledge of the Lord? How many of our churches encourage small group Bible study? How many train their members to lead family and personal devotions?

3. Vision: Seeing what God is calling us to be. Our churches have struggled with a sense of purpose for some time. For many years we have felt that we had nothing to offer main-line Canadians. Churches like the United Church, Presbyterian and Anglican were better equipped. We were too isolated to hear from our brothers and sisters in these communions that there was a growing tide of departure from core Christianity in leading circles of their own communion. The main stream churches were finding their leadership ever more influenced by the radical left. The RCCs mainstream/evangelical mix was becoming a very desirable option to Canadians reared in similar traditions which had drifted from their roots. We as a fellowship of churches have a very special role to play in Canadian church history.

Congregational vision is even more desperately needed. What is God calling First Reformed or Grace Community Church to be?

Outreach - evangelism - must be our first goal. I might have gotten an argument about this ten years ago, but now there is no room for argument ff we only open our eyes. We can only see a handful of congregations which are living in stable enough communities with a stable enough membership base to be able to survive in a nurturing mode. All the rest simply won't make it.

For the moment forget systematic theology, and turn to practical theology which points out that if your church does not have the vision to see evangelism as its primary goal, your church will not be around as a self-supporting congregation in the year 2000.

In the rare cases in which a group feels it is a stable church in a stable community without the need to prioritize outreach, systematic theology will point out that every church was brought into this world to spread the good news. At the very least, we hope that any such churches will feel the burden to serve as a mother or sister church to a new church development.

4. Goal setting. Each congregation needs to have a concrete mission statement, complete with explicit goals for at least the next five years. If you are one of those people who think mission statements are a questionable use of time for a congregation, I have to grant that you have a point ff you mean the way some have been done in the past. Statements such as, "Generic Reformed Church is a fellowship of believers dedicated to showing the love of Christ and is being lead by His Spirit to works of evangelism, education and ministry," says little because it is imprecise. Everyone can claim it mentally (for it is little more than a summary of the Scriptural view of the church), but there is no specific way of evaluating the congregation's faithfulness to the goal.

We need statements that address what our specific target of ministry is and how we plan to implement it. "Generic Reformed Church is a ministry targeting unchurched young adults in the west-central region of Generic, Ontario," or "targeting mid-career families in Generic Park subdivision." God will always exceed our goals and bring in people from different backgrounds than our original target group(s) when we are faithfully involved in outreach. Statements and goals need to be constantly revised. However, in the current situation of lacking concrete goal statements, some of our churches are aimless both literally and figuratively.

First, pastoral leadership. Some of our pastors have had a very difficult time leading congregations into the changes necessary to become outreach oriented churches. All of us have different gifts in ministry and few of our pastors have been gifted in church redevelopment. This is totally understandable, but what has not been as understandable is the relatively weak response to continuing education opportunities in areas essential to the future of struggling churches, such as church growth and evangelism. (One needs to examine the parallel concern of how many consistories are encouraging the use of their minister's study week in this area).

5. Diagnostic care. We need to understand what we are doing well now in order to chose an appropriate target group. To give an example of a key diagnostic issue, one of the biggest questions facing our congregations today is whether we are regional or community churches. This is not a value judgement, both are valid options, but our ministry needs to be consistent with the one which we are convinced we are called to be.

Most of our congregations are regional churches which attracted immigrants from the Netherlands from quite an area. This functioned well because the church offered programs which attracted Dutch immigrants. Now we are still regional in our membership, but offering little which would attract people to drive long distances - except family loyalty. Please do not take that last sentence as a put down, as 99% of churches in any denomination offer nothing distinctive enough for the average person to drive long distances. However, in order to survive, a regional church must either develop a program which will draw individuals regionally (extremely difficult and generally requiring substantial financial investment), or build strong small groups in different areas from which church members come (these small groups become the point of contact through which community members become involved in the church). The other option is to give up the regional model and become community ministry oriented churches either in the community in which our church building is located, or if community ministry needs are already amply met, in another community (moving the church meeting place). We have churches who are not functioning well as regional or as community churches, probably at least partially because they have never worked through the implications of the two models with a consultant. Effective diagnosis is the key to effective planning.

6. Leadership for the future. As difficult as it is to raise this touchy issue, it would be irresponsible to write on congregational vitalization without speaking about the role that church leadership has played in the crisis in many of our churches. At the outset, I want to make very clear how happy I have been to be able to work with our church leaders, and that any issues raised in this area need to be looked at seriously and individually by all of us, including the CRCC and myself. However, concerns over the issue of leadership have been expressed to me in one way or another in almost every one of our congregations. It is generally considered that some of our church leaders have stifled church vitalization rather than assisted it.

This leads to the exceptionally controversial issue of ministerial mobility. In a given congregation, many see the length of term of ministers as too long. It is also felt that some pastors have allowed their success in dealing with immigrant populations with a continental Reformed world view to dull their vision for leading the congregations to their future as Reformed congregations reaching out to Canadians in a Canadian cultural setting. On the other side, some pastors who have a very outreach oriented vision have lost the intimate relationship with the congregation necessary to lead it into a period of change. The difficulty of finding a gracious way for ministers to move to another charge when they are no longer providing the visionary leadership needed for a congregation at a turning point in its history is an issue to which a concrete explicit plan of implementation needs to be developed for the good of both our congregations and our ministerial colleagues, who are suffering more than anyone else in congregations where their leadership is no longer accepted.

Second, lay leadership. It would be grossly unfair to blame pastors for the difficulties in vitalization. The least effective ministers have often become that way with the help of lay people. God in His providence has allowed the RCC to produce some of the most wonderfully gifted lay leaders, while at the same time producing a handful of the most destructive and negative ones. Nonetheless, these handful have greatly impeded the progress of the church. I used to serve as a professor in the oldest African-American seminary in the U.S. One clear problem in the churches my students served was that some people who had been marginalized by the society became petty tyrants when they served on the church board. It was the one area where someone had to listen to them. I am becoming more and more convinced that the same dynamic has hurt our congregations. Immigrants who experienced the pain of bigotry in a new society could became overbearing and harshly critical in positions of authority. Sometimes it took the form of violently opposing any change in the congregations sometimes in attempting to force a particular manner of experiencing God upon an entire congregation as the only legitimate option. This personality type could choose to be either traditional or non-traditional in its worship style, often moving from one position to the other in the course of a lifetime. Often such leaders gave inordinately harsh criticism of pastors or others in authority positions. By God's grace, a congregation rarely had more than one such outspokenly harsh individual, but the remaining lay leadership often allowed such an individual to prevent any positive steps forward. Perhaps God alone can change the attitude of our problem lay leaders, the broader issue is how the remaining lay leaders can resist following these negative leaders as they strive to force their will upon the congregation. Vitalization will require lay leaders who refuse to let a vocal minority prevent balanced church redevelopment.

CRCC's response

The CRCC is well aware of its paradoxical position as an emerging judicatory. Until we have become a synod any work with congregations relies on congregational or classical invitation. The CRCC has made it very clear that requests to aid congregations in the vitalization process is the executive secretary's highest priority. The executive secretary will be glad to help diagnose a congregation, and help it develop a mission statement with a concrete target group and goals. Spiritual renewal retreats, training events for Bible study leaders, conflict management seminars, even an evangelistic crusade are options for the executive secretary to lead if there is congregational or classical interest.

We are praying that the Spirit will convince our congregations to call on the executive secretary to develop a program especially designed for their needs to reach out with the good news. Congregations are too special to let die out of a lack of nerve to step in. The CRCC and its executive secretary are willing, if those given the authority are able to ask us in.

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