Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Sept/67

Contributor - John Opmeer

Title - Where is the church in Canada going?

Topic - Focus on Canada

This is the heading of one of the chapters in the annual report of the United Church's Board of Evangelism and Social Service.

These reports usually make for very worthwhile reading, and the 1967 report, entitled "Canada and its future" is no exception. It has over 200 pages of information and opinion on just about any subject that concerns the church. I am sure that you will not agree with some of the opinions expressed in the report, but you will certainly find it very useful in bringing together many of the facts on the major personal, moral and social issues facing the church today. I expect to have opportunity to return to this report from time to time in this column.

Now back to that chapter on the future of the church in Canada. It is written by the secretary ot the Board, the Rev. J. R. Hord. Yes, you are right, he is the man who got into hot water for calling prime minister Pearson a "puppy dog on LBJ's leash". He has a tendency to use his position to express his personal opinions on controversial subjects as if the church itself was speaking. Yet it must be admitted that he is in a unique position to feel the pulse of the church in the nation, and to point out trends in Canadian church life. Hence I feel that the following excerpts may be useful to you, even though at times it is difficult to distinguish between facts and interpretation.

CHURCH DECLINE

If present trends continue the Christian church in Canada. will decline in numbers and become a minority movement in our society. It has been pointed out that church membership in the United States still climbs while church attendance declines! Between the years 1960 and 1965 Sunday School enrolment in the United Church of Canada dropped from 765,855 to 609,583; the number of persons received by profession of faith dropped from 40,482 to 29,304 in the same period. The situation facing us in ministerial candidates is very serious- In the 1960-61 academic year there were 639 candidates for the Christian ministry; now there are 420 candidates, a drop of 219.

What do these figures mean For one thing, they are a judgment on the church. A judgment on the training of our people.. A university chaplain has reported that students enter university with a grade 12 or 13 academic standing, but with a grade 4 standing in religious knowledge. The church of the future will emphasize quality of life and service. Christians will know what they believe and why they believe it. Large church gatherings will gradually be replaced by small meaningful group meetings.

MORE ECUMENICAL

The church of the future will be much more ecumenical minded. In the past, denominations have done all they could alone rather than together; in the future, our denominations will have to do all they can together rather than alone. There is no reason why the Anglican and United churches cannot press forward toward organic union, especially if they admit that both their systems have grave deficiencies which require correction by each other's strengths. God is not only drawing his people together by forces of truth and love; He is also pushing and prodding us by secular forces in society. We Christians are discovering that what we want to do by way of fellowship, we have to do if we are to exercise an effective public witness.

GEARED TO PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

The church of the future must develop many and variegated forms if it is to serve a complex pluriform society. Traditionally we thought of community as the place where we lived. Sociology points out 'that today we live in several communities; we sleep in one, work in another, go to school in another, accept political responsibility in another and spend our weekends in yet another. The church has to serve in many different environments. It has to go where the people are.

The church of the immediate future must set up action-research projects in order to discover new methods and forms of service for the new society. Unless the church is present in the communities in which people live, it will become a souvenir of middle class society. Whereas in the past the marks of the church were authority and stability, the marks of the church of the future will be experimentation and adaptability.

NEEDED! TRAINED MEMBERS

The church of the future must train her members to be mature and free Christians scattered in society. We have talked a great deal about training the laity for their witness in the world but have done very little about it. It is the clergy who are expected to be active in the church; the laity are passive.

Lay training centres will provide a program for laymen, where different professional groups study the application of their Christian faith to their secular task. Clergy taking secular jobs will become more and more prevalent.

In the past the church was conceived as a pyramid with the clergy at the top; next in rank were the faithful lay workers; at the bottom were the laymen who carried out the necessary tasks in the world. The reformed church of the future will be represented by an inverted pyramid; at the top I be men and women carrying out their secular tasks in society; then Christians, both lay and clergy, serving their fellowman and interceding for the world; at the very base is Christ bearing the whole world in love and inspiring the work of all his people saying: "Whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man also came not to be served but,to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

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