Empty Pews ...

One day, not that long ago I sat in the basement of this building as part of the faith community that used to live and worship there ... and I experienced an epiphany moment ... it was a moment that had a profound and lasting impact and effect on my life ...

In time I would have a second epiphany moment that would lead me away from the Church for a time and send me searching for something more ... it was a search that one day lead me back through the front doors of this building, after an absence of almost 5 years only to be welcomed back with open arms, an offer to teach Sunday School and ABSOLUTELY NO hint of judgement ... I never left again ...

In the coming days I will share some of my stories from this place ... but for the moment I would like to share the first epiphany moment and where it has lead ...

It began with our 9:15 youth group meeting with the minister of the day Reverend Ross Cumming. This particular day Ross hauled in an old "portable" record player (remember those heavy monolithic things from school and church???) He pulled out a black vinyl record and put it on the turntable saying - "I want to share this you ... I think it's important ..."

He then put the needle down on a recording of the 1967 Massey Lecture from CBC that was the Christmas Sermon on Peace delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The words were powerful and I was AMAZED ... it, as I've said elsewhere, lead to me devouring every word I could find about King - at 12 I even bought a copy of EBONY magazine that had a series of articles on King - do you realize the odd looks I got at the little magazine shoppe on Downie St in Stratford when I walked in there one day and as a skinny white kid asked - "Do you carry EBONY?" !!!!

Along the way I encountered and read and re-read King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail that struck a profound cord with me ... particularly where he wrote:

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are...

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust..

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

The line - "everyday I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust ..." has ALWAYS stood out for me ... I was once one of those young people, and over the last twenty some years I have repeatedly found myself drawn to those young people as I've struggled in ministry within the Church.

Over cups of coffee, pop and the occasional beer - I have heard countless voices, not all of them chronologically YOUNG who have articulated CLEARLY and CONCISELY what they see wrong within the Church. Over and over I have heard THEM say - "you're not like the OTHER ministers I've met ..." and they expressed an appreciation for my attention and time, and they've offered a deep heart felt desire, usually accompanied by a sigh that expresses the gut wrenching HOPE that one day perhaps the Church will hear them and take their words seriously ...

It's a hope I've always been very very sensitive to, and that I've tried to embody in my ministry ... but too often the faith communities are too interested, as King observes, in maintaining the STATUS QUO, rather than opening themselves up to what those "outside" want ... even the choice of language used within the Church betrays the presence of the very complacency that King was speaking of back in 1963.

Are those who express faith yearnings and who want to return to the Church really outside the BODY???

Or have we so created the boundaries and fences around the Church, that only a small narrowly defined group fit the criteria of "inside" while many of us, perhaps even ME, lie "outside" ... when in truth, we are not outside of anything ... but are instead simply advocating for a dismantling of the walls that would divide people from one another ...

The way things are is NOT working ... that much is clear ... what is needed is the willingness to expand out vision and look at some of the bold brush strokes ...

If we are to be an open and inclusive community the place to begin is perhaps by hearing the MANY voices who express contempt and disgust for the Church and actively and openly wrestle with the things they are saying ... then one day perhaps we will become the transformative community we are MEANT to be rather than a social club of the status quo ... until then we will continue to simply wring our hands over the empty pews and look for excuses about why we are in a precipitous decline ...