Napier Baptist

At this year's Baptist Assembly 4 people debated the moot "the church has had its day" It's a bit of a loaded issue when the room is full of full time Christian Ministers and workers but all the same it was interesting. A very good article has been published by Paul Allis here. There was a chance to respond on the night. I didn't because I need time to chew things over before I respond to anything. Sunday was our AGM and I preached a sermon that incorporated something of my response to this moot as well as giving signals for our future as being a faithful gospel people. The sermon is below if you want to read it:
I am indebted to this article by Michael Jinkins and also to Ian Stackhouse and his work.

At this year’s Baptist Assembly we spent the bulk of the time dreaming and imagining how the church might be more effective at the mission task. I remember Tom Cadman, who used to be the Minister at Napier Baptist in the 60s, telling me that if you scratch the back of any Baptist you find a revivalist. It doesn’t matter whether you are left or centre or right of centre, whether you vote blue, red or green, if you scratch the back of any Baptist you find a revivalist. Their ideas of what constitutes revival might be different, but the impulse is the same. During one night of the Assembly they held a debate between 4 people who debated the moot “The church has had its day”. Before we start dreaming of revival the church has to face a reality check. One of the speakers outlined the lay of the land from a sociological perspective and it was frightening. The church in NZ has been in serious decline across all denominations for the past 30 years. In 1960 about 20% of the population attended church weekly and 40% monthly. In 2000 about 10% attend weekly and 20% monthly. 20% of society is over 60 years old in NZ but in the church 41% of the people are over 60. The church is older than the rest of society. At the other end of the scale, 20% of the population are between 20 and 29 years of age but only 8% of those in church are from within this age group. In 1960 40% of the primary school role were on Sunday School roles. In 1985 the figure was 11%. Things would be even worse if it weren’t for some of the large immigrant churches . We Baptists fare a little better – we have grown from being the smallest of the significant denominations to now having the largest attendance of all Protestant churches along with the Anglicans. Our gender and average age breakdown tracks very closely with that of the New Zealand population. However, in the Baptist denomination between 1990-2005 we baptised 18,600 people. 18,600 new converts in 15 years is fantastic. You’d think with this number of converts our churches would be swelling. But the reality is that as wide as our front door is just as wide is our back door. If we added the 18,600 people we baptised to the already existing 23600 members we should get 42,200. But in fact our membership is 22,900 – there is 19,300 people missing. What happened to the other 19,300 people? Where did they go? Last year the Baptist church grew 0.2%, the year before we declined 2%. Last year 32% of our churches didn’t get their baptismal pools wet. Adult attendance in Baptist churches over the last 5 years has increased by 153 people. Despite all our programmes, efforts and resources throughout the 244 Baptist churches in NZ we have increased by 153 people. During this time we’ve poured millions of dollars into growing our churches but on average Baptist churches have increased their attendance by just over ½ an adult in 5 years
This is the lay of the land as the sociologists tell us. As George Carey said when he was the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘some parts of the Western Church are bleeding to death’. The church is dying and as Stu pointed out, we can’t simply respond God won’t let it happen because it has happened in some parts of the world. North Africa and Turkey used to be centres of power for the Christian church but the church lost its presence there and has never regained a foothold. This year in Napier 3 churches I know of have closed their doors with another one on the market and its future uncertain. I know 2 of ministers of these churches and they’re very good people and very good ministers of the gospel. People I admire. So we can’t simply point the finger at them and say “it’s their fault.” This is the lay of the land – the church is facing decline and in some areas even death.
All of this has a significant effect on churches, the people in them and especially on leadership. The church is dying who’s going to do CPR on it? The church is dying how can we save it?! We become incredibly anxious about how do we get more people to come to church? Anxiety becomes the defining mood of the day. We try programme after programme, technique after technique to try and save the church. A fear of dying grips us and anxiety becomes the driver for the church. As one person said recently the only thing that seems to be growing in mainline churches today is the stream of books talking about its decline. Books telling us that the church is a terminal patient. Some of them tell us they have all the answers and they’ll share them with us – if you buy their programme! In this environment of fear and anxiety church leaders grasp on to the next great fad that sweeps through the church promising instant success. We have to make the gospel relevant or the church will die! Being relevant is everything. In time, anxiety gives way to guilt as the things we try don’t seem to work. We’re not doing enough or we’re not doing the right things or we’re not praying right. We need better music, better preaching, more experiences – that’ll save the church. More smoke and bigger mirrors - whatever it takes to get more people in and save the church.
So what are we to make of all of this? Should we all just pack up and go home? Well before you all get in your cars, flag the AGM and eat your lunch at home I want to take the chance to respond. For what it’s worth this is my 2 cents to add to the debate about whether the church has had its day. In my response I want to outline my convictions and hopefully it will give some indications for the future for us as a church.
At Baptist Assembly I heard a lot of talk about the sociology of the church but I didn’t hear a lot of theology about the church. A lot of statistics but not a lot of scripture. Church was seen in terms of being a collection of individuals who have faith. A type of religious club you choose to join or not. Is the church simply just another volunteer organisation or is ti something different? Yes the church is a statistical and sociological reality, but first and foremost it’s a theological reality. You can’t speak about the church as purely a sociological reality unless you’re willing to cut God out. What needs to grip us is today is not simply stats or sociology but deep theological convictions. Deep theological convictions about who we are and whose we are. Otherwise, we become like corks bobbing up and down in an ocean of statistics carried away by the current of the next fad that sweeps through the church promising to be the panacea of all the church’s ills. I want scripture to tell us the future of the church rather than the next set of statistics.
In the face of numerical decline I want to ask since when has the truth of the gospel been determined by the reception it receives? We get so caught up in worrying about success that we forget that Jesus didn’t call us to survive – he called us to follow him. Jesus never guaranteed us success – he only ever guaranteed us a cross like his. We’re not called to be relevant to the world so that the gospel might be popular. We’re called to first be relevant to Jesus and his gospel. Too often we feel we have to create some awesome experiences for people in church. Capture people’s emotions. But the gospel isn’t interested in changing people’s emotions – it’s interested in changing their wills. The gospel changes who you serve, not simply your emotions. Now of course the gospel does effect our emotions – it brings us to our knees, it brings us to tears of repentance as well as tears of great joy but ultimately Jesus is not trying to change people’s emotions – he’s trying to change the Lord they serve. Nor is God wanting to simply create a new set of religious experiences. God’s trying to create a whole new humanity that reflects his glory. You see it must be deep biblical and theological convictions that must grip us if we’re not to be carried away by the next current that sweeps through the church.
Then there’s this idea that we can measure the church as a voluntary organisation that you choose to be a part of. Whilst this is helpful with analysing church trends, this view is manifestly unbiblical. You do not choose to be part of the church. Before we chose anything we were chosen in Christ for his glory. We who are in the church did not choose one another – we were chosen in Christ to be a people for God’s glory. A community of different sinners made one in Jesus Christ. As one person famously put it ‘God’s idea of church is a party with people you wouldn’t be caught dead with on a Saturday night’. The NT only ever uses organic images for the church. The church is described in scripture as being a family. You don’t choose your relatives – you inherit them. Mothers, fathers, annoying brothers or sisters, crazy aunts, embarrassing uncles and scary cousins. Or we are the branches growing out from the vine. We don’t choose which branches we will hang next to and nor can we choose to be branches – we’re formed into branches by the vine – it’s an organic metaphor. Or scripture talks of the body of Christ. Members of a body don’t join the body, they’re formed in the womb: fingers and toes, eyes and ears, heart and lung. You don’t choose to be an eye – eyes are formed by God. The church isn’t some club you join – it’s a new community that’s being made by God for his glory. You can’t speak about the church in terms that are foreign to it’s very nature. I’ve heard conferences where Pastors talk about the people in their church in terms of giving units to help you work out how much should be in the offering bag. You need to work out the average income of your area, times that by the number of giving units you have and 10% of that is what you should expect in your church coffers each week. Now this is helpful at some level but the trouble is that we don’t have giving units in our church – we only have people. We have Graeme and Angie; we have Willis; we have Len and Emma; we have Nicki; we have Laughton but we don’t have any giving units – we have people. As important as sociology and statistics are – and they are important – they’re never the final story unless you want to cut God out of the picture.
Ephesians tells us that God has a redemption plan for the whole cosmos. Before Christ came there was this great mystery as to how God was going to bring about his promised redemption for the world. But Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:8: With all wisdom and insight he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. The great mystery of God’s redemption plan has been revealed: through Jesus Christ God is going to gather up everything in heaven and on earth and bring it to its perfection in him. This is God’s magnificent plan for the world – it will be brought to its perfect completion which is Jesus. It’s this theological and scriptural vision that must guide our thinking on the church – not statistics. The cry of how are we going to save the church is completely wrong headed. The church doesn’t need a saviour, it’s already got one. The church has got a saviour that’s far greater than any quick fix programme or attempt by us to make the gospel more culturally savvy. The church doesn’t need a saviour, it’s already got one and his name is Jesus Christ the Lord of the church
Paul goes on to tell us in Ephesians that the church is central to God’s plan. Ephesians 3:8 says Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
I have often been asked ‘what’s your vision for the church?’ And I know that what many people have in mind is a vision statement and mission statement and a cute phrase that we can put on our church letterhead. But my response to that question has been guided by something Ian Stackhouse, an English Baptist Pastor said: “I don’t have a vision for the church, I have a vision to be a church” with all the tension and mess that’s involved with being a community of sinners redeemed by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The vision for the church that matters is not my vision but God’s vision. I wouldn’t get out of bed for my vision for the church – but I would for God’s vision for the church. God’s vision for the church that Paul explains to us here in Ephesians is that it is God’s new community of Gospel People that reflects God’s nature and God’s glory not just to the world but to the entire cosmos. This is God's vision for the church and we are called to be faithful to it. The glory of the church is not how big it is or successful it is or how good the singing is or how good the preacher is, the glory of the church is that it’s God’s new community that displays to the world what it will be like when everything is summed up in Christ. As we live our lives as God’s faithful Gospel People – loving, forgiving, healing, praying, providing hospitality and care, evangelising… - we show the world the glory of God and his wonderful redemption plan. I believe the great mission task for the church today is to hold its nerve and trust in the power of the gospel to bring about growth and transformation in God’s ways rather than trusting in the power of our programmes, our personalities, our talents, our techniques or the latest fad to sweep through the church promising instant results. Now please hear me right – faithfulness is no excuse for poor leadership, dull worship, bad preaching or a lack of seriousness in mission. These are signs of a lack of faithfulness. My point is that even in the face of these statistics our call is still to trust in the power of Jesus and his gospel rather than the power of our own programmes, techniques or cultural sophistication.
Someone I read recently said that the greatest issues the church in the West faces today is superficiality. That we’ve replaced the boundless riches of Christ with a thin shallow replica. I’ve had my own journey through this but I’ve never been able to express it succinctly. This year we’ve been investing in good resources to give to our home groups and while I was at Assembly I bought a couple more resources. One of them is a DVD from Marva Dawn a wonderful pastor and theologian from the States and it’s on worship and technology and sex and sexuality. On one of her sessions Marva touches on the superficiality that the church can have. The example she gives was American churches after 9/11. Marva said that there are many huge churches in America that focus on what she calls the happy clappy gospel (I’m sure it’s not just limited to the States!). The people inside them sing happy songs, they hear happy sermons and generally they’re the shiniest, happiest people on earth. But 9/11 was one of the most defining events in American history and it broke the hearts of the American people. It was an important time for these churches to be able provide meaning and care for an entire nation. They should have been a beacon of meaning and hope for the nation. But instead of people flocking to these churches for meaning and care they avoided them. The filed into some of the older more traditional churches and avoided the happy clappy churches. Why did they avoid them? Because these churches didn’t know how to lament. They didn’t know how to express anger or grief or pain in their corporate worshipping life. They were so focussed on keeping the positivity meter off the scale to get more people in the door that they didn’t know how to help people express lament, anger or pain before God without feeling like they’re being bad.
The church is not called to try and save itself and when we try to we often miss the glory and power of the gospel. We are called to trust in the power of Jesus and his gospel and remain faithful to him. I want to finish by reading to you what Paul says about the church in 1 Corinthians 4: Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. This is the call to the church – to be stewards of God’s mysteries. Could there be a greater calling than to be stewards of the mysteries of God Almighty? And as Paul tells us our hope is that we are found trustworthy.
Whoever says that we must save the church is dead wrong. The church already has a saviour and of all the people who know how to bring life out of death – it’s Jesus. As G. K. Chesterton famously said: “Christianity has died many times and risen again – for it has a God who knows the way out of the grave”. The church doesn’t need a saviour because it’s already got one – Jesus Christ. And as stewards of the mysteries of God somehow we must learn again to entrust the church to him.