From the Rector

“Spiritual Revival”
 
As we gear up once again for a brand new Fall Program Year, I want to re-share with you something I first published back in March.  It’s about how we can, as a congregation, come together to rekindle the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our parish, and in the larger community around us.
 
We know that we have experienced decline over the past several years.  All mainline churches have.  Even so, we have also welcomed many new members, and we have amazing potential for real growth in the next few years.  But how exactly do we get there?  Especially when so many of us feel stretched thin, wearied by the changes in our lives and in the larger society around us? 
 
So the $64,000 question is this:

QUESTION:          
How do we revitalize our parish, especially in these times when the larger culture around us seems so chaotic and stressful and, more often than not, openly hostile to the Christian faith that so many of us in the Episcopal tradition hold dear?

And here is the best answer that I can offer:

ANSWER:  
We need a spiritual revival to sweep through our parish and light us on fire with the Holy Spirit. 

Of course, that answer only raises more questions:  “Okay, Mr. Preacher-man,” I can hear y’all saying, “That’s all well and good … but what does it even mean?  What does a ‘spiritual revival’ look like?  How exactly do we get the Holy Spirit to ‘light us on fire’?  (And why would we want Her to?)”
 
These questions are all on-point, exactly what we all ought to be asking.  I shall attempt, as diligently and faithfully as I can, to answer all these follow-up questions … But before I do, let me pause to say:  I really want to hear directly from all of you!
 
I want to hear your ideas, your brainstorming, your dreams, your visions, and your experiences of what a renewed and “spiritually alive” All Saints might look like.
 
Please call, text, email, or catch me in my office or at coffee hour and talk to me about your experiences at All Saints, what makes this place your spiritual home, and what you would like to see here in our immediate future.
 
For today, I will say that before we try to figure out what a spiritual revival entails in concrete terms, we need to examine other parishes that have faced decline (as all parishes do, sooner or later), but that did not embrace the transformative power of the Spirit.  That did not turn things around.  That continued to decline … or even close down altogether.
 
Do such parishes have anything in common with each other?  Are there patterns of decline that work against revival, rather than seeking it out?  Are there warning signs that might help us avoid those pitfalls that lead to death?
 
Absolutely YES!, according to Thom S. Rainer, author of Autopsy of a Deceased Church and Anatomy of a Revived Church (full, and impressive, list of credentials here:  https://churchanswers.com/blog/author/thomrainer/ ).  
 
In his book, Autopsy of a Deceased Church, Rainer recounts his work with many parishes in either decline or crisis, noting the common patterns he observed in years of consulting work and examining which patterns correlated with continued decline and death (i.e., church closure), and which ones correlated with revival, new life, and eventual thriving.  Here, I want to share with you some of his findings in working with churches that did not revive but continued to decline, eventually to the point of closing down.  All of this material is taken from Autopsy.[1] Speaking of a particular church that died (closed down) as an typical case, here are eleven characteristics Rainer identifies as clear signs of a church that’s heading towards closure:

1. The church refused to look like the community. The community began a transition toward a lower socioeconomic class thirty years ago, but the church members had no desire to reach the new residents. The congregation thus became an island of middle-class members in a sea of lower-class residents.
   
   
2. The church had no community-focused ministries.  This part of the autopsy may seem to be stating the obvious, but I wanted to be certain. My friend affirmed my suspicions. There was no attempt to reach the community.
   
   
3. Members became more focused on memorials. Do not hear my statement as a criticism of memorials. Indeed, I recently funded a memorial in memory of my late grandson. The memorials at the church were chairs, tables, rooms, and other places where a neat plaque could be placed. The point is that the memorials became an obsession at the church. More and more emphasis was placed on the past.
   
   
4. The percentage of the budget for members’ needs kept increasing. At the church’s death, the percentage was over 98 percent.
   
   
5. There were no evangelistic emphases. When a church loses its passion to reach the lost, the congregation begins to die.
   
   
6. The members had more and more arguments about what they wanted. As the church continued to decline toward death, the inward focus of the members turned caustic. Arguments were more frequent; business meetings became more acrimonious.
   
   
7. With few exceptions, pastoral tenure grew shorter and shorter. The church had seven pastors in its final ten years. The last three pastors were bi-vocational. All of the seven pastors left discouraged.
   
   
8. The church rarely prayed together. In its last eight years, the only time of corporate prayer was a three-minute period in the Sunday worship service. Prayers were always limited to members, their friends and families, and their physical needs.
   
   
9. The church had no clarity as to why it existed. There was no vision, no mission, and no purpose.

1. The members idolized another era. All of the active members were over the age of 67 the last six years of the church. And they all remembered fondly, to the point of idolatry, the era of the 1970s. They saw their future to be returning to the past.

1. The facilities continued to deteriorate. It wasn’t really a financial issue. Instead, the members failed to see the continuous deterioration of the church building. Simple stated, they no longer had “outsider eyes.”[2]

 
My friends, I’m sure you’ve already noticed the good news here -- many items on this list simply do not apply to All Saints!  We have some community-focused ministries; we’re not particularly focused (certainly not “obsessed”!) with memorials; our budget is not given over simply to members’ needs; our business meetings are not typically acrimonious; we pray together all the time; we don’t spend a lot of time & energy idolizing a previous age of the parish (any more so than the Episcopal denomination, and really all mainline Churches, do, given the overall cultural decline of mainstream Christianity in our society); and while our facilities have “deteriorated” to the point of being a major problem, it’s not like we don’t see and notice that ourselves -- we are certainly not oblivious to the needs of our building!
 
All of that is immensely encouraging.  Be that as it may, however, several items on this list ought at least to give us pause for reflection:
 
Demographically, how much does our congregation actually look like the neighborhood/s around us?  We sit at the crossroads of Downtown Appleton and Lawrence University; is that what someone would see in our pews if they visit us on a Sunday? 
 
Do we have any “evangelistic emphases,” as Rainer calls them?  Other than broadcasting our Sunday worship online, what are we doing -- actively and energetically -- to proclaim the Gospel and call people to Jesus Christ outside the walls of our little parish?  Given that we’re not merely a social club or even an outreach/assistance organization, but a church, should not evangelism be the primary activity of this parish?  By, like, a large margin?
 
Despite the fact that our business meetings and budget discussions have tended to be respectful and constructive, even when at times they are stressful or even a bit tense, is the focus of those discussions primarily how to spread the Gospel and bring people to baptism, or has it been more along the lines of keeping the lights on, the doors open, the boilers working, and the roof from leaking?  All of those things are of course important, but when it comes to why All Saints Episcopal Church was called into existence by God, do we really believe it was to preserve the physical plant, or do we believe it was to do the work of God’s Kingdom in Appleton & the Fox Valley?
 
Which leads to the question I really want to emphasize today:  Do we have actual clarity (as a whole community) about why we exist as All Saints Episcopal Church?  Do we have and understand clear “marching orders”?  I.e., if a visitor were to ask “What’s the primary mission of your particular parish?” … would we be able to answer that question with a clear and direct sentence?
 
These are the questions I hope we can take up in this coming Fall Program Year.  They are not easy questions to explore by any means, but I absolutely believe we have the resources and faith to engage them, learn from them, and through them, to allow the Spirit to light us on fire, indeed!
 
As always, I welcome your thoughts, reflections, feedback, and comments.  Please let me know what you think.
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+
[email protected]
920.266.9262


[1] Available here:  https://search.worldcat.org/en/title/880741442

[2] This text is taken directly from a blog post by Rainer, which you can access here: https://churchanswers.com/blog/autopsy-of-a-deceased-church-11-things-i-learned/

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