"The word 'no' is the way you keep your commitment to the people you have already said 'yes' to."
- Phil Schroeder
Thursday, December 11, 2008
You all probably know the truism: "Methodology changes, but the Message remains the same."
And probably most of us agree with it. In theory, anyway.
But what about in practice?
I'm fascinated with the (relatively) recent changes of methodology in the American Church. I serve as a (relatively) young pastor in a church where the average age is almost twice mine. I have seen how changing methodology affects people...personally.
What's fascinating to me is those things which seem so traditional now, were radical a mere one to two generations ago and unheard of 3 generations ago.
What it makes me think is that "there but for the grace of God, go I" in the sense that I could become one of those old fuddie-duddies who says, "No, junior. Don't change that. We've ALWAYS done it that way."
God, please prevent me from being that way. But at the same time, God, please help me to be respectful of people whose traditions, are for them, sacred.
Here's a brief list of things which seem to be on the way out now, that used to be standard 20-50-100 years ago.
Children's Sermons
Church bus/van ministries for Kids
Hymnals
20 year old Youth Ministers
Choirs
Sunday School
Sunday Night Services
Altar Call
Passing the Offering Plate
Here's what I think is really interesting. All of the above were introduced as new within the last 100 years,(and some were even protested and caused church splits) and then quickly became part of the establishment.
And then when today's generation 3came along and started to eliminate them, people who grew up with those things protested their elimination, even though each of those things only were around for a generation or two anyway, and probably missing the irony that their own parents and grandparents had protested their introduction.
To put it another way: Generation 1 (Turn of the 20th century churchgoers - Civil War and WWI generation) struggled with the new generations changes. And churches split over it. And pastors were fired. And there was much controversy. They struggled with new things such as: dancing, women cutting their hair, and wearing makeup, Sunday School, choirs, pianos, hymnals and new songs (as opposed to singing the Psalms), Altar Calls, people dancing and playing cards, people not coming to Saturday Church Conference once a month. People are heavily influenced by Billy Sunday.
Then Generation 2 churchgoers grew up with that stuff.(WW2 Generation and early boomers) Choir, Sunday School, hymnals, pianos, women wearing makeup, Sunday Night Services, Revival-style services. Then when they become the grown-ups, it's the 1950's-1970's. and they have to deal with hippies with long hair. They struggle to reach the new generation. Occasional guitars and folk songs are introduced. Bus ministries start. Youth ministries start. There is a continuing emphasis on evangelistic events, and people are heavily influenced by Billy Graham.
Then Generation 3 comes along. (Late Baby boomers and Baby Busters/Gen X) It's the 90's through the present. They begin eliminating hymnals, pianos, Sunday Night Services, Revivals, altar calls. People are heavily influenced by Bill Hybels and Rick Warren and wow, even those guys are passe now... The changes are happening faster and faster...
And Generation 2 begins the same battles their parents fought 50 years earlier. Only rather than fighting the introduction of things like Sunday School and hymnals, now they are fighting the elimination of those same things, because to them "that's church", and getting rid of those things is like an assault on the Lord.
(Case in point: It cracks me up how many people view Gaither songs in the hymnal as "traditional" now when their own parents and grandparents would have hated that stuff as worldly.)
Now we're Generation 3. What traditions that we are just now starting as "new" will we be fighting our own grandchildren to preserve 50 years from now. Blogs? Screens? Coffee Shops? What will the generation that follows us try to change that will freak us out?
This topic fascinates me. What say you? Is my evaluation accurate? How's my history? Do I need any correcting or tweaking? Did you learn anything from this? Is there anything you want more info on? Have you ever thought about this before? Am I on to something, or am I just nuts?
Please give me feedback! I really want it. This is an important post and subject to me. Any additions or changes to my lists or history is welcome. Personal stories are also welcome.
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Comments on "Changing With The Times...":
2. Quaid
- 12/11/2008 11:49 am CST
Super-Interesting post, imho.
Taking your list one by one:
Children's Sermons - I haven't heard one in years
Church bus/van ministries for Kids - I didn't even know this existed until a few years ago
Hymnals - I miss them, personally, but, yes, these are on their way out, too
20 year old Youth Ministers - only in more established churches. I still think that small-town church or smaller city church is happy to hire a younger part-timer who is willing to give whatever they can to the kids
Choirs - This seems to me a more recent thing on its way out, but it does seem to be slip-slidin' away
Sunday School - I think that Sunday School as we know it is on its way out, but is being altered and changed so that one might still be able to call it Sunday School - it just won't look the same as it used to. I think it will actually make a comeback down the road, but not necessarily in the same format
Sunday Night Services - Except for the gen-y church whose only service is that nighttime service in the rented out, stained-glass, inner-city Episcopal Church
Altar Call - This might be a denominational thing - it's hard for me to say whether or not I agree
Passing the Offering Plate - I think this might stay for a while. Even gargantuan Lakewood still passes the plates.
Other possibilities on their way out:
Suit and Tie in the Pulpit
The Pulpit
4:3 Projection Screens
Summer Youth Camp
Things on their way in:
Small groups with an explicit missional focus
The ESV
Ad Fontes The Sequel (In response to the latest po-mo "Renaissance" Christians will begin to re-focus on their own Biblical Illiteracy)
Some of my things are more personal hopes than a notice in actual trends. For example, I fear for the United States Church in, at least, one regard. In giving up Sunday School, if someone doesn't do something to inculcate Scripture into the mental lives of our parishioners, we're setting ourselves up for disaster. (I don't think I'm being dramatic)
3. Bob Sacamento
- 12/11/2008 1:50 pm CST
I would take issue with some of your history.
Hymnals have been around for way longer than 100 years. I'm sure that a hundred years ago there were some churches that just couldn't afford more than one for the minister and one for the piano player. But that's a different story.
Are choirs really that new? My completely conservative, non-revolutionary grandfather was choir directory at his very small, very back woods, completely non-cutting-edge church years before the Great Depression hit. Alot of people remember him findly. No one remembers him as an innovator.
And the singing of new songs as opposed to psalms? The Methodists had that sorted out even before the American Revolution occurred. There were all kinds of churches singing those camp meeting hymns by the middle of the 19th century. My grandparents -- born in the late 19th cent. -- never sang Psalms in church at all.
Women cutting their hair and wearing makeup was never a problem in most denominations. (Unless you mean wearing it in church, which may have been a problem, I guess. Cutting hair short was a new issue, however. And alot of churches had to deal with that in the twenties. I'll give you that much.)
Sunday School? Started by the Methodists in the 1700s. There may have been some conflict but I think most churches had made their peace with it long before the 1900s came around. Dwight L. Moody was led to Christ by a Sunday School teacher.
Much -- not all, but much -- of what Gen 2 is defending is well over a century old. Which, of course, doesn't make them right. (They are right for other reasons I don't have time to get into now. :) )
4. Philip Schroeder
- 12/11/2008 2:47 pm CST
Thanks Bob! :)
Now I'm gonna have to go do actual research. Arrrgh. 
I won't have time today, but I'll go check some dates later.
Preliminarily, I looked up Sunday School. It was invented in 1790, but was different in mode and purpose than what we saw in the 20th century. I'll have to go do some more research. (I really did think it was newer.) But I do remember that Sunday School initially met with some resistance.
5. Pigwotflies
- 12/11/2008 3:54 pm CST
I'm reminded of Thomas Hardy's Under The Greenwood Tree, in which the church band of musicians are put out by the coming of the new-fangled organ. There are always new ideas and always people who don't want to see change. Still, change for the sake of it isn't that great.
Sunday school to me (I'm British) means what the kids do when they leave the main sunday morning service to go off to their own groups. More often called 'children's work' or 'kid's work' these days. It's evolved from way back when it was literally school on Sunday - as much about literacy as about Jesus, in a time when there was no free education and children worked, so that Sunday was the only chance they (and working adults too, I think) had to learn. Sunday schools were quite politicised, and there were secular as well as religious sunday schools. None of which is at all relevant to the topic of generational change, but an interesting historical footnote.
6. Bob Sacamento
- 12/11/2008 3:57 pm CST
What traditions that we are just now starting as "new" will we be fighting our own grandchildren to preserve 50 years from now?
It's my opinion that what we have now won't even last 50 years. Why? I won't pretend that church has never changed to accomodate "contemporary culture." Heck, I know it was happening in the Middle Ages and probably at least as far back as Constantine. So don't anyone throw any examples of previous accomodation at me. But I do think that a true sea change came along with the mindset behind the seeker sensitive church. There was a fundamental shift in American Protestantism/Evangelicalism/whatever that began in the late sixties and completed itself in the nineties. The new thinking was threefold:
1) It's not enough to update for a changing culture every once in a while. The church should be doing it all the time. The church should never "fall behind" culture.
2) We shouldn't be updating just our evangelism or just our children's programs or whatever, but every single aspect of our church -- the way we worship, the way we fellowship, the way we design our buildings, what the preacher wears, who does the singing up front, and on and on and on.
3) Updating in a way to make "seekers" more comfortable and relaxed is every bit as important and, heck, maybe even moreso, than updating in order to communicate the gospel to them more clearly. We'll make them comfortable first. Once we've taken care of that, then we'll start worrying about making sure they understand the gospel.
This is the attitude I see behind the original seeker sensitive churches, and behind the new emerging churches that might be displacing them. If I am right about all this, church for the foreseeable future will be change upon change with no time for anything to become a truly established tradition. If I am right, the things we will be fighting about 50 years from now haven't even been invented yet.
And if anyone cares to hear me pontificate some more, I fear that alot of seeker sensitive and energing churches are painting themselves into a corner because, in order to keep up with the times, they are making huge financial investments in jumbotrons, state of the art sound systems and lighting systems, and so forth. And some day, they might find themselves having to walk away from these things, and not having the resources left to take the next steps they feel they have to take.
Dang, that was long. Sorry. I have a couple of hot buttons and this is one of them. Done now.
7. BlueNight
- 12/11/2008 7:03 pm CST
My pastor talks about the church website in exactly that terminology: "the website." He's okay with forums, a blog or two, and a sermon library... later. Right now, it HAS to be "directions on how to get here, and service times."
This is new wine indeed. Yet if we don't learn how to reach my fellow gamers, sci-fi fans, and furries now, we never will.
8. Sharpton
- 12/11/2008 9:09 pm CST
For kicks, I'll go through the list, and add Quaid's items.
-Children's Sermons: Hm. Nope, not except the kid's Christmas program.
-Church bus/van ministries for Kids: Not that I know of
-Hymnals: Nope
-20 year old Youth Ministers: I'm not quite sure where you're going with this; if you mean, literally a college-age person as youth pastor, then no; if you mean someone still "fairly young" (like, not 50 or whatever), then yes
Choirs
-Sunday School: Well, we call them "Adult Bible Fellowship", but pretty much, yeah, still have it
-Sunday Night Services: Still have them
-Altar Call: depends on the service, but still have them
-Passing the Offering Plate: does it have to be a plate? or can it be a bag?
-Suit and Tie in the Pulpit: nope. not that I, personally, have a problem with it. :D
-The Pulpit: have one, albeit a clear one, rather than a bit wooden one
-4:3 Projection Screens: um...can you elaborate?
-Summer Youth Camp: at the church itself? no. the youth going to a summer camp? yes.
9. Tom
- 12/11/2008 9:51 pm CST
Just about all of this stuff has little to do with the gospel or the design Jesus had for His church. The attractional or seeker-sensitive model of 'doing' church has done much harm. Jesus said they would know us by our love for one another. The design was not for people to be drawn to Him by the building on the corner and its accoutrements. Let the goats fight about that stuff - I want to be found faithful when He returns.
10. Nightturkey
- 12/15/2008 4:17 am CST
If the Church is trying to keep up with changing society (and please pardon me if I sound a bit stuffy and fuddy-duddyish), shouldn't we take note of which direction society is going and ask if we really should be going that way? I'm not trying to argue against technology in church, or bemoaning the passing of hymnals (which, by the bye, have been around for quite some time - one of the first books printed in the USA, even before it WAS the USA, was the "Bay Psalm Book"), but I can't help but wonder if there's not a certain bass-ackwardness to the idea of the church FOLLOWING society instead of LEADING it... If I got started on the subject of church music this would quickly become a rant, but I thought just two quick examples might be interesting: (1) While the composer of the now-traditional song "He's Everything to Me" was working on it, his daughter came into the room with a shocked expression on her face and said, "Daddy! You're playing Rock and Roll???!!!???" (2) The even-more-traditional song "The Old Rugged Cross" was at first the subject of much controversy (and church splits) because there were many who considered it idolatry to sing about a piece of wood and not directly about God...
11. Gretchen
- 12/16/2008 4:04 pm CST
Back when I was teaching Sunday School (children and adults, different classes), one thing I liked to do periodically was to pass out the current bulletin/program, and get everyone involved in going thru it, item by item, to analyze whether the subject/event mentioned was something from scripture, or a church tradition. Hmm, our church feels it's important to announce a baby shower, an upcoming potluck fellowship, prayer needs, the hymns to be sung during service, a van one of our deacons has for sale. What's the scriptural basis, and if there's not, does that mean it's wrong? The whole point was to distinguish God's commands from man's traditions, and recognize that man's traditions aren't necessarily wrong, but not to confuse one with the other. I hope some of it stuck, as the years go by and those people get drawn into what's right and wrong in their church.
12. Nightturkey
- 12/16/2008 7:03 pm CST
Gretchen, it sounds like your church bulletin has a lot to do with your church as a fellowship, as a community. The Bible calls that "koinonia", and so even the sale of a deacon's van (while perhaps not SPECIFICALLY covered in the Book of Acts, tee-hee) could be considered as having a Scriptural basis. You hit the nail on the head when you brought up the importance of being able to distinguish command from tradition. so long as we can keep each in its proper place, I think we'll be safe.
14. GodtheKing
- 12/23/2008 3:03 pm CST
Sunday school was introduced to the church by a mathmetician by the name of Hypatia. She was George Washington's niece. She was an African Queen that was murdered by the Romans because she was so intelligent. Yes, Washington was a Black man! He had a -mulatto (Black) mother and white father, just like Obama had. This history is not taught in his story books because whites don't want this truth out in the open. By the way, the first pope was an Afrikan.
16. Nightturkey
- 12/24/2008 1:58 pm CST
Hypatia, the first known woman mathematician, daughter of Theon, who was also a mathematician and a mathematical historian, died in 415 A.D. without ever having converted to the Christian religion. This would shed serious doubt on whether she ever taught Sunday School in the USA, as well as her uncle's being named Washington.
Leave a Comment:
When I was on our church council, I supported the pastor in adding "praise songs" to the service. I was strongly influenced by my experience as a teenager, dealing with older people (and a particular pastor) who seemed determined to drive the youth out of the church.
Now that we've had the praise songs for a while, I'm frankly sick of them. I don't dislike them because they're new, but I do dislike them because they're shoddy, repetitive and boring. So I have more sympathy for the old people of my youth, though I think it's a somewhat different battle.
For whatever it's worth.