The First Question

In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, "God will not seek it out,"

All their thoughts are, "There is no God."

Their ways prosper at all times;

your judgments are on high, out of their sight;

As for their foes, they scoff at them.

They think in their heart, "We shall not be moved;

throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity."

-Psalm 10: 4-6 (NRSV)

The polls and surveys have been telling us for a while that the church is in decline.  We feel it in our bones as well, budgets are lean, resources are tight, new faces are few and far between. The "rise of the nones," the testimonies of people who consider themselves refugees from a church that has wounded and abused them far too often, the grasping of certain arms of the church at political power and wealth, these are dire symptoms indeed. As a person who has hitched their wagon to the institution of the church, I am often challenged by the Psalms.  I am challenged because, as much as I would like to always put myself in the shoes of the righteous who are crying out to God on account of the way that the "wicked" seem to neglect or ignore the reality of God's claim on our lives.  I find myself asking God the questions that the Psalmist asked, "why are you taking so long to do something about this?" "Are you listening at all to our prayers?"

I suppose I am particularly inclined to these sorts of questions by natural disposition towards melancholy and cynicism, and also by the reality of the churches I have served.  This year I am teaching the first honest to goodness confirmation class that hasn't been a team effort between multiple churches.  In our tradition "confirmation" is the process by which, somewhere around 12-14 year old kids come to join the church.  We call it confirmation because they are "confirming" the baptismal vows that their parents made on their behalf when they were baptized as infants (in the case of those who were not baptized as infants they affirm their faith and are baptized as part of this process).  It could, and should be a moment of formation where the faith of a child that has been taught the stories of the Bible undergoes a rite of passage into something more grown-up.

For most of my years of ministry there simply have not been enough young folks to really do this as thoroughly as I would have liked.  In Pennsylvania, where Presbyterians are dense, we had a cooperative confirmation class between 5-7 churches and from that collection of small congregations we usually had about 6 or 7 kids in a given year.  Since moving down to Southern Maryland I don't have that option anymore, so it was confirmation with one or two kids at a time.  It was trying to work around busy schedules, it was trying to be convenient, it was trying to be easy, and I am afraid it really wasn't very much fun for anyone.  It was a microcosm of why the church is losing people from generation to generation, it was a failure of what has traditionally been called catechesis (from the Greek for teaching).  And it was mostly my fault, I felt bad about not being able to give those kids a cohort of fellow confirmands to stand with and join the Body of Christ, I tried to fold them in with adults who were joining the church, just to give them the sense that it wasn't just them sitting through a lecture by the Preacher because their mom wanted them to join the church.

I wanted it to be a community thing, I hoped that they would, at least, feel a little more comfortable and connected to me as the Pastor, and that they would get to know one or two ruling Elders as well, but it was just not possible to really give them much more than just a description of what this thing called church is supposed to be. I did not feel really good about it, but it seemed like a necessity.  Since the last one of those, I have waited two years, I have put off confirmation for my son for a year, I have tried to gather an actual group, and by hook and by crook, we started our class with eight junior/senior high students last night.

The difference was marked. Of the eight kids there are some who are quiet and some who have a lot to say, there are some who are well Sunday Schooled and some who are not, but the differences and diversity of the group means that it's not just me giving a lecture.  It's not that I am a more brilliant teacher with this group, I'm pretty much the same guy.  This is an illustration of a lot of what is going wrong for the church in our world.  We act out of necessity and need rather than taking the time to be patient and meeting people where they are.  Week one has already convinced me that trying to confirm a single youth or a pair of youth just because they happen to be in 7th grade is futile, it is not good pastoral work.  I need to know my flock better, I need to make sure that the kids being confirmed aren't just things to check off on a list, they need to be welcomed into the community of faith, by being part of a community of faith.  For kids that age, it means more than just two or three.

I think that too often we feel pressed and put upon to try and make this thing called church into something it is not.  We try to mash together the models of business, civic organizations, and entertainment.  For kids, it's like we're trying to be school, cub scouts, band, soccer and social clubs all in one and it can get confusing.  God's "judgments are on high" out of our sight. It should not be that way.

The way we are going through confirmation this year is based on questions: Why do we believe in God? Who is Jesus? How does the Spirit work? Why do I need/want to be a part of a church? What does it mean to be Presbyterian?  The questions build on one another and it is my hope to avoid simply regurgitating answers.  I am their teacher, but in some ways I am also learning with them. I feel like, if I can learn with them why they would want to be a part of a church, maybe I will be able to share that learning with some grown-ups who might wonder the same thing. I wonder if maybe what we need, in an age where the demand for certainty has led us to the brink of ruin, isn't to learn to ask questions again.  Maybe, "because we've always done it that way," is not really a very good answer.  Maybe it's not even fair to the rich tradition that it usually claims to defend.

The data and the lived experience of a lot of churches bears out the reality that we should not just continue doing the same things that are failing and/or hurtful over and over again.  We need to get ourselves a new heart and stop standing in the place of the wicked where we think our ways are higher than God's way.