Loss of relevance of the church

The Corona Lockdown showed it: People survive even without going to church. Who is surprised? Perhaps someone will interject that a worship service is not the same as fellowship. That’s true, of course. Only one should consider that this perception is missing with many believers and in the society even more. Why else would there be so many people leaving the church and turning away from the free church communities? You can’t dodge the question. You have to follow up.

Corona has demonstrated that you can survive without worship. Hasn’t worship (become) the center of the church experience? In many communities, worship and congregational life are as if interchangeable. Everything else seems to be just a garnish. Belonging and activity are most evident in church attendance. It is no different with free churches. Central are worship, praise, the event on the stage. All of that fell away at once with the lockdown. And – hand on heart – how many people really missed it? May I ask the question provocatively?

People survive even without going to church. Who is surprised?

I know people who say they don’t come so much for the sermon as for the church coffee. That is where the heart of the community beats, not in the passive listening to a sermon. People want to meet. They have a desire to be involved, to be heard, to participate. Some come for the music. Corona has put a temporary crimp in all these social components. What have we really missed in our times of worship abstinence? Is it the worship service, the social contact, the sermon? On a scale of 1 to 10, how high would you rank each of these things for yourself? Only with honest answers can we move forward in a targeted manner.

Some churches could not stop holding services late enough in the crisis and some could not start again soon enough. Everyone is trying to return to the old state as soon as possible. This secures – I provoke with the aim of clear contours, what to talk about – the status quo, wages, institutions. But does it also ensure that people’s needs are met? Is it really best to get back to routine quickly? Or is the current challenge just a God-given opportunity to reflect on a possible new state of affairs? In the context of this reflection, the focus is on aspects of faith and on the question of how much institution man can tolerate and actually needs? And what he might be looking for most in their place.

What is the source of relevance? What are the right questions here?

Can you do better?

Are churches and free churches realizing that they have missed the boat? Or do you just think you’re doing it better than the others? It makes me think when I hear pastors, in view of the idling of the churches, only say: After me the deluge! Here is the challenge: there are people who really like to belong to a community but don’t see institutionalized communities and old customs as the answer.

The other day, I again experienced firsthand that some people specifically ask for Bible study and fellowship. In the same breath, however, they mentioned that they want nothing to do with national churches and free churches. They want what churches once stood for, but often no longer offer. They turn away, which I can understand. This is an opportunity. It’s about authenticity and confidence.

Here is the real question, completely detached from our affiliation: can we live the freedom to put the person and not the institution (or: our traditions, doctrine or hobby horses) at the center – as Jesus did – or even to renounce the institution if that is necessary? Just so that we as Christians can live out and share God’s love in a concrete way?

Identify the essential issues

The topic of “relevance of the church” is typically one that is discussed within the church. Then we look inward and into the past. It’s navel-gazing. The topic of “relevance of the church” is therefore irrelevant. The issue should be taken off the table. It was never about the church, that is, it was never about the organization or institution. It was always about people who simply want to know and experience God’s grace and love. With a biblical example: Today there is much new wine that needs new wineskins (Mt 9:17).

It was never about the church, that is, it was never about the organization or institution.

While there are many individual people in the church and in the free communities who agree with this and also put it into practice, the institutions as a whole are stumbling over their own structures. The energy to maintain old structures completely misses the need of the time. Entire generations have left and do not know where to seriously exchange ideas about God and the world. I remember a church where the youth worker was fired despite doing a good job because there was no money. The following year, the church building was renovated at a cost of 11 million francs. What kind of a church is this that allows itself to do such things? No one asked about the young people anymore. Poverty testimonies look like this.

In this paper, I do not consider the individual who works and does good from within the vessel of the church. There are many like that. But there are others and others. It is about the irrelevance of the vessel, not about the people doing good in it. The frustration with the old structures is very great among many people. Therefore, it can be liberating to take apart these linkages of church, society, community, truth, and authority and take a stand. Fortunately, there are many such site assessments, both within the institutions and outside them. Let them all be recognized here in their own way.

It’s about a change of perspective in today’s world.

I am especially concerned with people who leave, who step away, who are damaged, disappointed, searching, often alone, without an alternative. In particular, I know people from free evangelical circles. This group is now really big. Free churches are often perceived as too “narrow,” the teachings as “not reflective,” and the community not infrequently as “manipulative.” People justifiably shy away from this. If at an annual meeting the income is disclosed and it is told that much has been achieved, namely that so-and-so-many people “came to faith”, then for me the calculation looks very simple: 1 convert = CHF 50,000. Were the wrong things inadvertently linked to this, or are these things called together because the institution’s raison d’être can be inferred from them? If there is no more money, will there be no more people who turn to faith? Why is it actually going on here?

In national churches I am dismayed to hear how some only ask “how to bring more people back into the church” and in free churches they warn against those “who move from congregation to congregation and have nowhere to commit themselves”. In my opinion, both place the focus in the wrong place. Those who think about how to bring more people to church have already lost. But the second view does not help either. If you look only inward, you will not be able to perceive the outside world. Both attitudes are an expression of spiritual disorientation and helplessness.

Only when relevance is again linked to the real questions of people and to God’s joyful answers to them, can clarity and a future emerge. It’s about a change of perspective in today’s world. Those who think from the institution or complain about the institution (and this applies equally to national churches and free churches) remain mentally bound up in the system. This is not very helpful.

Sobriety requires recognition that institutionalized churches no longer resonate with many people. They are outside the institutions or are in the process of breaking out. They consider how to continue, how to live faith, how to form community and with whom to share faith. These are the essential questions. Anyone who says such things wants to be taken seriously. They should be heard and no cheap, non-functional evasive answers should be given.

Life without worship or church

Now, if a pandemic and subsequent lockdown establishes that one can live reasonably well without worship, the question arises as to why one still remains part of a church or free church? If Sunday worship is the crux of the matter, it was shut down without much fuss during the lockdown. The experience with the pandemic and the traditional narrowing to Sunday church services exacerbate this impression of irrelevance. Thus, the system is tottering. Naturally, the company wants to return to the old structure as quickly as possible, as this will safeguard the current course of business. Is that too harsh a wording? Then show by the goals and actions that it is different. But maybe people think that the world will always go on as it did before the lockdown and that it was just a matter of fixing a short-term glitch. Or would that just be wishful thinking? Looking at these things with some distance, the question arises, why not learn something from the pandemic?

Here are a few questions:

• How important is the sermon and the service and for whom? Is this how we serve God?
• Isn’t worship what takes place during the week? God is not religious. Do we have to be?
• Can what is important in a sermon be shared in a different way? Community as a pioneering project.
• What is the most important thing about meeting on Sunday? Rethinking is no walk in the park.
• Why did Jesus and the apostles not celebrate worship services in today’s sense? What are apostles?
• If processes could change in the past, can they change today?
• What are the real needs of worshipers? The true foundation for community.
• Does our comfortable focus on one worship service make us forget many other people?
• (… Here are your questions…)

The goal of such questions is to become aware of the important things and one’s own concerns. This allows it to be exchanged more concretely.

Life is bad without a community

The Lockdown demonstrated it: A lot can be done without a church service. Even online church services do not hide this fact. The previous focus on Sunday meetings as the “center of fellowship” have exposed their weaknesses. A lot of it is just a subculture. It covers the essentials like a skin, but cannot be confused with them. It certainly had justification once, but when times change, how may this skin be seen? How to customize? Do we shed old ideas like an old skin? What skin appears underneath? That would be the interesting question for today. Because without community, life as a human being is often miserable. Church and community are not synonyms. What community is and how the body of Christ, the worldwide universal church, manifests itself where I live is a question worth pondering. The institutional churches and free churches are not the only ones with a right to exist. At best, they are only part of the possible variety. The important questions get under our skin. There we meet, we encounter each other.

A worship service, as we know them today in churches and free churches, was completely foreign to the apostles. The Twelve built on Jewish customs, while Paul probably improvised a great deal. But what was the core issue at stake? At that time, a community succeeded entirely without PowerPoint, church organ and worship. That may be difficult to imagine today.

This pandemic that we have experienced in recent months has called into question many of the things we take for granted. This is also an opportunity. The point is not to return to the old traditions as quickly as possible, but perhaps rather to figure out what we really need – so that we can better identify priorities and place more value on a vibrant community than on cultivating concepts that have been proven not to work.

But if worship as the self-evident core of congregational life is eliminated, what could take place? Why does it actually work? Is it about events? Is it about “offering something”? Or are these just externalities that distract from the essentials?

Lived community and lived faith

How much church does man need? Well, if I mean the institution here, then really very little. However, when I see the community, it is different from the institution. Let us have the courage to question what has gone before, not because it was once relevant, but because it takes courage to find new ways where it is now necessary.

Who questions the institution or previous, leaves thereby further not a lived faith. On the contrary, it can be the only way not to lose faith altogether. What is sought is truthfulness, authenticity, and people who understand their faith as a gift, who live out trust in God in everyday life, and who know themselves to be reconciled with God through Christ. When such people come together, lived community can emerge in the light of God’s grace. This can happen in any place – within traditional churches and free churches, as well as outside.