The perplexed man

Before the perplexity of the church in the face of church departures stands the perplexed person. The person who stands perplexed in the church or free church and asks himself, “What am I doing here?”

Before the perplexity of the church stands the perplexed man.

The perplexed person is a mirror for the churches and communities. Perhaps it is the indifferent, for whom faith or church have never meant anything. Perhaps they were born into the church and now realize that this church or free church structure has nothing to do with their own life insights. I can understand that well, if someone then votes honestly for his feelings and leaves. Today, that’s not a problem. You can get out without social ostracism. Many do.

The perplexed person can also be the disappointed one. Disappointment is a process of uncovering all deceptions. The deception is removed. It is recognized that the expectations of the community have not been met or may never be met. Some discover that there is no development in the congregation, that curious, living faith and the desire for open-ended Bible reading, perhaps even conversation about faith, are not wanted or are only allowed to proceed within rigid dogmatic barriers. The church or the free church community becomes an obstacle to a living faith. Can one remain in such rigid communities of faith? Of course not. The exit occurs.

In either case – whether through indifference or recognized rigidity – leaving is a positive and good sign. The perplexed person who exits is no longer perplexed, but decided. Perhaps he does not yet have a solution to the very real questions, but at least he is no longer stuck in an unhealthy structure. Whoever decides in this sense is not a notorious community changer who cannot integrate (yes, there are those too), but a healthy person who does not want to persist in unhealthy situations.

Loss of relevance of the church

The idleness of the church is most noticeable in the national churches. But free churches also know this phenomenon, even when the church hall is filled to the brim on Sunday. In free churches, the idle is rather a flow through. Disappointed people avoid the service and leave the community, but this is not so noticeable because many newcomers make up for the numbers.

In the free churches, the idle is rather a flow through.

The idling of churches and the abandonment of people to organized religion is a feature of our times. Those who speak of loss of relevance are making an observation. Those who try to counteract the loss of relevance remain in the position of the past and try to bend the present to it. This is likely to be a futile endeavor.

The perplexed person who gets out is the most precious gift to the community. Those who drop out, who repent, have firstly recognized something and secondly have the courage to change something about it (see also “Breaking out of rigid belief structures”). For the community, the exit may cause consternation. Idling can cause perplexity. But that would be precisely the point at which to start. This consternation and this perplexity can be perceived as a stimulus. It can mean the basis for self-reflection and renewal: What do these dropouts say about myself, about my church and about my community?

Avoidance strategies and healing approaches

Before reflection, there are often avoidance strategies. One tries to “save what can still be saved”. How one tries to achieve relevance says a lot about the particular beliefs of the community. Relevance is often sought through engagement. Two themes are popular:

1. Popularization, events and activism
2. Social commitment

Popularization is about events, special services, disco in the church and the like. Can this be used to prevent idling or flow through? As long as one tries to create “liveliness” through external measures, it will not work. The church as a meeting place, as a cuddle corner, as a children’s meeting place, as a life community creates points of contact, but these things are not the supporting core. Thinking from the outside in does not work in the long run.

Instead of activism, do you choose social engagement? In fact, there are valuable approaches here that contribute to a vibrant community, such as diaconia, pastoral care, or life support. If a local church community can be something like an anchor in society, people already find their way to the church through it and not infrequently also to a living faith. However, if the goal is for “people to find the church,” then it is clear from this that the institution is the real issue. This expectation must be disappointed sooner or later. Again, do not hitch the horse behind the cart. Faith is not the consequence of diakonia, but only from lived faith can real diakonia arise, which is also recognizable as “Christian”. It is not the diaconia that saves the church, but a community in which people are encouraged to live their faith, this saves the diaconia. It’s the order that matters.

Any community can only be nourished from within.

Any community can only be nourished from within (see “From what community arises”) and can only have an effect from within outward. A church that wants to hang its raison d’être on external things inevitably loses the characteristics of a church as a community of faith and consequently its raison d’être. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but you are no longer a church.

Vessel and contents

The self-evidence of a church presence or the self-evidence of a “Christian” Occident are over. Anyone who tries to counteract the loss of relevance has already lost. You then just try to trick the printed expiration date with a new date sticker. This is labeling fraud. After all, it’s not about relevance. The loss of relevance is an observation, but it is not the real issue. It may sound harsh, but it’s never about the church or the community, nor is it about “how do we get more people to church.”

There is perplexity only from a confusion of vessel and content. The institution or the organization, even the culture just lived or the traditional expression, are never the essence. The community was once created for a reason. It is this reason that is at issue, not the historically evolved entity. Those who only want to save the church or free church want to save the vessel, not the content. However, it is not about the wineskins – it is about the wine that is kept in them (Mt 9:17).

If the Church is a community of faith, that is, if it is nourished from within and has a common core, then it can indeed act outwardly. Relevance arises from the only core from which the Church has ever drawn its strength: the common calling from Christ (see “The True Basis for Communion”).

A time of upheaval

Perplexity is a sign of false focus and misleading expectations. However, observation can lead to self-reflection. This can clear the way for a paradigm shift. What is it really about? What is actually relevant in this world and in relation to the gospel of Jesus Christ? Many people are perplexed by the irrelevance of the church. They are getting out because the old wineskins no longer fit the new wine.

In an interview with Professor Dr. Jürgen Moltmann, the latter says: “Church functions without regional church offices and the many consultants. The bureaucracies hinder and paralyze the work on the ground. Karl Barth also understood it this way. He spoke of Christian and citizen community and not of church and state” (jesus.de, interview of 28.11.2013, here). In another post, which was published on Livenet, he says: “The Protestant church will have to be strongly free-church in the future if it wants to survive. In a multi-religious society, churches can no longer be people’s churches, but will have to stand on their own feet” (Interview Feb. 23, 2018, here). This is where the idea of a “voluntary church” or “member church” emerges, which is born from the grassroots out of the community itself and must take hold in people personally – because they themselves have been taken hold of.

Church as a network?

In the USA, the term “Emerging Church” was coined. Emerging means as much as “to break forth”. It is the new emerging understanding of faith that peels away the old and allows the new to emerge. According to this movement, the Church is no longer hierarchical, but it is constantly reformulated, shaped, thought, because this corresponds to the current time. This also includes the view that previous church forms are outdated like an anachronism and that we should have the courage to think new things.

Church as a network of individual people? That’s kind of how the Emerging Church might work. However, there is no single form of Emerging Church. Not every expression must be considered good and healthy. It is the movement itself, the moving, which is central. Relating to Christ is not dependent on an outer shell, a church or denomination. The life of Christ cannot be squeezed into a system. Likewise, the life of Christ can be lived well outside the traditional churches. If the church has degenerated into an institution, a system, a set of rules – and this applies equally to popular churches and free congregations – then people will drop out and seek a new approach that is coherent for themselves. This is because it corresponds to the present time. It is a value-free statement with no pros or cons to development.

Are we living in a time of upheaval? Undoubtedly. The developments outlined here are already happening. Faced with the idleness of the churches, the perplexity of the churches is real. But the church is never the subject. Equally real is the disappointment many people feel about free churches. There must be another way. The perplexed person may reflect on the essential. Paul suggests such a reflection to the church in Philippi:

“And for this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all sensitivity to it, that you may examine what is essential, that you may be sincere and unoffending in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness which is through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
Phil 1:9-11

Book recommendation

A good introduction to this development is the book “The Cry of the Wild Geese. Setting Out for a Free Life in Christ Beyond Religion and Tradition” by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman (Amazon: here), which outlines many questions and developments that fit the term “Emerging Church” in a fictional story.