A few weeks ago in many Anglican churches across the world it was officially “Back to church Sunday”. There were media advertising campaigns inviting people to come back to church. Sydney Anglican churches didn’t participate, possibly because we were already tied up with the Jesus All About Life campaign.
I admit that, initially, “Back to Church Sunday” sounded like a good idea to me. However, an article that I came across in an English newspaper has changed my mind. The article is titled “Wishy-washy pleas will not get us back into church”. In it, the writer Gill Hornby puzzles over the defeatist attitude that he sees in the mainstream churches. He writes:
Tomorrow is Back to Church Sunday for the Church of England – a public relations push to get the lapsed back in the pew. It has been marked by a radio ad campaign, which shows how hip and happening the Anglican Church is now – “No need to make no innovation, Please accept this as your invitation.” Well, that will get all those young folk in, for sure.
Weekly attendance figures have now dropped to below one million [in England] and, according to the Bishop of Reading, it’s quite the wrong sort of million turning up. “How did it come to this,” he asked, in what was apparently supposed to be a positive contribution to the attendance debate, “that we have become known as just the Marks and Spencer option [i.e. old, conservative white people]?” Jesus, the Bishop feels sure, was more of an Aldi man.
…here’s the Bishop of Reading wanting to broaden his religious base, and going about it like Gerald Ratner: talking the product down. Have you ever heard a pope say: “The trouble with Catholicism is…”, or a mullah put forward the argument: “Here’s what’s wrong with Islam…”? No. And funnily enough, for them, business is booming.
Hornby has a point. People can see straight through any attempt to make church sound hip, and begging people to come back to church sounds pretty desperate, especially when accompanied by bishops wringing their hands and lamenting the decline of the church. Will people be attracted to a church that exudes the message “Woe is us – please come because we’re desperate”?
Hornby is also right in noticing a complete lack of confidence in the Anglican leadership regarding the Christian faith in general. They don’t stand for anything, so they apologise for everything, unlike other faiths which seem willing to stand behind their message! The world wants to know: Do Christians believe their gospel or not?
Surely the way to get people back into church is by proclaiming the gospel, not apologising for it, and praying that God does his sovereign work of calling people from darkness to light. There’s nothing wrong with making ourselves and our message as accessible as possible to the average Aussie, but bending over backwards to impress people (or begging them to prop up our institution) shows a pathetic lack of faith.
What reason do we have to be desperate? If we believe that God rules and our gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe then surely we ought to be supremely confident to speak to people about Jesus and invite them to church knowing the God’s will is being done, rather than wringing our hands and obsessively counting heads in church.
Steve
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