Anxiety and the future of the church?

 

I just read a social media post from a retired church leader, asking for forgiveness from God for the decline in numbers of their church during their time as a leader.  This leader appeared wracked by the anxiety about their failure. In Scotland (and most European and some US 'mainline' churches) there is, indeed, a story of decline in those who belong to these Christian denominations.  The pandemic was a shock to Scotland - zero 'in-person' attendance mandated by law - but the reality in most denominations is decline.

The Scottish Episcopal Church overall is declining, and has been for many years.  The numbers dying, or drifting away are not being replaced by new people walking through the doors, either connected to existing members or 'converts' from either other denominations or from a position of no faith.  A great deal of anxious discussion takes place (like the social media post described above) about 'what are we doing wrong?'.  The comments on the post rapidly arrived at 'the conservative evangelical churches are growing: we need to learn something from/become more like them.'  Which is an entirely reasonable position to take!

There are individual Scottish Episcopal churches that are showing growth (setting aside the pandemic shock): some are the larger city centre churches, maybe evangelical and more conservative, maybe catholic and more progressive. And some are smaller church communities in more 'ordinary' settings, without students and young city dwellers.  Analysing that is the subject matter for various boards and committees of the church (maybe a blog post about that another day).

But my post today is about anxiety.  There is great anxiety about decline.  What happens when we cannot pay for our priest? Who will do the work that is needed to keep the show on the road? Why isn't the institution paying more attention to the crisis? And so on.  The clergy in the charges may also be anxious - if their church is declining, have they failed? Is their vocation not valid in some way, if things are seeping away?  Will they lose their job if the people (and so the money) runs out?

I am a passionate proponent of 'transitional ministry' in the church - asking church leaders to intentionally work with congregations to help them navigate and adjust to change.  Those church leaders will usually be on a fixed term appointment, with specific training and support to help them work with a congregation.  There will be (hopefully) work done with the local church leaders to understand this as a process of 'navigating change'.  There is a great deal to this approach: but it is not a 'quick fix' for the problems/issues that face the church. But a vital and key element of transitional ministry is that the priest (usually) doing this work does something about their own anxiety.

Phrases like 'being a non-anxious presence' abound in transitional ministry books (of which there are many!).  Change is a painful process, whether intentional or just 'happening'. And conflicts and difficult behaviour can appear in painful processes.  A priest who isn't anxious about that: who is self-aware enough to be curious as to why this is happening rather than defensively 'stopping' this failure - is key. You cannot change the way a congregation will react to change: but you can work to control how you, as church leader, react to the problems and issues. Learn to remain calm and non-anxious.  Have the support and external help to keep in that 'non-anxious' place. 

I observe that the churches that are growing have confident, apparently non-anxious leadership.  Conservative churches in the US are almost a caricature of confidence. More nuanced 'big' churches can face their trials and anxiety in healthy ways: it does not handicap their leaders.

So: is that THE answer for church decline? Don't be anxious? Of course, there is so much more. But a good starting point, for me, is to help leaders of churches to navigate the messy business of mission and ministry in a self-aware, supported and non-anxious way.  Then? Well, let's see what God might have for us to join in with...