At the time, it seemed like my worst nightmare. I was newly ordained, called to a very rural two-point parish where the average age of the congregation was 65 or older. Cows and cornfields dotted the countryside and fueled the local economy. This was one of those places where the same names kept appearing on the mailboxes as you drove our narrow highway. Everyone was related in some way.
Families toiled side-by-side for generations, working the land, creating a community. But it was a way of life that was slowly dying, and with it my parish. This congregation was in decline longer than I had been alive. I was called to palliative care, and that seemed to be a waste of my gifts and energy. I should be a church planter, I thought. I shouldn’t be stuck way out here in the boondocks. I was probably going to be their last pastor. I would be remembered as the kid who closed one of the oldest congregations in our denomination.
I put on a brave face. “Whereever God calls me to serve, I’ll serve with joy,” I told my bishop, only half-believing the words myself.
Like most mainline churches, this one struggled with the question, “How do we get the young people involved?”
They called a young pastor (I was 29 at the time), not only because that was what they could afford, but also because they wanted to reach out to the younger generations. So I settled into my first call, the lone shaved head lost in a sea of white hair.
My congregation envied the nearby Christian Reformed Church for their new building, their large attendance figures, and their well-populated youth group. “What are they doing that we aren’t?” we asked ourselves. “Maybe we can duplicate their program.”
I met the Christian Reformed pastor at the coffee shop to pick his brain. “How do you draw so many people?” I asked him.
“Easy,” he replied, “We’re Dutch. Ours is the only ethnic congregation in the area. People drive an hour and a half to come to church. And they have big families with lots of kids to help out on the farm. Lots of large families equal a large church. But don’t be fooled. We have numbers, but this church is more proud of being Dutch than being Christian. Be careful not to equate numbers with faithfulness.”
Wise counsel. Abraham and Sarah not withstanding, our congregation was too chronologically challenged to engage in reproduction evangelism.
Back to square one.
The congregation president called a special meeting to devise a strategy to bring young people to faith and become active members of the church. We began by asking, “Where are all the youth in our community?” Given that the village numbered only 350, we could quickly name all the people in the township, along with church affiliation and family history, back to the time the area was settled.
We had an epiphany and a problem.
The epiphany: all the young people were spoken for. Between the three churches in our little village, all the young people were members of one congregation or another.
The problem: a dwindling population. The connection between the depressed economy and the drop in young people became obvious. When the youth went away to university, they never came back because there were no jobs for them in the village. Their parents sold their farms to the big dairy producers and retired in Florida. The decline in population was equal to that of the drop in church attendance. Go figure.
The reason the Christian Reformed church grew was because there are more Dutch people in the village than not. They didn’t sell their farms to the big dairy producers so there were more farms and more Dutch families.
So what were we to do? Buy back the farms? Coax the younger generations who moved away to greener economic pastures to re-embrace an agricultural vocation?
The answers were obvious. There was no going back. Our meeting ended.
Two important questions
We began to pray for God’s guidance and to look at other options. We asked ourselves a few more questions. “Who actually lives in the village?”“What about that new retirement villa that opened a couple years back?” remarked Bill. “There are many older folks who may need a church home.”
“But that doesn’t solve our problem with the youth.” Mary pointed out. “If we reach out to the seniors, how will we replace them when they are gone? We need young blood.”
“Do we?” George said with a twinkle in his eye. “The retirement villa has a waiting list a mile long. When our beloved members pass on to be with the Lord, there is always someone to replace them. This village is a wonderful place to retire. It’s quiet. It’s clean. And there are many people their own age.”
If seniors are a renewable resource, maybe they were the future for our church. The council hammered out a strategy to reach the seniors in our community. “How can they best hear the gospel?” we asked.
We dusted off the hymnbooks and changed the worship style from contemporary to traditional. No newfangled postmodern worship here. We pulled out standard hymns and mixed in old-time gospel favorites. We began with A Mighty Fortress and closed with The Old Rugged Cross. The old folks loved it!
Traditional does not have to mean boring. The older crowd, rocking the sanctuary with a good old-fashioned hymn, could rival any youth rally. Word got out about this congregation that worshiped “old-school.”
Interestingly enough, we began to attract baby boomers who wanted to “come home.” Some families started driving an hour and a half to worship with us. Within a year, our 30-year decline was reversed, and we’d grown by 18 percent.
But more important, the Spirit began to move among the people. Churchgoers became disciples. Attendance became worship. Cliques were transformed into a community. We saw lives changed by the power of the gospel because it was expressed in ways that meant something to the older generation. A historic church on the verge of closing became an energetic mission center.
Sometimes being innovative does not mean using the newest technology or songs. When we asked “Who’s available?” and “How do they best hear the gospel?” we found that innovation, for us, meant bringing back the expressions of faith that nurtured and sustained the older generations.
The church of the future, I concluded, is best secured by reaching the people of the present.
Kevin Powell now pastors Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership.
