Unhelpful Myth #1: The Church Is Dying

(No one disputes the fact that Christianity in America is declining numerically. Enough has been written about this already, and I don't have anything to add to the conversation except to point out some unhelpful myths that this shrinking reality is producing. These myths are causing undue anxiety and are preventing us from embracing the wonderful new things God is bringing out of this situation.) 

Myth #1: The Church is Dying.

All we have to do is take a look at national trends in membership, or how young people occupy our pews so sparsely compared to gray hairs, or how few baptisms we're performing compared to funerals - and it seems logical to predict that the once-great Protestant church in America will be no more in 50 years or so.

But if we broaden our historical view and reject the impulse to compare today's church to the "glory days" of 1960. And if we take an approach that is more Biblical than business-like in how it defines success, then we will see that despite the steadily declining numbers, the church is far from dying.

From it's very beginning, the story of God's people is about growing and contracting. It's a steady pattern of great numerical strength in one era, followed by a difficult time of winnowing and transition, followed by startling new growth in the next era. Surely we are not the first people in that long history to feel the burden of being called to faithfulness in a time when God is shrinking us. Surely we are not the first to feel the grief of something great coming to an end, and then to transfer that grief to think that God's people and perhaps even God himself are dying.

But we can take great comfort and hope that this is not the first time we have faced decline, and that The Holy Spirit will surely bring us back in a way that is both surprising and glorious. Just ask the great prophets of the Old Testament who lived through the loneliness and isolation of exile, but somehow mustered the hope to write the beautiful words that pointed toward the coming of Christ. Surely, their faith and hope can convince us that our difficult period is not about the church dying, but rather about it getting smaller and then reemerging as something new.

But if we are convinced we are dying, and if we succumb to the anxiousness that precedes anticipated death, then we will not be receptive to new things. Our eyes will be dimmed, and our hearts will focus only on what we are losing, not on what can now be gained.

It's just as Isaiah 43:18-19 proclaims:

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."