Will Churches Go The Way of Bookstores?
When I read an article by Seth Godin on the woes of book publishers recently, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between the situation he describes and the challenges facing our congregations.
His summary statement of the problem is striking:
the challenge the big book publishers are facing is that a perfect industry is being replaced by one filled with chaos and opportunity.
What does he mean by “perfect”? Simply that book publishers – and the stores that depended on them – enjoyed a monopoly on the means of producing and selling books. As he writes,
Limited shelf space plus limited competitors plus well-understood cost of creation and production meant that stability reigned. The industry was polished and understood.
For three hundred years or so, book publishing had nothing in common with technology businesses where the underlying economics of the business were questioned regularly.
Substitute “church” for “book publishers,” make just a few contextual adjustments, and you’re almost there. We, too, operated within a near “perfect” industry in that as long as a significant percentage of people went to church we enjoyed something of a monopoly. While we might have competed with ourselves (Methodist vs. Lutheran vs. Presbyterian, etc.), our culture placed a high value on church attendance – think of the “blue laws” that governed most states. This ensured that we had very little competition on Sunday mornings. For that reason, for about three hundred years or so (at least in this country), we in church leadership also had little reason to question our practices.
But that day is over. We need to rethink how we “do church” in relation to a changed cultural context where fewer and fewer people go to church just because their parents did. Instead, people want church participation to mean something. They want, in other words, to get something out of it.
There’s little doubt that this represents a generational sea change. If I were to ask my parents whether “church worked for them,” they would likely not understand the question. They didn’t expect church to work. Or, more accurately, they went to church out of a sense of faithfulness. That’s just what you did on Sunday morning. Sure, sometimes it was more uplifting and inspiring than others, but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t go with the primary expectation that church would “meet their needs,” but rather attended out of a mixture of faith, habit, and duty.
Not so with an emerging generation of people who have more opportunities for, and demands on, how they spend their time – including Sunday mornings – than our parents and grandparents could have imagined.
Further, the cultural support of church attendance has diminished significantly. Blue laws have all but vanished, and work, sporting events, recreational activities and more all now vie for our Sunday mornings. In this environment, today’s potential church attendees weigh their experience at worship against all the other possible ways to spend their Sunday morning and make a more calculated decision.
That troubles some of us. When we hear people explain that they’ve stopped going to church because they “don’t get anything out of it,” we label them narcissistic and say they’ve missed the sacrificial nature of Christian faith.
But like it or not, the days when people go to church in large numbers just because “they’re supposed to” are over. And, to be honest, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. My heart is strangely warmed by the idea that people may someday go to church because they actually want to.
But to help that happen, we need to get over our grief for the way things were and start leaning into – and learning about – the way they really are. And that means we need to start asking questions. What do those in and out of our congregations need from a faith community? What kinds of support do they need to cultivate their relationship with God? What kinds of resources help them connect the faith they profess on Sunday with the daily lives they lead Monday through Saturday? How can we help them pass on their faith to their children? What opportunities for service will stretch them spiritually? And so on.
This means things may – actually, strike that, things will – look different. But it may also lead to a renewed sense of the nature and purpose of our congregations. After all, there are a lot fewer book publishers and bookstores than there were a decade ago. At the same time, more people are reading – print books, ebooks, blogs, webzines, etc. – than ever before. The question isn’t whether people will keep reading, but who will help them do it.
The same is true, I think, of congregations. This present generation reports a greater interest in mystery, the divine, and spirituality than has any generation in a century. So the question isn’t whether people will seek God, but rather who will help them find God
We are, I think, experiencing a revolution in so many areas of our shared life, including the way we think about church. And as Godin writes,
Revolutions enable the impossible at the same time they destroy the perfect. There’s entirely too much handwringing about how the perfect book industry is no more. That’s true. It’s no longer perfect. What’s happening now, though, is the impossible.
While plenty of folks in the church will deny or resist the call to change, clamoring that we do things “they way we always have,” I want advocate and urge that we embrace the impossible. I don’t know, but it just seems like what the followers of a resurrected Lord should be ready to do. 🙂
You can find Seth’s whole post here.
As a former bookseller who is now an Episcopal priest, this article resonated with me in all sorts of ways. I think everything you reflect on is just right, David.
I also think there is another factor. I spent an hour yesterday talking with a friend who is about 30 and not a church-goer. She’s one of the legions of folks I meet these days who is “spiritual but not religious.” (My words, she never used the phrase.) She’s smart and thoughtful and has a sense of the sacred. But there’s nothing about church that she finds appealing. All she can see is the hypocrisy of church-goers and the negativity that often abounds in churches.
So, I agree that we must find ways to help people who are not currently in church find their way to us and make what they get when they arrive in church worth the trip. And, I also think we need to stop the negative in-fighting that we tend to do. Much of what Christians fight over seems ludicrous to those outside our walls.
Well said, Fran, and thank you, David for your thoughtful reflection – and the article.
I couldn’t agree more… times and life and church are all changing and if we expect to be relevant and able to help people in their spiritual journeys, we should be willing to ask the hard questions and seek the strong answers… and then move forward with what we learn. Part of that, for me, is reading mainstream ‘religion’ posts AND the accompanying comments that tend to trash ‘religion’, ‘the church’, ‘Christians’ and ‘God’. I’ve learned I can’t have an answer if I don’t know the questions and issues. I’ve also learned that I spend a greater amount of time than I ever anticipated working with people who have been hurt by ‘the church’ or ‘religion’. On the other hand, I’m thankful that God let me spend some time in that wilderness myself.
I have tried to get people to gather for Bible study. (I happen to think it’s important and fun, but I’m strange that way.) Nobody in my church could agree on time / place. So, I’ve spent the last year figuring out how to ‘do’ Bible study with asynchronous online groups. (All prayers and suggestions appreciated!) We have managed one small group (we are a small church) and that meets once a month at Starbucks (we call it The Dialogue at St. Arbucks) and we have group led discussions around faith/life issues. It’s proven to be popular, enjoyable, generation-crossing and enlightening. This Sunday we’re tackling what we’ve called “The Divide and Conquer Project” — dividing up a stack of books the preacher doesn’t have time to read (that would be me) and conquering the issue of church shrinkage / church growth and media / marketing. I love that this group of adults will be (mostly) voluntarily doing book reports over supper! I’ve already shared the “10 things to learn from the Apple store” with them and will send them the link to this article tonight.
We upload podcasts of each sermon on Sunday afternoons to meet the ‘internet church’ folks and Bible study comes straight out of the pulpit every Sunday (and now, online, too!). We are reaching diverse groups in unique ways. It’s what we have to do and I believe what we are called to do. This isn’t easy on the preacher who must be forward thinking and nurturing the old school folks all at the same time, but who said it would be easy. Truth be told, I love it on both ends, but this is where my deep gladness and the world’s deep needs meet.
Sorry for being long-winded here! Please feel free to count this toward your pastoral care for the month. 🙂
This is an interesting article, but leaves the question of how to improve church services unanswered. I would have like to have seen some suggestions put forth. I belong to a Methodist congregation, and it is highly traditional and formulaic…yawn. I have spoken with my pastor about some of these problems, yet things have not changed one bit. There is a set “formula” for each service that seems boring. And, I’ve had TWO pastors now, and both fail to teach or talk from the scriptures! Maybe this is how they are trained in the Methodist seminary? Don’t use scriptures? It seems to me that there are PLENTY of topics in the scriptures that would be highly interesting. I find our bible study group is always lively and we all minister to each other and come away refreshed. But then we are not sitting in pews looking at the back of someone’s bald head. Pastors ought to take surveys of their congregations to see what topics might be of interest, for one thing. On Pentecost Sunday, our pastor spoke about the language of Medicare and the Military. Good grief. HOW BORING.
Thanks for your comments, Julie. I try to keep these posts reasonably short, so not a lot of suggestions in this one, or maybe it’s just that constructive suggestions are harder than analysis, especially for an academic! 🙂
I have written elsewhere on this blog with some suggestions. Today’s post on “communal preaching” is one place to look, as is an earlier piece I wrote on “participatory preaching.” I regularly (though not every week) make suggestions for preachers to involve their listeners in the sermon in a weekly column I write called “Dear Working Preacher” – maybe you can share it with your pastor! 🙂
Thanks, again, for pushing me to offer more concrete suggestions and I’d be eager to hear yours as well!
I had to laugh at you post, Julie (in a good way). I am a young pastor who is in seminary and also serve as a United Methodist pastor in a small rural church. I come from a 10 year tradition of large and contemporary churches and now serve in a church where we use a hymnal and have a fairly traditional and formulaic service. The difficulty for me in that I am passionate about bringing the love and excitement of a resurrected God to all people and would love to shake things up a bit…but alas it is not ‘my’ church. I struggle with finding a balance between introducing change and respecting traditions that have been around for longer than I’ve been alive! My answer has been to preach with passion (always from the Scripture!) and try to restore meaning a zeal to the traditions that are held onto. My advice to you is to keep dreaming and keep your passion. If it is a Methodist church, there is a committee (PPRC or SPRC) that “evaluates” the pastor, most likely at least twice a year. That would be a place to make suggestions. Chances are you are not alone, your pastor may even be aching for a change!
great article! as a young pastor, i feel as though i’ve had this very conversation over and over in the last month, and your article is helpful in articulating some basic realities the church is facing and will continue face if we don’t change.
there’s one thing i’m wrestling with in these conversations and as i read the article, and it has to do with going to church out of “faithfulness,” as you said people once did. i wonder, can we hope to recapture that? should we hope to recapture that? is there something good about going out of faithfulness that we stand to lose? so many questions! at least we’re talking about it! i fear that many aren’t even aware of these issues and will miss a generation for Christ.
Yes, Chad, I think faithfulness is key here. I think the problem with this article is a fear that people are all just going to eventually drift from God but he seeks us like a sheep from the fold and the lost coin. This article supposes that church is simply a man-made structure (like a bookstore) and that somehow losing “relevance” is going to destroy the church.
Its not that simple nor that honest. Demanding something out of church each week or we won’t go is horrible. I agree with finding creative ways to get the message out and relay it to people’s lives. I don’t agree with the concept of not reinforcing something like faithfulness. Hey, if churches can do it for tithing, why not attendance? Maybe that’s something my generation needed to learn all along.
Thanks for your comment, Chad.
I do think “faithfulness” is an important category, but I think it’s the kind of faithfulness that comes from having had an encounter with the Lord, not simply being faithful because you were told to be. That is, it is faithfulness to something that is meaningful, not to something that they were told was supposed to be meaningful. Does that make sense?
In talking about these matters not too long ago in a continuing ed. I was teaching, one pastor said, “We always talk about ‘Church,’ when what people really want is faith.” I think that’s kind of what I’m trying to say, too – people want a genuine sense of faith, a real encounter with God, and if Church provides and supports that, they’ll come…faithfully. But if it doesn’t – if it’s religion without vibrant faith – they won’t come just because you and I tell them they should be faithful.
Again, thanks for joining the conversation.
It’s ironic that over the last generation the church has adopted the ways of the world in trying to be relevant & to entertain its desired audience, all the while missing the point that the church cannot compete with the world on the world’s terms. The church is simply not going to be able to create a better Jim Gaffigan or a better Fun. The church has tried this offensive & it is losing!
Thanks for your comment, Derick.
I agree that it’s easy to lose the distinctive voice and witness of the gospel by chasing after “relevance.” But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that church be a place of vibrant and meaningful interaction and engagement with the living God. My hunch is that the population that was fed by many of the current practices of the church is only shrinking, while the population that isn’t finding a meaningful relationship with God via these practices is only growing. And I’d like to encourage us, therefore, to try out some other ways to engage people with the Gospel. I think we assume “the church always did it this way” when lots of our practices evolved over the last century or so – they were different before and can be different again. What remains is the Word.
Perhaps we might wish to consider surrendering the traditional notion of the Sunday Service as the one central event of church. It might be time to think of other activities and programs as being as significant as the service…which means we may have to measure participation instead of attendance and find other ways to evaluate success.
Among Canadian Unitarian colleagues I have heard the comment several times this year, “Our attendance is off a bit, but people seem more positive than ever about the service”. The folks that like the service are deeply sustained by it – which is good, because I really enjoy that part of ministry, too. But do all of our members have to be sustained by the same thing? Are they any less our people if they don’t show up on Sunday morning?
Though I have no statistical proof, I have been gathering a lot of anecdotal material about people who participate in the community in other ways – adult programs, participating in the social media side of church, turning out for social justice actions, attending community social events of all kinds and participating in alternative services of various kinds.
Can we not consider this as doing church on an equal footing with coming to services?
I’ve noticed that the bookstores have started devoting some of their shelf space to non-book items, and many have attached coffee bars. They are diversifying – perhaps a scary idea for the makers of books, but then publishers are also venturing ever more courageously into e-publishing as well. They are learning to adapt to find their customers where they are and satisfy the needs in the manner best suited to the consumer’s wishes.
So maybe we need to think beyond Sundays and even beyond services.
Brian
I totally agree, Brian. While Sunday worship has been incredibly important to many (including me) and will continue to be a vital part of a congregation’s life, it’s not the only part. In one of the first posts I put on this blog, I also suggested that we need to start counting more than worship, not least because Sunday-mornings-off is increasingly a luxury for many folks. I think we also need to take seriously how to support people in their faith lives beyond worship – online devotions (what a concept! 🙂 ), in-home Bible studies and services, etc. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Perhaps those who attend worship, and those who find it unrewarding, are looking for opposing things.
People who attend worship look for consistency in their worship styles. They also want their ideas about their Faith to be confirmed.
Those who left worship may want something new (different experiences). They may also want to hear ideas that challenge them, and traditional ways of thinking.
The clergy are charged with growing the congregation, and supporting the membership. They are less likely to do anything that will offend the faithful attenders, in order to reach the unchurched.
Thanks for your post, and sorry in advance for being the fresh doggie poo on the carpet.
It seems like a different “church” system was initially envisioned by Jesus, one where each believer equally participated (Luke 22: 25, 26). Paul addressed his letters to the entire membership and not specifically to a clergy. The Corinthian Church (~55-60 AD) seemed to be operating along the lines of equal participation. By around 100 AD, Rome and several other areas now had an elected bishop who was the front man for their local congregation (see letter of Clement to the Corinthians). It appears that around this time a system was beginning to develop where there was a distinct clergy and laity, similar in style to the Roman civic government. When Rome collapsed in the fourth century, the Roman governmental system continued to live on through the church. The basics of this system are still very much alive in many traditional churches today.
Some people still relate to this traditional system, while there is a growing number of Christians that no longer find this approach relevant for them, especially in this internet/smart phone age. Today many people are more interested in spending time in pursuing relationships rather than being nailed down to a pew for a few hours. This may not be all that bad, as this seems to be what originally made the ecclesia attractive around 2K years ago (before Power Point and big sound systems).
I wonder how much more relevant Church would be today if a different system (i.e. community of all believers equally participating) had been pursued all these centuries. For one, it wouldn’t have been the all-boys club, as there would have been equal input from the ladies.
This is just my opinion however.
David, I have been making photo copies of this article and comments to use in training I do with congregation as an interim pastor. I realized yesterday after a great discussion on being church, I haven’t asked your permission to copy and use this article. May I have permission please to keep on doing this. I will add permission give use… to future copies I make.
Pastor Gail Madson
Interim pastor Morning Star Lutheran, Omaha NE
You’re more than happy to use it, Gail. I figure that once it’s up on the blog, it’s fair use for whoever is interested. 🙂
Thanks for checking in.