Anyone who has been involved in ministry for more than a few years knows that the church has undergone some tremendous changes in recent years. It's kind of funny because we usually hear that churches resist change, but at the same time the church has changed a lot since I began my pastoral ministry. Let's look at some of these changes.
There is little denominational loyalty today. My family moved several times when I was growing up. No matter where we moved, we found a Baptist church to attend. Few people today care what denomination the church is related to. They are looking for a church that meets their needs.
In fact, they may decide to participate in several churches. They may attend one church because they enjoy the worship service in that church. They may send their children and youth to another church due to their programs for that age group. This same family may attend a Bible study held at a different church. This involvement in different churches will be a challenge when one of the churches tries to recruit them for a ministry within that church. This cafeteria approach to church attendance will also have an impact on their financial giving. Which church will receive their tithes and offerings?
While speaking of denominations, many churches today find that they receive less support from their denomination than they did in the past. Churches used to look to the denomination for assistance in finding new pastoral leadership, but many denominations are unable to provide much help as they simply do not have the candidates to offer to the churches. Churches in the past received much of their programming material from the denomination. Today, that material either doesn't exist or is not in line with the theological beliefs of the church. Due to financial reasons, many denominations have reduced their staff which means there is less contact with their churches. This can make the church feel they have been abandoned by their denomination.
In the past a church nominating committee would ask people to accept a role in the church for the coming year. That is becoming much more difficult today as many people do not want to make long-term commitments, and they consider a year-long task to be a long-term commitment. This has forced some churches to recruit teachers and other workers for a quarter at a time or they may even only ask for a monthly commitment.
For years I've complained that Sunday school literature had been "dumbed-down" so much that a lot of it wasn't worth using. It was only recently I learned that the problem might actually be that the publishing houses have needed to reduce the preparation time for the teachers. Some publishers have conducted studies and found that the average amount of time teachers prepare for their classes is 15 minutes or less a week. Because of the busy schedules many people have today, that is unlikely to change, but it does mean that the lessons will continue to lack depth.
People's busy schedules impact the church in other ways. When I was a child, our Vacation Bible Schools were two weeks long. Today, most VBS programs last five days. I know one church who had their VBS on Wednesday evenings for four weeks. It was the only way they could get enough workers to hold a VBS. Also, the days are long past when you could count on people in the church to be in attendance every time the doors were opened. Few churches continue to have Sunday evening services, and very few have a mid-week service anymore.
Because many children come from broken homes they often spend every other week with a different parent. This often means that they will only attend your church twice a month, if that often. That makes it difficult to have any kind of continuity in your children's and youth ministry.
I'll just mention one more change. Many Americans struggle with debt. Even those who want to tithe feel they cannot because of their debt and other financial obligations. Many churches today rely on the savings they accumulated when the Builder generation was the primary generation in the church. That generation, and to a large part, the Boomer generation, was consistent with their financial support of the church. As these generations are no longer a part of the church, many churches struggle to meet their budgets. This is unlikely to improve without serious stewardship training in the church.
There are no easy answers to any of these changes. They are the reality of doing ministry in the 21st century, and one reason why so many churches and ministry leaders struggle so much. It is also unlikely that any of these will change. Rather than wishing things would go back to the way they used to be, the best thing we can do is to find ways to minister in the new reality.
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