Maybe It's Not So Bad Out There

It has been a few weeks since my last post. I have been doing that quintessentially Fringe Episcopal Ministry thing: traveling around telling Southside Abbey's story in hopes that money will come our way. While we fell far short of our fund-raising goals, we did deepen some relationships, and that is impossible to put a price tag on. There was also a wonderful side effect, I've come to accept that maybe it's not so bad out there.

Earlier this month, I was blessed to teach a class at the School of Theology at Sewanee and preach at a parish in a Toronto suburb. I don't know what I was really expecting either place. The last time Sewanee was foolish or brave enough to unleash my brand of this-is-how-it-is on their students, I was not invited back for two years. I found that two-year-ago class utterly naïve to, or in denial of, the realities facing the Church.

This year's class was very receptive to my dispatches from the frontline of missional/emergent ministry. They are aware that in the next fifteen years 17 Trillion dollars (with a “T”) will change hands, and the Church is pretty low on the list of where benefactors are distributing said money. The students are aware that the Church is shrinking, as individual churches and as a denomination. They are aware that there are no jobs, especially for those seeking full-time employment. Seminarians know these things and they are there, studying to be priests anyway. They are there, giving themselves to God in service to the Church.

A few short days later, I found myself preaching in front of a parish in the greater metro area of that oh-so-secular city, Toronto, Ontario. Not only will that appearance double my fee for speaking engagements, as I am now internationally-known – 2 x $0 is still $0 – but it also was a great opportunity to visit a country that, by all counts is about a generation ahead of us in terms of Church decline. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at a worship service full of worshipers, Canadian worshipers. I thought that everyone in Canada played soccer on Sunday morning or something like that. Did these people not get the message? Had they not heard that Canada was like Europe and no one goes to Church anymore? Some very friendly Canadians informed me that they had heard these things, but that they were there anyway. Every week they are there, in spite of trends, projections, and statistics. They are there, giving themselves to God in service to the Church.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but Lent was very long for this writer. I needed some Resurrection in my life and this was the Holy Spirit's gift to me this Easter Season, this Season of Resurrection. Maybe it's not so bad out there. Maybe we just have to trust that the Holy Spirit is right in the middle of all that is going on, as the Holy Spirit has been since the Church began. It certainly takes a lot of the pressure off.

This post was originally published on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts blog on April 23, 2015. It has been reprinted here with permission.