Book Review
Some Thoughts on the “E” Word
What is it about the world “evangelism” that causes so many otherwise committed church members to clutch? Oh, we often talk a good game. A glance at North American baptism numbers and congregational attendance figures shows not too much is changing—at least for the better. There are, as you might expect, assorted opinions about why that is so; it is a challenge to wade through the flood of books published on the subject.
One place to begin is with Martha Grace Reese's book, Unbinding the Gospel. Her book results from more than a thousand interviews with church members, clergy, and new converts as part of a four-year study in the United States called the Mainline Evangelism Project. (The full report is at www.GraceNet.info.) The study started with more than 30,00 Mainline Protestant churches. “Successful evangelism” was defined as having at least five adult baptisms a year for three years, with a total reaching at least 1 percent of the church's worship attendance. One hundred fifty congregations (roughly one-half of 1 percent) qualified.
Part one of the book looks at evangelism in churches today: What is evangelism? Why do it? How is the church doing? Part two offers examples of great churches sharing their faith, so readers can see and analyze what is possible. Part three focuses on the possibilities God has in mind for your congregation. As such, it can easily be used in class settings.
Somehow the idea has arisen among church members that true evangelism takes places only with people who are different from a congregation's current worshipers. Reese includes a helpful pyramid chart that shows that just about every congregation is already doing some evangelizing. Too often churches assume they have to aim for the top of that pyramid—or not at all. The bottom of the pyramid layer, our own children, is a great place to start. Where better to begin building discipes, the central purpose of evangelism?
Carol Howard Merritt's book Tribal Church moves the conversation up that evangelism Pyramid. The missing generation in the book's subtitle refers to people under the age of forty. Stop a moment and consider your own congregation. What percentage of your active membership fits in the twenty-to-forty age bracket? Look again to see how many are in leadership roles.
Of course, it is true that this age bracket traditionally has been underrepresented in Christian congregations. We know the pattern: after high school teenagers go off to college, military service, and careers—and they typically don't come back to church until they are married with children. But something important has happened in the last couple of decades that has broken that familiar pattern. Not as many are coming back.
Merritt contends these missing generations are substantially different from their parents' and grandparents' generations. They live in an era of financial uncertainty, skyrocking living costs, burdensome college debt, and enormous home mortgages. Their lives are interwoven with technology that is largely baffling to their elders, who stubbornly hang on to positions of power and authority in business, government, and, yes, the church. And to rub salt in the wounds of under-forties, many of those same elders often dismiss them as “slackers,”“lazy,” and “ungrateful.”
The answer is not simply scheduling contemporary worship services with a rock band and images projected overhead on wide screens, Merritt points out. This missing generation in the churchg is far more complex and more appreciative of mystery and spiritual tradition than many baby boomers think, Merritt says. “Young adults do not need an entertaining experience that happens to them; rather, they need a connection, a place where they can be grounded in spiritual community.”
A pastor in her thirties herself, Merritt develops her theme of “tribes” to chart a path for congregational transformation. In part because young adults (and, no, that term does not apply to people over forty wh think of themselves as “young at heart”) move so often, they have trouble meeting people and establishing a sense of community. This, it turns out, is an important key for Christian congregations: begin to shift focus from programs and institutional structure to relationships with one another and with God through Jesus Christ.
When twenty- and thirty-somethings do cross a church's threshold, they often get a subtle (or not-so-subtle) message to patiently waith their turn before they are invited into leadership positions. Yet a common characteristic of these generations is impatience with bureaucracies and entrenched power.
—Richard Brown
Excerpted by permission from the November 2007 issue of Herald, published monthly by the Community of Christ.
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