BIRMINGHAM, Ala (ABP) — “Lord, help us to become more of what you have already made us to be.”
Several hundred church leaders from around the United States gathered June 24 to explore what this prayer means for congregations in a time when mainline denominational churches are dying and independent evangelical churches are experiencing a surge.
Craig Van Gelder, professor at Luther Seminary at St. Paul, Minn., uttered that prayer five times during the five-hour seminar he led at the Congregational Leadership Institute during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.
“The church is a marvelous creation, both holy and human,” Van Gelder said. “What the church does flows out of what it is. … You have to go back to nature — what has God created?”
Van Gelder, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said the average age of ELCA members is in the 50s, and that other Christian denominations, like Presbyterians, are also following that pattern. Van Gelder said denominations with fellowships that network, share resources, collaborate and inspire each other — like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — will overtake mainline denominations that follow traditional models.
Van Gelder said congregations often follow flawed models that take the focus off the only necessary points — creation and the cross.
In the New Testament there are 96 images and analogies of God's people as a church, but the idea of community prevails, he said. “You can only know who you are when you're in community. Christians gather; they want to be in each other's presence. You cannot be a mature Christian alone.”
God blesses diversity and the church brings unity, Van Gelder said.
But for Loren Pinkney of Raleigh, N.C., a recent graduate of Campbell University Divinity School, racial diversity within churches has not been welcomed. Pinkney, who is black, told the CBF seminar that during his search for a job, many opportunities at Anglo churches have closed because of his color.
“If the Spirit of God crosses all boundaries, obviously we're not listening to the Spirit,” Pinkney said.
The Spirit, which came upon 120 people at Pentecost, allowed the glory of God to take up residence on earth through God's people, Van Gelder said. The Spirit of God is “restless,” and it takes the gospel to “everyone, everywhere and addresses everything.”
Surprisingly, “takes” is the most important word of that sentence, according to Van Gelder, fewer than 5 percent of Christian congregations use God as an acting subject — he's usually used as an object. But “every square inch of creation belongs to God,” and it's his Spirit that drives the church, Van Gelder said.
Recent trends of the evangelical church help predict the church's future.
According to Van Gelder, 40 percent of Generation X pastors have no formal theological education. Although God has provided spiritual leaders, most of them are not coming from Christian colleges. Van Gelder said seminaries have to stop thinking traditionally for recruiting students.
Also among the younger generation, Van Gelder said, people between the ages of 18-28 are very spiritual, but are the “most disaffected from institutional religion.”
Michael Kellett, a youth minister and student at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., said he has witnessed the regression of young people in his church. “The church does a poor job educating youth and engaging them in the congregation,” Kellett said. “When they go off to college, churches don't keep up with them. And when they come back, single-adult ministries are [rare]. They have no place to be.”
The future of the church, according to Van Gelder, depends on the limitations we put on God and the imagination we have for God's plan for us.
“God is not going to grant us any more power than we already possess,” he said. “We have not looked fully into what God has already created.”
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