MISSION VIEJO, CALIF. — Non secular earthquake, meet holy creativeness.
That’s one technique to characterize the cultural and societal forces that introduced collectively about 140 leaders representing 40-plus Church buildings of Christ on a latest weekend.
From Orange County to the Inland Empire, ministers, elders and different involved Christians flocked to back-to-back seminars centered on “The Problem of the Empty Church.”
Associated: Discuss (church) life and dying
“We needed to put out extra tables,” Scott Lambert, one of many organizers, stated on a 63-degree Saturday morning as he welcomed about 60 leaders to the Mission Viejo Church of Christ’s fellowship corridor.
Then on Sunday afternoon, a good bigger crowd — about 80 — confirmed up on the Magnolia Middle Church of Christ in Riverside, practically 50 miles from Mission Viejo.
Heritage21 founding board member Scott Lambert speaks at a seminar on “The Problem of the Empty Church” hosted by the Magnolia Middle Church of Christ in Riverside, Calif.
Attendees got here to listen to church progress professional Stan Granberg expound on analysis contained in his 2022 e book “Empty Church: Why Individuals Don’t Come and What To Do About It.”
“If we don’t discuss concerning the future, then what are we doing?” requested Carolyn Energy, a Magnolia Middle worship crew member and deacon’s spouse.
The historical past educator and mom of three did her doctoral dissertation on how Church buildings of Christ join with Gen Z.
“We’ve got to have a holy creativeness to show it round,” stated Energy, taking a break from working the registration desk on the Riverside assembly.
Audio system and attendees alike embraced the idea of a holy creativeness.
Mike O’Neal — a founder and trustee of the nationwide church renewal ministry Heritage21 — stated the concept intrigues him.
“We’ve got to have a holy creativeness to show it round.”
“Utilizing the creativity that God has positioned in every of us however preserving it holy — biblical and Spirit-led — is what we have to attain twenty first century souls,” stated O’Neal, a former Oklahoma Christian College president who spent 26 years as an administrator at Pepperdine College in Malibu.
“We will circle our wagons and proceed our decline — or we will energetically embrace the mission of God to proclaim Christ to our neighbors. We should take the core values of our Restoration heritage and bundle them for right this moment’s skeptics and self-absorbed folks.”
‘Renew, repurpose and replant’
Shrinking church attendance. Closing congregations. Minister shortages. Put up-COVID upheaval.
All these components contributed to the sturdy curiosity within the dialogue organized by Heritage21, which companions with church buildings to — because the ministry places it — “renew, repurpose and replant God’s kingdom in these difficult instances.”
Mission Viejo, inhabitants 91,000, is a metropolis in Orange County — a densely populated area of three.1 million folks, south of Los Angeles.
Attendees hearken to speaker Stan Granberg throughout a seminar on “The Problem of the Empty Church” hosted by the Mission Viejo Church of Christ.
Riverside’s 320,000 residents make it the biggest metropolis within the Inland Empire — a rising space of 4.7 million folks, east of Los Angeles.
The seminars occurred earlier than Los Angeles-area wildfires killed a minimum of 25 folks and destroyed greater than 12,000 buildings — together with the assembly locations of Church buildings of Christ in Pasadena and Altadena.
Rejuvenating the Lord’s physique in Southern California would require planting new church buildings, stated Jason Haygood, senior minister at Mission Viejo.
“There are some areas south of us right here the place younger households are shifting like loopy, and the Church of Christ has no presence,” Haygood stated. “I feel we’re going to see a renewed motion of home church buildings in Southern California, particularly as a result of actual property is so prohibitively costly.”
Initially from Wisconsin, Haygood has served Southern California congregations for 14 years.
“Many of the guys that have been in ministry after I began have left Southern California,” he stated. “Watching the church buildings shrink has been unbelievable.”
“Watching the church buildings shrink has been unbelievable.”
‘Renewal of non secular creativeness’
Haygood beforehand served the Yorba Linda Church of Christ, additionally in Orange County. That church discovered it unattainable to rent a brand new preacher.
“Jason bought employed away from our congregation, and we searched and searched and searched,” elder Donny Sherman stated. “We had a number of folks apply, however for various causes, none of them match. … We stated, ‘Perhaps God desires us to look in a distinct course.’”
Elsewhere in Orange County, the Newland Road Church of Christ in Backyard Grove was grappling with a post-COVID decline in attendance, minister and elder Richard Shields stated.
Richard Shields, John Sofa, Jason Haygood and Donny Sherman pose for a photograph at a seminar on “The Problem of the Empty Church” hosted by the Mission Viejo Church of Christ.
The Newland Road and Yorba Linda church buildings determined to merge, regardless of the 20 miles between their buildings. Now referred to as the SoCal Church of Christ, the mixed physique is reworking a gathering place halfway between the unique areas.
Within the meantime, SoCal members worship with the Ball Highway Church of Christ — close to Disneyland in Anaheim.
Shields, who started work at Newland Road in 1996, welcomed the prospect to hitch different leaders in plotting a brighter future for Church buildings of Christ.
Associated: ‘Magnificence … within the ashes’
“It’s only a first step in serving to us transfer ahead — in bringing about renewal within the church and turning into related to the tradition round us,” he stated on the Mission Viejo gathering. “That renewal of non secular creativeness is one thing that I feel all of our church buildings want.”
The Church of Christ Basis — a California nonprofit that helps varied ministries and supplies scholarships for college students to pursue Christian schooling — co-sponsored the seminars.
Paul Schlosser, a retired educator and touring evangelist, serves on the muse’s board and helped greet attendees together with his spouse, Debbie.
“We’re desperately in want of this,” Schlosser stated of the dialogue. “Once I go to church buildings, they normally can’t afford a preacher, and I’ve extra church buildings calling on me than I may also help.
“We must be practical with ourselves so far as the place we’re going … and easy methods to cope with the place we’re,” he added. “We have to have a superb plan of the place we’re going to go.”
Blair Bryan, chairman of Heritage21, leads a prayer at a seminar on “The Problem of the Empty Church” hosted by the Magnolia Middle Church of Christ.
‘Actuality is sort of a bear’
In a paper given to attendees, Heritage21 referenced the steep decline of Christianity within the Western Hemisphere — and utilized a metaphor that resonated on this coastal state referred to as a seismic hotspot.
“We could also be experiencing nothing lower than a non secular earthquake within the West,” the handout declared.
As not too long ago because the early Nineteen Nineties, about 90 p.c of U.S. adults recognized as Christians, based on the Pew Analysis Middle.
“We could also be experiencing nothing lower than a non secular earthquake within the West.”
However that quantity has shrunk to about 63 p.c, coinciding with a pointy rise of the “nones” — those that report no non secular affiliation.
In roughly the identical interval, practically 1,300 Church buildings of Christ throughout America have closed, consolidated or left the fellowship, based on information compiled by twenty first Century Christian, a writer primarily based in Nashville, Tenn. The variety of congregations hit a peak of 13,174 in 1990 however has fallen to 11,905, based on the newest figures.
On the identical time, the full variety of U.S. adherents — males, ladies and youngsters within the pews — has shrunk from a reported 1.68 million to 1.42 million, a decline of greater than a quarter-million.
Whereas the proof is usually anecdotal, the precise numerical outlook could also be even worse. The pandemic aftermath has delayed the discharge of an up to date nationwide listing, final printed in 2018.
The Church Analysis Council — which mixes the sources of twenty first Century Christian, Heritage21, the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry and The Christian Chronicle — has launched to gather new information. Church buildings can replace their info on-line by going to crc-coc.org.
“Actuality is our buddy,” stated Doug Peters, a longtime minister who serves as Heritage21’s govt director. He urged the California leaders to evaluate their congregations’ well being and wishes as truthfully as attainable.
“Actuality is sort of a bear,” Peters added. “When you flip your again on it, it’s going to chunk you.”
Attendees stroll to their automobiles after the seminar hosted by the Magnolia Middle Church of Christ in Riverside, Calif.
Dynamics ‘altering actually quick’
Jon Reed spent 28 years because the lead minister for the Hilltop Neighborhood Church of Christ in El Segundo, about 20 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
Though he moved to Hillsboro, Ore., a yr in the past to be nearer to his kids and grandchildren, he stays energetic in teaching Southern California church leaders.
The solar units over Laguna Seaside, Calif.
Jon Reed, Doug Peters, Bruce Bates, Scott Lambert, Mike O’Neal and Stan Granberg get pleasure from fellowship over dinner at a Laguna Seaside, Calif., restaurant.
Reed and Heritage21 have helped the Lengthy Seaside Church of Christ — the place lead minister Gray Powell and his spouse, Sharon, serve — develop a brand new technique for sharing the Gospel.
In simply over a yr, that Los Angeles County congregation has seen its core physique — 35 “basic Christians,” as Gray Powell refers back to the longtime members — greater than double in measurement.
A few of the change has been beauty: changing the pulpit with a stage.
Gray Powell, lead minister for the Lengthy Seaside Church of Christ, baptizes a newly transformed believer within the courtyard outdoors the church constructing.
Gray and Sharon Powell serve the Lengthy Seaside Church of Christ in Los Angeles County.
A few of the change has been missional: organizing group giveaway days for the poor.
The consequence has been a way more numerous physique of believers.
“The factor that’s actually cool is that the those who we’re getting are unchurched folks,” stated Powell, interviewed on the Mission Viejo seminar. “They’re not people who find themselves coming from one other church. So the dynamics of our church are altering actually quick, and we’ve gone from 35 to about 90 in a rush.”
BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Southern California to report this story. Attain him at [email protected].
