Dear Church:
I read a chilling statistic this week. 4,500 churches have closed in the USA in the last year. Imagine, every week in 2023, 86 churches closing across the nation. Imagine, a Mosaic conference sized number of congregations ceasing operations this Sunday. Now it isn’t all bad. While 4,500 churches closed across the USA last year, 1,000 new churches were launched. Oops. You do the math. Basically, we are losing a net of one church in the USA every 2.5 hours. In less time than it takes most of us to come to Blooming Glen Church, attend worship and Sunday School, and get home, another church has closed.
When I talk about “post Christendom,” I’m talking about the factors that create the conditions for this accelerating closure rate of churches in American society. Our message is no longer about Jesus – whose life and teachings, death, and resurrection, form the center of all we are. And God’s missionary vehicle, the church, is no longer about a place of radical grace and challenge to holiness. Instead, our message is either that anything goes, if only you are sincere, OR that there’s a long, rigid set of propositions that all must be affirmed to be welcomed. As for the church, in the absence of the Godly habits, practices, and virtues of grace, mercy, justice, and holiness, we have substituted a lack of tolerance for one another’s brokenness and make little accommodation for one another. Conformity has become more important than discovery.
Church Together is Blooming Glen’s effort to be different. We will, over the next two years, do everything we can to put Jesus, and not our ideological preferences, at the center of congregational life. We will focus on spiritual habits, practices, and virtues that invite us to be more reliant on the scriptures to shape our discipleship. We will be more radically candid with each other – caring deeply and challenging directly as well as more generous and inviting to our neighbors near and far. We won’t be able to afford to practice a “whatever” spirituality, nor will we be able to demand rock solid conformity to a preferred ideology.
My commitment to you is to keep Blooming Glen Church from becoming another chilling statistic. And so, I will do what I can to lead Blooming Glen to become a different sort of church: Focusing on the scriptures in ways that link God’s great story of redemption to our experiences of God’s grace. Caring for one another with compassionate candor. Practicing the art of neighboring. My existential dread in making this commitment is that some of you already find it too liberal. Others already find it too conservative. Still others do not appreciate how the program of ministry no longer belongs to the church staff but instead belongs to the people of the congregation who are unleashed by the power and calling of the Holy Spirit to fulfill God’s mission.
I’m so sorry I won’t be able to fix those things for you as your new lead pastor. Here’s what I will do: I will study, obey, and teach the Bible as best I can. I will do my best to care deeply for each of you, and to challenge you directly when necessary. I will invite and welcome anyone and everyone to Blooming Glen Church in their quest to discover and experience God’s saving and life-giving grace. If that’s too whatever, or not whatever enough, I am truly sorry. My commitments to the scriptures as the basis for discipleship, to radical candor as the way to healthy relationships, and to generous invitation as the best expression of God’s mission is the best of me, and it’s all I can offer you.
Let’s go, Church!
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net
PS | Fridays, 3:30pm-4:45pm at the Broad Street Grind, is where you will find me drinking an Iced Red Eye. Mondays, 7:30am-8:45am at the A&N Diner, is where you will find me tucking into the two-egg combo. In both cases, I’m there to listen to whatever is on your mind. On Monday, August 5, we had an important conversation about the need to improve our livestreaming capabilities and strengthen our capacity for audio and visual teams to work more efficiently together. Come, join the conversation with whatever is on your mind.