2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The Reverend Paul DeLain Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, July 19, 2009

On my recent visit home to Montana I learned a lot about Church growth. A few weeks ago I shared with you why it is that the vast majority of my family and friends no longer attend Church. This week I’d like to tell you about that small remnant that is still going to Church.

I come from a very ecumenical circle of family and friends. We have Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Reformed Latter Day Saints and Episcopalians. Among these vast and varied traditions I heard a common theme (except for the Evangelicals but there day may be coming): “We are shrinking, we don’t have many kids or young families. There is fewer and fewer of us laity doing all the work.” Does this sound familiar?

As I visited with these folks I had a revelation. All through Seminary and my years as a Priest I have been to countless workshops on Church Growth. What strikes me lately is the underlying expectation of these efforts. Is the expectation that we will find just the right outreach event, program or advertising campaign to bring in 50 new, young families all at once? Do we expect that these new families will immediately make a pledge, join a committee and be in Church every week? Is that what we are aiming for?

I don’t think it happens that way. For starters when we expect “new, young families” we ignore anyone over 40 or anyone who is single. We will ignore true growth that does not fit our fantasy image of it. If we don’t see a giant surge of people that fit our profile in short period of time then we will think that there is no growth.

In our fantasies about Church Growth we are losing sight of our true purpose. St. Paul explains who the Church is in his letter to the Ephesians. All of us were aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise. But now through Christ, all people, regardless of ethnic identity, marital status, age, gender, you name it, now we are all called together into the New Covenant, “now in Christ Jesus you who were
once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

In Christ we are joined together into a holy temple - a spiritual dwelling for God. This house is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ being the chief cornerstone.

We are not an Elk’s Club with Liturgy. We are a spiritual temple with each baptized person being one of the living stones. We aren’t looking for “new young families”, we are looking for sturdy stones who have a deep abiding quest to find God. We are looking for stones to join us in bringing others into reconciliation with us and with God through Christ.

And we are being joined together in an imperfect temple. We all have our warts: our stories of hurt and of failure. We all have healing to do. But Christ is in the center holding it all together.

King David, once he got the Ark of the Covenant back home and was settled into his new house, decided that it is time to build God a house, a temple. The Lord responds, “Did I ask you to build me a house? You are focused on the wrong thing. I am going to build you house and it won’t be a place of bricks and mortar it will be a dynasty of faithful people.” The Lord tells David that it will be David’s offspring who will build the physical temple. David’s role is to establish the kingdom of faith.

Across the board the Christian Church is disorientated. We are trying to grow as if the Church was still heavily relevant. We have gone from Christendom to a new Apostolic Age. In Christendom, congregations did, indeed, begin to be Social Clubs with Liturgy. We were a central part of the culture. This is no longer true. We have very little in common with the Church of the 20th Century. Now we have much more in common with the Church of the first several centuries.

The Christendom model was dependent on social programs, brilliant publicity and the expectation that respectable people belonged to a Church. The Apostolic Age is dependent upon individual discipleship.

In the Gospel today we see how the Apostolic model works. Jesus has sent out his apostles two by two to teach the message and to pray for healing and reconciliation. As they return from their mission they report

to Jesus all that happened. In the Christendom model we went to Church to socialize, to be fed and to be respectable. In the Apostolic model we go to Church to gather around the altar to give thanks and to report on our mission; to reflect on how we can teach others the faith and pray for healing in the world.

When the apostles return Jesus recommends some quiet time for reflection and prayer because that is what will re-energize their discipleship. So in that sense we do come here to be fed. But, wait, notice that they don’t get to the quiet place. They are followed by the crowd seeking healing. The crowd is drawn in by the healing but in the midst of that is always the teaching.

In the Church that teaching is called Catechism. And it wasn’t just Jesus who did the catechizing he also sent each disciple out to do the same. This meant that they had to be students which is what disciple means.

If you want to understand the age we live in study the Book of Acts and what we call the Patristic Writings, that is the mothers and fathers of the Church from the first 5 or 7 centuries.

If we follow these examples, if are primarily about teaching and healing we won’t be able to escape the crowds. In fact we may just get to the point of wishing for some Church Decline. That would be an interesting workshop.