A few years back, then Editor/Publisher John M. Buchanan, writing in The Christian Century, quoted a few sentences from Frederick Buechner’s essay titled, “The Church.” You can find this essay in Buechner’s book, Secrets in the Dark. I believe these words can give some direction to the readership of the Higher Education Digest.
Here are Buechner’s words:
“Maybe the best thing that could happen to
the church would be for some great tidal wave
of history to wash it all away — the church
buildings tumbling, the church money all lost,
the church bulletins blowing through the air
like dead leaves, the differences between
preachers and congregations all lost too. Then
all we would have left would be each other and
Christ, which was all there was in the first place.”
I first read these words back in 2015. It was long before the “great tidal wave of history,” Covid-19, would appear. Nevertheless, Buechner’s words seem appropriate to address where we find ourselves today in the church and its institutional expressions. I am reminded that our call into existence as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), our birth certificate if you will, was a last will and testament.
As I write, it is reported that there have been 6.85 million Covid-19 deaths worldwide. Between January 3, 2020 and February 6, 2023, there have been 1,097,246 Covid-19 deaths in the United States. The bells of death have tolled and the church as we once knew it has changed. So have its institutional expressions like colleges, universities, and graduate schools of theology. We are all trying to make sense of our present and coming realities. Although there is no one path forward, there is a determination to move forward into this journey of unforeseen endings, with hope and creativity. The church and its institutional expressions have been here before, just check-in with your church historian friend.
Some of the current realities facing the church have been accelerated by the pandemic. There has been a decrease in median worship attendance. Births, baby dedications, baptisms, marriages, and membership growth and development are not keeping pace with the congregation’s rate of attrition due to people leaving, resigning, retiring, moving, and dying. Decreasing enrollment in some of our higher education institutions are causing concern as schools heavily reliant on residential learning are pivoting to create on-line and hybrid learning opportunities. With increasing costs to earn a degree, conversations have heightened about the value of higher education.
Let’s visit Buechner again, keeping in mind the impact his words have for both congregations and church related institutions of higher education:
“. . . many neighborhood and rural congregations
require courageous and new thinking if they are to
survive — new thinking on the part of denominational
executives, pastors brave enough to walk into
challenging situations, and people willing to let go of
a church model that no longer works.”
We are all — church and academy — in a state of transition, but all is not doom and gloom. The good news is that there are opportunities and possibilities for our future. To get there, we must put the fear of change and the paralysis it causes on hold. We lean into our futures despite the current realities of demographic decline and its accompanying economic and spiritual distress. We learn from the present realities and find new ways to function and be faithful. Our congregations and educational institutions are in the process of recreating church and higher education anew for this day and time.
I suppose that when all is said and done it will be true that the center and core of congregational life and our related institutions is “each other and Christ, which is all there was in the first place.” This is probably not a bad place to start as Higher Education and Leadership Ministries leans into its future during this time of transition. I am so glad to be part of the new discoveries you are making as you search for a new President. Keep looking through the front windshield and not your rear-view mirror. This will surely take you to the place God wants you to be.
Leaning forwardly yours,
Ron