In response to this I want to offer a threefold definition of church growth that builds on the secularisation theory offered by Charles Taylor in A Secular Age. Here Taylor offers three definition of what it is to be secular. The first two are fairly uncontroversial, bu the third, which is Taylor's central theme, is the key idea that is seen as powering the other two movements in history.
Firstly, the secular means declining congregations. It means that fewer and fewer people are engaging in the practices of religion, whether that be in the form of the occasional offices or in regular Sunday worship. That such a moment has occurred in the twentieth century is beyond doubt, as is its ongoing influence: many congregations are small and elderly, and have struggled to hand on the faith to younger generations.
Secondly, and associated with such a change, is the loss of influence that religion has within a society. Here we note that religious leaders no longer have the automatic social status that their position once afforded them. Yes, some religious leaders continue to be important, but often because of their charisma or achievements rather than because of their position. This means that religious representatives matter less, and are less likely to be consulted in matters social and political, and religious ideas no longer have the appeal that they might have had to previous generations. Statements from religious leaders can simply seem bewildering or irrelevant in contemporary secular society.
Briefly put, here you see the classical problems that evangelicals and liberals try to grapple with: evangelicals generally being drawn to dealing with the first issue, and liberals with the second. But Taylor goes on to ask why it is that these two things have happened to our society, and this he locates in the modern understanding of the self.
Thirdly, the secularity of modern people is based on a self identity that excludes the transcendent and refers all things to an immanent imagined self whose priority is maximising the material welfare of all and minimising the amount of suffering. For this secular self all things are explained naturally, and the universe and time are considered as regular and devoid of any particular meaning. The experience of life is flat and regular. This sense of the self is so strong that it will either see religion as an unnecessarily restrictive set of demands that achieve little, or as a soft form of escapism for those who cannot face up to the realities of life.
Church Growth, I want to suggest, has to deal with all three of these questions.
Firstly, it is about congregational growth. This means doing everything that we can to make our churches welcoming communities into which people can come to experience something of God. Churches do therefore need to offer really good hospitality and welcome, and also think about how their worship connects the congregation with God and if this could be improved.
Secondly, it does mean that the church must engage with society, however hard and challenging that might be. The obvious problem here is that secularised authorities are very rarely open to religious ideas. The fundamental task that the church faces is showing that most of the values that our society upholds are derived from the Christian narrative, and indeed they make little sense without it. However, this is a difficult argument to make as most people are schooled to think that these ethical positions are simply 'natural' ones, and cannot see how they have been constructed through Christianity. The church will therefore have to show that its stories are relevant and life changing, and not irrelevant and unnecessary.
Thirdly, the church faces the related challenge of making the faith that many of our congregants publicly profess into a living narrative that shapes lives. The danger is that religion becomes as aesthetic consumer product that provides a particular form of entertainment (whether that be in the style of Radio 1, 2, 3 or 4). How does the Christian message break into lives that are rooted in a secular narrative of meaning? This is what Setting God's People Free is seeking to address, and is the subject we address when we talk about discipleship.
The question for the church is therefore how it becomes a community that shapes and forms character. Taylor notes that we now live in an 'age of authenticity' in which the key question is 'does it work?' This is deeply challenging for western churches whose predominant model has been based around offering religious services to passive 'audiences'. In this context there seems to be great truth in the assertion of Stanley Hauerwas that the church needs to learn to be more like the church: a place of truth and goodness in which people learn that they are a forgiven people.
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