Off Center
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE BLACK CHURCH
FOURTEEN
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” —Matthew 28:19,20 (New International Version)
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The authority of a state over its people lies in the state’s war powers.
In its ability to train and field a fearsome army of soldiers, properly equipped and disciplined to follow orders. The black churches here, and, to a large extent, across the nation, are, at the end of the day, no threat to anyone. We demand nothing of our society, nothing of ourselves. We challenge no one. Thus, we engender no one’s respect. No one’s fear. No one’s reverence. George Bush won two elections in a stroll without us. Here in Ourtown, politicians give us lip service, but we are clearly no threat to them so they are unmotivated to take our concerns seriously.
Local church attendance is dropping. There are empty places and
even empty pews where we’re not accustomed to seeing them. Our
revivals, here, are poorly attended, as are inter-church or
district events. We’re simply not showing up, which translates
immediately into a drop in the weekly offerings. Many if not all
black churches, here, are under real strain. Are tightening
belts and cutting back. Most every pastor I know is actively
engaged in trying to find ways to put butts in seats, a fairly
trepidatious pursuit in that our motives for doing so must be
right. Churches are under such financial strain that that
becomes the motive for evangelical efforts—efforts which should
have been ongoing in the first place because that’s what the
church was created to do, create disciples. But many of our
churches only get focused on this when our finances are
challenged. Now, all of a sudden, we’re focused on inviting
people to church and sharing the Gospel. I believe God responds
to our motives moreso than our words; by our real reasons for
doing things rather than our stated reasons. We shouldn’t only
be interested in sharing the Gospel because our finances are in
trouble. Christopher J. Priest
The bigger threat to the black church is not diminishing
attendance, which is a symptom and not the disease itself. The
real problem is the changing role of the church in our lives.
Growing up, the black church was the center of our community and
our lives. My block was a veritable ghost town on Sundays.
Everybody—saint and sinner, church mother or hood rat—was in
church. It was simply understood: Sunday, that’s where you went.
The church was our after-school program. The church was our
social services agency. The church was our extended family. We
didn’t need a schedule of events in order to be there. Often
times, we’d simply drop in if we were passing by. We worked
together. We struggled together. We shared together.
The advent of the new church model—the white evangelical church
model—has caused ripple effects that are impacting the
traditional black church. This new model—with comfortable
auditoriums (often with stadium seating), theatrical lights,
refreshments in the lobby, rigidly-timed and well-rehearsed
worship services—has moved the church-going experience from an
interactive one to a passive one. Going to church, in some of
these places, is a lot like going to a show, or going to the
movies. Visitors have exactly the same endorphin rush and,
psychologically, the dimmed lighting and theatrical aspect moves
us from worship to entertainment. We are being entertained. We
know exactly when church will start and exactly when church will
end. We are being served by the fine folks at X-Church who put
on this show for us. A show that costs us nothing in terms of
personal involvement or personal sacrifice. Many churchgoers
simply melt into the crowd, becoming observers, hearers of the
word rather than doers.
Many black churchgoers, disillusioned by their local church or
having outgrown it, have moved onto these Entertainment Churches
where they find rest from the constant tasks, the often
pointless busywork of rushing to prepare for Annual Days and so
forth. At the Entertainment Church, they are asked only for
money. More investment is not required. They find air
conditioned, soothing environment where the music never exceeds
A.M. radio decibel levels. They are anonymous, so the pastor’s
not all in their business.
Having visited one of these Entertainment Churches, many blacks
find themselves simply restless in the 1965 environment of their
home church, most of which are run by pastors and deacons whose
vision is set firmly in the past. These are churches that face
backwards in all aspects, and, having seen the future-facing
Entertainment Churches, it is now difficult to settle for the
radiant heat and funeral-home paper fans of our 1965 black
churches.
This is what’s killing us. Not that we don’t entertain the way
the mega-evangelicals do, but that we no longer track with the
community our churches were created to serve. Therefore, black
churches are increasingly being moved out of the center of those
communities, relegated to the fringes as a quaint anachronism; a
museum of past glories. And the concept of spirituality, in and
of itself, gets moved to the edges along with it. The
Entertainment Churches seem content to offer mass-marketed
spirituality and to exist in the periphery along with our local
theatre chains. That mentality, being applied to the black
church, is specifically what is killing us: our churches are no
longer at the center of our lives but are out on the edges.
And the fault for that lies squarely with the pastors. The
pastor is the under-shepherd, the CEO. The buck must, therefore,
stop with him. A weak pastor, allowing church elders and deacons
and so forth, to run him over, is simply failing at his calling.
And churches rarely pick good pastors because the people who
show up to these kinds of business meetings are usually the
church busybodies and not necessarily the most spiritual or even
the most intellectual people in the church. But they are the
most vocal people in the church, people seeking authority and
control and, therefore, replicating those same Church Folk
qualities in the leadership they seek. It is the extremely rare
church that welcomes a reformer, a progressive, a thinker, a
long shot if you will, into their ranks. More often than not,
the church calls someone who looks and sounds as much like their
former pastor as they can find; in so doing perpetuating more of
the same.
While perhaps not realizing (or caring) that, if you do what
you’ve always done, you get what you’ve always got.
This is why the local black church has marched in place while
the white evangelicals have exploded. The Korean and Hispanic
churches often follow the white evangelical model, as do the
more successful (but rare) black mega-churches. But the small
church, the church on the corner, is no longer the center of
gravity for the black community. As a result, our churches,
here, and, likely, your churches elsewhere, are struggling to
keep doors open. Attendance is dwindling because the church’s
relevance is practically nonexistent.
In that context, black churches become competitors for the same
shrinking demographic of black people. Here in Ourtown, blacks
constitute only 6% of the population (the national average being
13%). Having lost its place in the emotional and social center
of our community, the mindset becomes the same as that of
someone seeking entertainment or trying to make dinner
reservations. Which church to go to? Well, this one’s got a good
choir, and this one’s got a good preacher, and so-and-so will be
speaking at this one this Sunday. This modality prohibits the
kind of community and brand loyalty vital to black churches.
Growing up, you went to your neighborhood church. Period. You
belonged to that church because it was down the block or around
the corner. The pastor knew your name and the deacons watched
out for your kids.
That’s all done, now. It’s all Entertainment Church. And many of
us have no more loyalty to a church than we do to a movie
theater—they all become interchangeable. Without a real
connection, without a real investment in our churches, we will
continue to see what we’re seeing now: the diminishing role of
our churches, shrinking attendance, and doors closing in favor
of the exploding Entertainment Churches. Churches getting
bigger, pastors getting richer, off of the decimation of the
local churches and the bankruptcy of our family values and
spiritual lives. The church, our moral compass, has been
diminished and pushed aside. Our pastors have allowed this if
not guaranteed it by being either too weak or too dug-in, too
lost in the past or, frankly, too stupid to realize what was
happening to his ministry. All of us becoming a generation of Gideons who cannot recognize God even when He is standing right
in front of us.
Until we begin to actively engage this trend, we will all
continue to struggle against the tide of diminishing returns in
our black churches, bickering with one another as we bitterly
compete for crumbs from the master’s table.
17 June 2007
editor@praisenet.org
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