It takes an Internet search engine a quarter of a second to locate more than 32,000 references to the phrase “crisis or opportunity,” probably about the same time it took Henry Kissinger to come up with the quip, “There cannot be a crisis next week; my schedule is already full.”
Church and society in a fast-aging Canada face the same options today. Given how busy everyone is, it would seem opportunity is the better choice than crisis.
The aging factor is one easy to misinterpret in the church, less so in government or business. Pick up a newspaper any day of the week and you are likely to find a story about either public or private pension concerns: fewer younger people in the workforce and longer-living retirees is apparently not a situation the actuaries planned for.
The result is that many pension plans are underfunded and governments at every level are trying to determine how to provide increasingly expensive health-care benefits to the pool of potential recipients that threatens to overflow at any moment.
In the church, by contrast, we have often put the relatively increasing number of grey heads in the pews down to the fact that relatively fewer young people are attending church. That is partly true, but it misses the important point that the percentage of younger people in the general population is also shrinking.
The result in the church is less an issue of pensions but how to care for an aging congregation while attracting younger members. It's a crucial and challenging opportunity. As a whole, older and younger members will have different tastes in liturgy and music, not to mention different needs throughout the week.
Unfortunately, clergy are still educated to work in an outdated pastoral model. The church has for centuries been more a place of solace and support than transformation. Yet change is an essential part of our faith and requires skilled transformational leaders.
Besides this, the church is still largely organized around the concept of a volunteer organization, half of whose members — women — were available in the week to help with projects. This is rare today in most congregations. As a result, clergy often feel dislocated, unable to do what they thought their calling was and unsure of how either to change themselves or their flock.
Ordained ministry, as Dr. Andrew Irvine explains to Amy Cameron in this issue, is in crisis. Clergy feel like they are being asked to be chief executive officers of the congregation, not only a position they have not been trained for but one they have been purposely rejected as a model for ministry.
It's not only wrong to demonize business (the church is filled with faithful businesspeople), it is ultimately to look a gift horse in the mouth. The corporate world has much to teach the modern church.
The church does not have to become — should not become — a ruthless enterprise focused on the bottom line. But it can — and should — learn about efficiency and accountability and how to effect change in an organization.
The reality is that clergy have long been expected to be CEOs, but an otherwise romantic myth remains. Senior ministers at large churches such as St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal or Lakeshore St. Andrew's in Windsor, Ont., have essentially the same leadership responsibilities as the CEO of a small company.
The qualities of a good leader do not exclude pastoral and spiritual training, in fact they should enhance a leader's ability to effect change. Look in the business section of any bookstore today and the most popular topics all revolve around leadership: social and emotional intelligence, how to support and encourage colleagues.
These are the very qualities clergy need — and the Bible provides many examples, not the least of which is St. Paul, a roving CEO who established branch plants, then regularly visited, encouraged (and corrected when necessary) the regional managers. He also engaged in finance, fundraising and skills inventory.
Despite declines in attendance, the church is still probably the best-equipped institution in society for discussing and managing the demographic shifts in society. Where else do old and young gather so regularly around a common theme?
Managing the inevitable changes will not be easy but that is the challenge. It is a crisis or an opportunity for us all. It's our choice.
