I Remember When

I have been working for the Church professionally for nearly thirty years. Throughout my entire career in the Church, there is one common dysfunction that I always encounter. It isn’t bad intentions, nor even lack of effort. The dysfunction common in every place I have ever worked is the refusal to see the past didn’t accomplish what we wanted it to accomplish, and it normally includes some version of, “I remember when…”

Remembering the past isn’t bad unless it ignores the present. Did your Sunday School used to have 300 students in attendance every Sunday? Praise God! Are those same 300 students in Church today? The answer most always in ‘no’ but we refuse to consider what we did in the past might be part of the problem. I don’t’ want to ‘pick’ on Sunday School. I want the Church to realize what we thought we were accomplishing thirty years ago, whether it was Sunday School or basketball tournaments, has not had the effect we thought they would have. Here we are thirty years later, and many of our churches are missing more than half of all those children.

The hardest part of solving a problem is admitting a problem exists in the first place. Let me be clear. The problem wasn’t Sunday School and basketball tournaments. The problem was a culture that didn’t prioritize a living faith in communion with God. When I first became a youth director nearly thirty years ago, I was told by my priest, “Just because you come to the Church, doesn’t mean you come to Church.” The Church did a great job ‘keeping our youth connected’ to each other, but not the Christ. If we didn’t teach our youth to love being in Church, prayerfully engaged in the Divine Liturgy, receiving Holy Communion regularly, and participating in the sacramental life, we failed them. The Church brought people to the Church, but not to Church.

Statistics now prove our failure, as between 60-80% of people leave the Church between high school and young adulthood. Making the number worse, statistics are showing that 20-30% left the Church during the pandemic, never to return. What do all these people, or at least most of them, have in common? They never saw the Church as a place where they were living with God, but a place exclusively of social gathering. Once they ‘aged out’ of youth programs, or the pandemic forced the end of social programs, they had no other reason to be at the Church.

Now for the worst part of the dysfunction. With all good intentions, the Church leadership is focused on bringing people who left the Church, back to Church without changing the culture. Unless we correct the cultural problems that caused them to leave in the first place, it is like putting water back in a leaky bucket. They will leave again because nothing has changed. We must first fix the leak and then refill the bucket.

This ultimately is the goal of Be Transfigured Ministries. I have encountered too many people who fell away from the Church not because they woke up one morning and decided to leave, but because they never realized the true purpose of the Church is to be in communion with God. It isn’t a new problem, but it is a constant problem.

The Lord said to the Jews who came to him, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I have not a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” – John- 8.42-51

The Jews didn’t realize that God wanted them to be in communion with Him. Instead, they thought God was just going to save them from the Romans. They walked away from Him. If we are going to remember anything, we should remember what happens when people have the wrong priorities about the Church. The Jews lost the Church, and we will too if we don’t change our priorities.