October 27, 2024
There are a lot of small churches like ours: historic churches in the middle of town, churches that were once bigger than we are now. Already struggling, when covid hit four years ago, they just weren’t prepared. My home church was one such church. When I was in high school, it had over 800 members. It had dwindled quite a bit over the years and was just barely hanging on in 2020. When in-person worship was possible again, there was almost nobody left in the congregation. The church closed within a year.
This story was repeated across the country, including here in Northeast Ohio. Some churches have closed, while others seem to be just a shadow of what they once were. When I talk to other pastors in our two denominations, they’re often surprised that we still have choirs, or any youth at all. We struggle, too. But we’re still hanging in there.
There are lots of reasons for this. We seem to bear little resemblance to a lot of the churches that are thriving. They’re located outside of town with acres and acres of parking lot. Their insides often look like movie theaters… or warehouses… dark, with little rock bands instead of pipe organs, and big screens instead of hymnals. They often tell their members how to think, and how to vote.
I think we’ve made a conscious decision not to go in that direction. Whether it’s the right decision or not remains to be seen: Can an historic, open-minded church in the middle of town with traditional music and worship make it in this new millennium?
One of the problems is that the world in which we originally existed no longer exists. We’re called upon to address questions that weren’t asked back when we were a thriving congregation. And some of those questions in particular would’ve shocked our ancestors: Is there a need for organized religion? Or even, Does God even exist? When this building was built in 1876, those questions were never asked. And when the Christians and Congregationalists came together here in 1950, those were questions that were asked far from here in settings that nobody in Chardon could relate to.
But here we are. Christians, who were once a huge majority in this country, are now below two-thirds. But even so, less than half of Americans actually belong to churches, let alone attend worship. And sometimes we seem ill-prepared to cope with this new reality or serve our neighbors who are living in it.
I feel like I could go on in this vein forever. But let’s stop here and say that just tant. The world has changed before and its pillars have been shaken many times in the past. That’s what the 46th Psalm is about. When everything is called into question: Be still and know—know that God is the Great I Am. And because God Is, when the landmarks we once knew are washed away or drowned, God’s people can face the changing times with trust and courage.
We can see how people dealt with change throughout the Bible, and we can see it in history. One group that is often ignored gathered in the 12th century in Lyon, France around a man named Peter Waldo. They believed that they should shun wealth. They believed that all Christians—not just the clergy—should teach about Jesus. And they believed that they shouldn’t swear oaths. They called themselves the Poor of Lyon. But everybody else called them the Waldensians (after Peter Waldo).
Though their beliefs were simple, their way of life began to catch on… until the established church began to mercilessly persecute then. Eventually, they were driven into the mountain valleys of southern France and northern Italy. And there they remained for centuries.
Much later, an Augustinian priest named Martin Luther, concerned with the direction the church was going, nailed his points of disagreement to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. It got him in trouble, but when the authorities demanded he recant, he said, “Here I stand; I can do no other.” Unlike the poor Waldensians, Luther had the support of his prince and the technology of the printing press, and so his teachings caught on, and so did what we call the Protestant Reformation.
When the authorities in the city of Geneva, Switzerland adopted the Reformation in 1536, they practically kidnapped a Frenchman named John Calvin to run things for them. He quickly commenced writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion—the most glorious piece of literature outside the Bible—and his way of doing theology spread like wildfire through many parts of Europe.
And remember those Waldensians hiding out in the mountain valleys? They were still around at this point, and they adopted the Reformed faith very early on. They’re still around—mostly in Italy, where they exist in a loose union with the Methodists.
Though Lutheranism was always the major brand of Protestantism in Germany, there were still lots of Calvinists there. One 17th-century family that belonged to a Calvinist church in the city of Bremen was named Neumann. It was popular among German-speakers back in those days to translate last names into Greek, and this family went along with this fad. (More about that later.)
One of the sons of that family became a pastor and hymn-writer and ended up in Düsseldorf. His name was Joachim, and he enjoyed getting away from it all and communing with nature in the valley of the River Düssel. He was so popular, that people (especially young people) would follow him into the wilderness, where he would teach and preach. Church authorities found Joachim’s popularity so disruptive that they moved him to his hometown of Bremen, where he died of tuberculosis a year later.
That reaction reminds me of today’s church. When they heard about the young people heading into the wilderness to worship, I’m sure the authorities in Düsseldorf were heard to say, “Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht!” (We’ve never done it that way before.) And they made sure it didn’t happen that way again.
And maybe this is the real message of the Protestant Reformation. It’s that the world is constantly changing, but often the church digs in its heels and refuses to move on. This is an odd legacy for people who claim as our Savior the One who cleansed the temple and upended a religion. Though each generation must face a new world, the church usually meets change with stubbornness.
Our reading today from 2 Corinthians reminded us that the world is passing, and that we should fix our eyes on God. God is constant and the gospel is unchanging. And so the ways we share the gospel need to fit the times we live in. The ability to read, the printing press, the ability to travel far distances, radio, and television—these have all forced the church to reëvaluate how we share the message. Each culture and language interprets the world differently. Scientific research and knowledge forces us to face biblical truths in new ways. The love of God and the grace of Jesus Christ may remain the same, but the ways we share it and celebrate it will naturally change… if we let it.
Some of you were\ brought up in this congregation. Some of us chose this congregation because it seemed to fit best with what we wanted a church to be or what we believed. But the world has moved on, and the church must serve God by serving our neighbors. This often means change, and saying “We’ve never done it that way before” just won’t do. We are not the same people as those who joined together 74 years ago, and the world has changed.
Long ago, the reformers formulated a Latin phrase: Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda. This means that even a reformed church must always continue reforming. That’s because, on this earth until Christ comes again, the church will always be a flawed institution consisting of flawed individuals. In my opinion, John Calvin put it best when he said that by refusing to acknowledge any church, save one that is completely perfect, we leave no church at all [Institutes 4.1.17]. As an imperfect church in a changing world, let us allow ourselves to be transformed in order to share the infinite and unchanging love of God.
—©2024 Sam Greening
Postscript:
Now, do you remember when I talked a few minutes ago about the name-change of Joachim Neumann’s family? The Greek equivalent of Neumann is Neander, and that was actually his name: Joachim Neander. And he was remembered in Düsseldorf long after he left, long after he died. Until finally, in the early 1800’s that valley where he used to worship and teach was renamed in his honor. Then, during the Industrial Revolution, they begin to destroy the beauty of that valley. Much that was hidden was dug up, including caves—caves where ancient people had lived and died, and where there bones had been buried for thousands of years. Those people came to be known by the name of the valley where they were found—the Neander Valley, or, in German, the Neanderthal. So this morning, as we sing the beautiful hymn by Joachim Neander, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, let’s remember that in a very strange sort of way, there is a strong connection between church and caveman.
