July 2010 - Survey Results

Dear Friends

Survey Results

Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in our Survey Questionnaire! We had 128 responses over two Sundays. The results confirmed a lot of what we already suspected: we are a Parish made up of people who seek a traditional church environment with a sacramental flavour; 70% of parishioners are over 40 years old; the 19-26 age group is the smallest with 3% and the 41-55 age group is the biggest with 36%.

Most parishioners joined Corpus Christi because we are the nearest Anglican Church to where they live, and most stay because of the sense of belonging and family that they experience. Our intra-cultural harmony, along with the high standard of sermons and the rector’s personality were also mentioned. Those who serve do so mainly as a way to give back to the community for what they receive in terms of care, belonging and meaningful worship.

A number of issues of concern were raised, most notably a need to stimulate the participation of young adults and encourage youth attendance. Concern was expressed about our singing (dreary!) and a need articulated for the inclusion of African hymns/songs. A number of respondents (including, interestingly, one of our 13-18 year-olds) bemoaned the disruption caused by late-comers, and some find the chatter before worship difficult to accept. Newer members expressed a need to be more fully welcomed, including a desire for a welcome visit from the clergy.

Encouraging Youth & the Future

The survey highlighted that the majority of parishioners hold to a worldview that cherishes transcendent truth and principle. This means the predominant outlook at Corpus Christi understands God as the eternal rewarder of those who stay true to their calling, and presses for a church committed to changeless truth. This outlook requires sermons that underscore accountability, and worship that is reverent, orderly, and predictable. We seek leaders of unquestioned integrity, who keep things under control and on the right path.

The majority of young people today don’t hold to this outlook, preferring to see God either as a divine mentor who calls us to our full potential, and thus seek a church that dreams and acts boldly; or they see God as the healer of an injured world and seek a church that builds healthy, close-knit relationships. They are thus drawn to either the mega-church where worship has a distinctively “contemporary” feel, or to congregations where worship has an intimate “family” feel.

Our emphasis on worship that is reverent, orderly and predictable is largely at odds with the intimacy younger people seek. As adults, we are often uncomfortable with younger people’s desire to chatter during the silences, hug and catch up during the “peace”, sing songs that appear repetitive and theologically “light”, and hold small group interactions in place of a sermon. This explains why the Teens prefer to sit in the cold under the Car-port in interactive conversation with Wonder Mutanha rather than in the warmth of the Church in a predictable and largely non-interactive environment.

It is of course easy to generalise, and we need to note that at least 17% of respondents (in the 26-70+ age group) are comfortable with the younger perspective, and are probably drawn to Corpus Christi because we manage to sustain a good sense of belonging and family. 53% of respondents (also in the same age group) are deeply uncomfortable with it. It is this deep discomfort of the majority of adults with the outlook of our youth that makes it very difficult to encourage youth attendance and young adult participation. The “generation gap” is very wide.

The Challenge

The challenge for the Parish leadership is to continue to meet the needs of the Parish majority, while opening up opportunities for both young people and the minority of adults whose worship and faith needs differ with the general direction that Corpus Christi is travelling. It is to find balance between the expectations of the present and the demands of the future.

This challenge is not one we face alone. It is the challenge that most Anglican and other traditional Churches face. To be an alive and growing church in the future generations we need to find the courage to step beyond the boundaries of what we know and understand, and venture into the realm of the unknown. Our great-grandchildren will stand testimony to our courage or our fear.

Blessings

Mark

May 2010

Dear Friends

A “new thing” in our midst

Last month I said “I’d love to know what your perception is of the “new thing” that God is doing in our midst.” Due to the complete lack of response I’m wondering if we have our heads firmly buried in the sand, or whether we hope that by not acknowledging “new things” they will disappear and life can continue as normal? Or perhaps God has passed us by, and we have been left in some backwater, marking time?

I’m reading a book – as part of my studies – by Ron Martoia Morph! The Texture of Leadership for Tomorrow’s Church. In it he makes the following insightful comment:

“In our postmodern culture, people are looking for experiences to bring them closer to God. Why have we been so unimaginative? Postmoderns aren’t looking for principles to die for; they are looking for practices to live by” (page 58).

The challenge we face as Anglicans, along with other so-called “main-line” Churches, is that we have been shaped over centuries by a worldview that raises “principle” on a divine pedestal, and is often suspicious of “experience”. Postmodernism is a worldview that forms the outlook and expectations of many younger people (mostly those under 50) and these people are often drawn off to Christian communities that offer a more experiential faith dynamic. It is not that principle is unimportant, it is just no longer pivotal.

Rules and regulations are the pedestal that upholds principle, and Martoia comments that the postmodern perspective associates rules and regulations “leading to dull, monochrome lives” (page 58), and thus to a dull, monochrome faith. As Anglicans we are often nervous to venture too far into the experiential realm, finding our comfort and security in transcendent truth and principle. We are suspicious and critical of other denominations and many of the newer “break-away” communities that appear to reject the sense of dignity that principle engenders in worship and life. And we are nervous to let these ideas through the door: the very thought of them makes us insecure.

Another book that I have been reading – Systems-Sensitive Leadership: Empowering Diversity Without Polarizing the Church by Michael Armour and Don Browning – suggests that postmodernism encompasses at least four emerging worldviews (thinking systems and values), themselves discontinuous, that the Church increasingly needs to take cognisance of. While there is far too much detail to go into here, the key issue is that “main-line” Churches like ourselves need to begin exploring ways to incorporate and make space for people who have an increasingly different perspective and expectation from that which has shaped our Church-life over centuries. Statistics strongly suggest that in the Western world the Church as we have known it is dying, especially when attendance figures are married to population growth. Research suggests that this is not due to a decrease in interest in spirituality – which interest remains high among postmoderns – but is rather an inability (unwillingness?) to transform in order to meet the needs of a new generation, a generation whose needs are discontinuous with the past.

And so, perhaps, I got the question wrong last month, and I need to ask instead, “What new thing does God want to institute in our midst?” – do you have any thoughts?

Blessings

Mark