Adopted

Romans 8: 14 - 17

Acts 2: 1 – 13

June 8, 2025

Pentecost

I have been reading from a variety of sources on the future of the church. This genre of literature has been in vogue since the 60s, since the American church first began to decline. The high point of the post-World War II church, when President Eisenhower called all patriotic Americans to church as a defense against godless communism, had passed. The American Church as an institution was not immune to the cultural challenges of the 60s. Believing that its current cultural significance would last forever, the Church insisted on its own way and as a result, the Church began to lose favor amongst the general populace.

The first church I served in an ordained capacity is an example of this. Once the largest church east of the Mississippi, founded in 1727, and long a central organizing pillar of the town, the church was thriving in the 60s. Membership was over 4,000. They were holding 3 services on Sunday morning and were turning people away. Every mayor of that town since 1727 had started as an elder on that church Session.

In 1963, filled to capacity and with more and more people wanting in, the church decided to radically expand its Sanctuary. Built in 1864, it sat approximately 500 people – clearly not enough. And so, in an architectural marvel documented in trade magazines, they literally cut the church in half; placed the back end – the entrance - on large rollers and pulled the two sections apart. They then filled in the middle and the church went from seating 500 worshippers to 1100 participants.

Almost immediately attendance began to decline. Pastoral retirements and a series of unfortunate events resulted in a church – by the time I got there in 1986 – of 2200 members but only 4 to 500 attending worship. That big, beautiful colonial masterpiece that seated 1100 members was rarely, it ever full – even on Christmas and Easter. Actually, the only time it was full was when the symphony orchestra held its magnificent concert series in the church.

Scared to death, churches began to innovate. Surely a new liturgy, cushions on the pews, new lighting and projectors would bring people back. Praise music – 3 chords, unlimited repetition and questionable theology but fast paced and imitating secular music styles would do the trick. Church leaders, desperate over dwindling numbers turned to Madison Avenue for advertising and growth strategies determined to be “the best” in the misguided conviction that putting on the most attractive event would bring people back.

Folks, as the church has learned, we can’t “outcool” the culture.

60 years of attractional church methodology has created generations of church consumers looking for churches that best serve their needs just like dish soap, cars, and televisions best serve their consumer preferences. Slow as always to change, the church failed to recognize that it had sold its theological soul for activities that generated attendance.

Today, the average Presbyterian Church has less than 100 members. Even worse, worship attendance is less than half of that. Here at LNPC we have 177 members which places us 15th out of the 44 churches in our Presbytery. Above the average….. but “above the average” is not the standard that we pursue.

This may all sound like doom and gloom for the church. We look longingly at the megachurches and forget that just as Bill Hybels described his own megachurch Willow Creek – one of the largest churches in the country at the time – the overwhelming majority of megachurches are a mile wide and an inch deep. One of the largest multisite megachurches in the country – Elevation, led by Steven Furtick - has over 25,000 people in worship at multiple sites every Sunday. But the average length of stay for attendees of that church is less than 3 years. People come for the experience, but even he best of experiences grow tiresome over time.

On this Pentecost Sunday, on this day when we celebrate both the birth of the church and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, I believe it is time to recapture the soul of the church experience. It is time for a new Pentecost. Diane Butler Bass, in her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us” describes churches that have recognized the self-centeredness of the attractional church and instead embraced a church fully immersed in its community, serving the needs of the broken around them, while also calling participants to a full and dynamic relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, and fueled by a Holy Spirit whose arrival we celebrate on this day.

The Attractional Church, or as Bass calls it, the Tourist Church where participants come in for the experience needs to be rejected. She writes, “One of the dominating characteristics of contemporary life is that of wandering – moving from experience to experience for the sake of experience alone.” Elsewhere, she describes this as a spiritual tourism where we go on vacation – to church – simply as an escape from the daily routine of life. It may be beautiful. It may have the music we want, the ethos we seek, the fellowship we crave. But it is simply a break, a step out of ordinary life, a vacation that is enjoyable but has little transformative effect on our lives.

Friends, with all that we are we must say a loud and emphatic “NO to the Attractional Church, to the Tourist Church, to the church of the events that best serve our needs as we are.

Our first lesson describes the fundamental change in who we are that serves as the foundation for the Missional or Pilgrimage Church of the new Pentecost that we seek. Drawn in and led by the Spirit of God, we are not simply observers. We are the Children of God, made whole in Jesus, and empowered to change the world – not according to our preferences, but God’s. This relationship moves us from self-centeredness to God-centeredness; from no longer seeing the world and life as a series of choices that best serve me but instead has us asking ourselves, “How do we live our lives in such a way that God’s perfect will for Creation is realized?”

It starts with relationship, but it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t matter where we are from or what circumstance we find ourselves. Look at the laundry list of locations and conditions that the first participants in Pentecost hailed from. Judea – Cappadocia – Rome. Egypt – Libya – Phrygia. Radically different places, radically different circumstances. Each person coming and being transformed by an encounter with the Holy Spirit. The new Pentecost calls us to a relationship grounded, Spirit empowered faith that moves us to dig deeply into what it means to be a child of God.

Look what happened when observers became pilgrims. Christianity exploded into reality and the world has been changed. It happened then, and it can happen now.

But we need to recognize our preference for the superficial, for the non-consequential, for the life of faith that asks little from us. We need to be willing to move from self-centered attractional church superficiality and instead embrace a pilgrimage existence where church is a place to dig deeply into our relationship and understanding of God. A place where the teachings of Jesus are central, not the latest political talking points. Where we believe that the Holy Spirit has the power – STILL - to transform both us and our world.

Some won’t get it. The final line in our passage from Acts described those who actually witnessed Pentecost – people who were there as wind, fire, and the Spirit filled that place – and they did what? They sneered.

Friends, vitality and purpose are not dependent upon numbers. Relationship and Transformation occur when we move from detached observer to engaged pilgrims determined to mine life for all of the spiritual richness that it has to offer. When that happens – and friends, it is happening here, now – faith and the church takes on a whole new power. It’s time we let that power define us. Amen.