The Neverending Story of the Church
The historic church that I serve is participating in a program offered through the denomination’s foundation called Project Regeneration. A handful of weeks ago, I sat on a Zoom call with our church treasurer and two staff members from the Foundation where we received a preview to the reports being generated on our church’s overall health and vitality. The gentleman staffer on the call started sharing the numbers about our church and contrasting them against national statistics. I don’t have to tell you that none of these figures were making us jump for joy. The story of our church, our denomination and all of mainline Protestantism is one of decline, and decline that has accelerated in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the denomination I serve, churches on average are half the size that they were 15 years ago.
As we came toward the end of this meeting, the staffers asked us if we had any questions. I turned to the staffer on the call who generates reports and leads meetings like ours day after day and I asked him, “Where do you see hope for the church?” At this point, I was convinced this had to be the most depressing job on earth to repeatedly tell loving church communities that according to the numbers, it appears their days, too, are likely numbered. His response surprised me. He said, “I’m not worried about the Church of Jesus Christ. The church has existed continuously for a really long time.” He then noted how the church has looked differently over time, but he answered me by saying, “My hope is in knowing that the Church of Jesus Christ is going to be just fine.”
I had to fight my initial instinct to argue with him in that moment. FINE?! Churches are closing left and right! People are moving away from religious institutions! We are shrinking and dying at alarming rates! How is the Church of Jesus Christ FINE?!
But as I calmed down, and thought about it for a while, I acknowledged that he is right. The church has looked a lot of different ways in the past 2000 years. We have been a fringe movement, meeting in private homes, fearing arrest and death if we were outed in public. And on the other end of the spectrum, we have been the official religion of the largest empire in the world. Churches have been the heartbeat of a town or city. Churches have also been the aging, empty buildings sitting like tombstones on downtown corners. Every city in this country has a church like ours – a church with a beautiful, historic, aging and expensive old building with space now too large for what the current membership requires, but still beating with the same heart for ministry, service and community. Throughout all of these different iterations and fluctuations in size and prosperity, the Church of Jesus Christ has remained intact and has been a transformative agent in the lives of many.
Every Sunday, like clockwork, we recite the Lord’s Prayer together. We all have it memorized. We know the words by heart. The last line in the prayer is one that I think about when we talk about the Church of Jesus Christ being “just fine,” regardless of the (sometimes uncomfortable) transformations it makes over the years. Together we say, “For thine is the Kingdom, the power and glory, forever…” Forever. Do we ever really think about what that means? Do we think about what it means for the story of God to be a story of forever, particularly as we fret over the current changes in mainline church attendance here in the United States? Do we think about the term “forever” when we look at this aging building, whose roof thought about caving in on us a few years ago, requiring very expensive repairs? The Kingdom, the power and glory, forever…. This old church building we inhabit on this downtown corner - as beautiful as she is, this building will not be forever. But the Church of Jesus Christ is a forever institution. It is, and we are, part of a neverending story.
Now the moment that I use that term to talk about the story of God and the life of the Church of Jesus Christ, I immediately am transported back to the 1980s, when the film The Neverending Story was a huge blockbuster in the United States. I remember seeing this movie for the first time at 6 years old and the only thing I really got out of it at that point was several months of nightmares from all the different monsters in the film. If you haven’t seen it, or if, like me, it’s been a while, let me offer a recap…
The Neverending Story is a movie about a boy named Sebastian, a kind of nerdy kid who is often bullied. One day he visits a book store and ends up stealing a book and then hiding away in the attic of his school to read it. The book is about a boy on a quest to save the land of Fantasia, which is being consumed by this force called “The Nothing.” The childlike empress of Fantasia is ill and the boy Atreyu is sent on a quest to find her and bring her the cure – the belief being that she is the key to stopping The Nothing from destroying all of Fantasia. Along the journey, there are all kinds of weird creatures and monsters that Atreyu meets (hence the nightmares).
It’s a very dark film. Atreyu’s horse drowns in the muddy waters of the swamps of sadness. A giant, apathetic turtle won’t offer any help. All the while the The Nothing has summoned this evil, wolf-like monster to track down and kill Atreyu and so he’s being pursued through the entire film. There are a number of times during his journey that The Nothing closes in and the world around Atreyu begins to crack, fall apart and disappear.
As the story comes to a climax, we learn that Sebastian, the little boy reading this story in the attic of his school is a part of the story, and not just a part, but is being called on to help to save the Empress by giving her a new name. Sebastian of course doesn’t believe that the story can be talking about him since it is, after all, just a story. Toward the end of the film Atreyu finds himself face to face with the wolf-like monster sent to kill him, who explains that Fantasia represents humanity’s imagination and thus is without boundaries. The Nothing represents the loss of hopes and dreams. With this revelation, Atreyu battles the creature and kills it as The Nothing closes in and once again consumes the world around them.
Fantasia is reduced to fragments floating in space. It seems all hope is lost. But one of the floating fragments is the Ivory Tower, where the empress lives. As Atreyu apologizes to the empress for failing in his quest, she explains that he succeeded in bringing her a human boy who could give her a new name. She explains that just as Sebastian has been following Atreyu’s journey, others have been following Sebastian’s, making this all a part of the Neverending Story.
As The Nothing Begins destroying the ivory tower and the empress pleads for help from Sebastian to give her a name, Sebastian runs to the window and calls out the name of his late mother. Sebastian then awakens and it is just he and the empress. She hands him a single grain of sand, stating that it is the last remnant of Fantasia. She tells him that Fantasia is his to rebuild with his own imagination. As the film closes, we see all of Fantasia and its characters restored. And we also see Sebastian running down the bullies who harassed him in the real world on the back of Falkor the Luck Dragon.
And that is The Neverending Story in a nutshell...
So, why, oh why, am I bringing this trip down 80s sci-fi memory lane into a conversation about the struggles of the mainline church? I believe this film, along with our biblical texts this morning, offer some incredible analogies and lessons for how the Church of Jesus Christ is going to be “just fine.”
Our biblical texts from lectionary this week are from Genesis and from Romans and they tell us the story of God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah. Here we have Abram, a 99 year-old man (who falls on his face), and his wife Sarai, who we imagine is also rather advanced in years. God comes to Abram and makes a covenant with them, giving them new names and saying that they will be the father and mother of nations. Two very old people, who thought their lives were over, and God comes and creates something new from the two of them – giving them new names and making them integral players in the Neverending Story of God. Just when they think their story is over, God does something new and the story continues.
In the film all that is left of Fantasia is a single grain of sand. With imagination, hopes and dreams, all of Fantasia is rebuilt, reimagined, and the story continues. With scripture, all that we have are two elderly folks, and with the imaginative power of God, these two who think that life is about over, are made new, renamed and become the foundation for the continuation of the God’s story with humanity.
The story of God is a neverending story. And that is incredible and awe-inspiring, but I acknowledge that it’s also scary…terrifying, even. Because to be a neverending story means there is going to be a lot of change involved, and we all know how much human beings love and embrace change!
The story of God that we read in scripture contains a lot of change, and disruption, and uncertainty and new starts. In the pages of the Bible, we see a lot of different understandings of God, relationships with God and covenants with God. Humanity has changed and evolved in how we come to know God and relate to God, and sometimes these changes happened slowly over time and sometimes change happens in an instant. How we worship God has changed over time. Where we worship God has changed over time. There have been massive shifts in how the people of God and later the followers of Jesus have operated in this world. The celebration and practice of our faith has never stopped evolving.
The more I have sat with the statement by our friend at the Foundation, the more I have come to agree that the Church of Jesus Christ is going to be just fine. The church will survive because it belongs to Christ, not to us. It is powered by the Spirit of God, not by us. The question is really not whether the church is going to be alright, the question is…will we? Are we going to be alright as the neverending story of God evolves in our lifetimes?
It is very clear that the model of church that has been the dominant model for some time – large buildings with sanctuaries filled with church members in the pews and classrooms full of seekers wanting to learn about the faith inside that same building – that model is not proving to be successful in nearly as many places anymore. For many congregations, our buildings have become not only burdens, but perhaps even idols that we worship and cling to, even as it becomes clear that they no longer suit the story of God that is presently unfolding. The question looms whether we will hold tight to the model that served us well in the past, or whether we will step out in faith and let the mission of the church lead us into the next chapter of the story of God.
It's easy to feel despair – to look at shrinking church attendance and the decreases in giving as a sign that the story of the Church of Jesus Christ is coming to an end. It’s easy to lose hope that the Church has a future. In many ways, it can feel like we are being reduced to that single grain of sand that was the remnant of Fantasia in the film. It’s easy to imagine that like the church, we have become an elderly Abram and Sarai, waiting for our days to run out with no heirs to carry on our legacy. However the film and the scripture remind us of the two most important ingredients required for the continuation of the story – Imagination and Faith.
Like a single grain of sand, with even a small remnant the church we have seen and known in the past, what might we rebuild or build new with our imaginations? If our hopes and our mission are at the forefront, what might be the next chapter in this neverending story? What new names might God give to us and allow us to create a new legacy as the Church?
The Church of Jesus Christ is going to be just fine, and all of the signs point to the fact that it’s probably in a season of transformation. Change is hard. Change is scary. It can be a real test of our faith to believe that, like a boy reading a book in an attic, we are actually part of the story of God. It’s OK to feel grief over the changes we are seeing. But let’s not live there. Instead, let us discover anew the necessary imagination and faith and become players in this next chapter, rather than be obstacles in what may be a turning of the page. The Church of Jesus Christ is going to be just fine because the story of God is a neverending one.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, Forever. Amen.
