Plotting a Future for the Christian Faith

In speaking about the future of the Christian church, author Wes Granberg-Michaelson told a group of Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church in America ministry leaders that the presence of God’s Spirit is always greater when the fullest diversity of God’s people are present.

What this means for ministry leaders, as they look to the years ahead for their denominations, is to increasingly find ways to learn from, pray with, and join other Christians around the world in praising God and living out the gospel of Christ. Above all, it means to find ways to adapt and change.

“I know what it is like to be worrying about a denomination,” said Granberg-Michaelson, who served for 17 years as general secretary of the Reformed Church in America before retiring in 2010.

“Being here, I hope to expand your horizons a little bit. As a result of 40 years in ministry, I want to share some things that any of us who love the church should think about as we face the future.”

A longtime ecumenical leader, Granberg-Michaelson is author of the new book Future Faith, on which he based his remarks to the group gathered at the CRC denominational office in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Addressing a range of complex topics in an accessible style, the book traces the social, political and theological trends shaping the church today.

“I know that those of you in this office, just as we have done in the RCA, have given your sweat and blood to the church. But we need to know that we live in a bubble that the Holy Spirit is breaking.”

Crucial to realize, he said, is how quickly the Christian church in the Global North, meaning mostly Europe and North America, is dwindling and dying.

Faith Communities, a comprehensive study of U.S. congregations, released figures in 2015 showing that for the first time in recent history nearly 60 percent of U.S. congregations have fewer than 100 members.

Another study predicts that 35 to 40 percent of all U.S. congregations will close over the next 25 years. “I hope this isn’t so, but it looks like this is what we’re facing,” said Granberg-Michaelson.

At the same time, this isn’t the end of the story. Looking beyond the bubble at what God is doing in North America to what is occurring in the wider church, especially in the Global South, said Granberg-Michaelson, “we can get excited about what is happening, and that can help us to be faithful in our own context.”

While Christianity in Asia and Latin America is growing, Africa is where the growth has exploded in recent years. A century ago, only about 10 percent of the people in Africa were Christian, but now that number is about 500 million, half of the continent.

Churches in North America, said Granberg-Michaelson, might find a way forward by taking time to learn why Christianity is growing in Africa.

“We live in a culture shaped by the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on individualism, but people in Africa see the world with a different set of eyes,” he said, pacing back and forth before his audience like a college professor. “They live in communal societies.”

Taking time to learn from others can help us to refashion and frame how we approach and even practice our faith.

For instance, many Christians in the Global North see a distinct division between the spiritual and the material -- and this can cut us off from a power that churches in Africa embrace.

“Unlike our culture, other cultures see an interdependence of both good and evil in the material world,” said Granberg-Michaelson. “They see the entire world as sacred.”

This means they are able to access a realm that can inspire and encourage and give believers strength and firmer faith. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, they experience God as real in all places.

And out of this various strands and expressions of Pentecostalism have arisen -- by far, one of the world’s dominant brands of faith today, said Granberg-Michaelson. “Our image of Pentecostalism is of flashy preachers who fly around on jets,” he said. “But Pentecostalism has risen up among people on the margins of society. As we look to the future, we need to ask how we can engage and learn from Pentecostalism so it can be a deep part of the future of the church.”

In Pentecostalism and other growing types of Christianity in Africa and elsewhere, there is another important lesson to be learned -- and this can be learned from people who have moved from Africa and elsewhere and are now practicing their faith in North America.

The lesson is about community.

“We need to break the heresy of American individualism, of thinking life revolves around the individual,” said Granberg-Michaelson.

“We need more people who say ‘me for the community’ than say ‘the community for me.’ Always, if you are grafted into the life of Jesus Christ, you are saying ‘me for the community.’”

Christians in North America need to be clear about what it means to say, “Jesus is Lord.” “Reclaiming Jesus is a great challenge to us,” said Granberg-Michaelson.

There is more to this than simply having an individual experience of accepting Jesus into your life, said Granberg-Michaelson. It is necessary, especially in the evangelical community, to pair your relationship with Christ with working to bring the mercy and justice of Jesus into your life and the life of others. This is linking the personal with the social gospel, he said.

“We need to remember that God’s Spirit works to transform me, my community, and the world,” Granberg-Michaelson noted. Breaking out of the individualistic mindset and seeing relationships and our community as more important, he writes in his book, helps us to better understand the working of the Trinity.

He writes: “The embrace of the Trinity as a community of self-emptying persons in intrinsic, mutual relationship is an awe-inspiring revelation.”

Granberg-Michaelson touched on other topics but kept coming back to this: “We need to keep looking for the openings that allow us to access some of the new things God’s Spirit is up to in the world.

“We can’t be torn apart again and again by questions that may be important but are not crucial to following the mission of God. We are broadened in our faith by being in touch with different groups of God’s people.”