Living on the Margins
by Stuart Murray

The Church on the Margins

As the new century dawns and Christians in Britain survey the landscape, it is surely evident to almost all of us that the church is in a very different situation today from where it was at the start of the last century. Though some sections of the population, especially in the inner cities, had long been alienated from the churches, and though there had been for some decades already a steady decline in church attendance, the church in 1900 still operated as an institution at (or at least near) the centre of the social and cultural life of the nation. The church in the year 2000 is no longer anywhere near the centre. We wake up in this new century as members of a community on the margins.

Updated church attendance figures were published earlier this year. These are not entirely discouraging and reveal some significant changes in patterns of churchgoing that will repay careful reflection. But the figures make clear, as all previous surveys have done, that fewer people are participating in church life and that the church is becoming ever more marginal in society.

Of course, surrounded by fellow Christians in a thriving local church or at a festival, we can try to maintain the facade. We can sing triumphant songs, pray boldly, make pronouncements on social issues and plan exciting new programmes. We can pretend we are still at the centre rather than on the margins. Or at least we can for a while. But gradually our more thoughtful and honest members begin to slip away, discouraged by our unwillingness to emerge from the ghetto and face up to reality.

But, even if we do sneak a glimpse outside and see how far away from the centre we now are, and even if we resist the strong temptation to close our eyes to this, we can so easily look for a quick-fix solution. This is not surprising, for we are influenced by our "instant results" culture. Short-termism plagued many churches in the 1990s. The magic date, 2000, was used to jump-start all kinds of programmes that were poorly conceived, failed to probe deeply enough into their context, and delivered much less than they promised. They did not turn the tide, which is still going out.

One popular quick-fix solution is activism: another decade of evangelism, more church planting, a new community action programme. Another response is to jump on a bandwagon: finding an approach that appears to be working elsewhere and presenting this to a weary, suspicious but good-hearted congregation as the answer for your context too. Equally popular is prayer for revival, which some continue, despite all the false alarms, to promise is just around the corner.

What these solutions have in common is an expectancy that within a few years, certainly no longer than a decade, the tide will have turned and the church will be holding centre-stage again, or at least well on the way back to this coveted position. It is hard to know whether to be more impressed by the grace of congregations that adopt such solutions, or their gullibility.

But what if there is no quick-fix? What if none of these - or any other - solutions will make any significant difference in the next twenty, fifty, one hundred years? What if the church remains on the margins throughout this century and into the next one? Revival is a harvest term. But what if we are nowhere near harvest time yet? Is this why the returns for our efforts are so small? What if our task over the next few decades is to break up the soil, sow fresh seeds and water them carefully?

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