The PC(USA) News Service has reprinted a press item from the Religious News Service entitled “Understanding the History of Mainline Decline” which is billed as an analysis piece by Tom Ehrich.  Rev. Ehrich is an Episcopal Priest, former Wall Street Journal reporter, and now has a subscription web site at www.onajourney.org.

On the one hand I am wondering why the News Service is releasing this.  The article strikes me as a bit “fluffy” that does not seem to make any new points.  It is just the old point that back in the 1960’s the mainline denominations lost a generation when their particular churches clung to the methods of the 1950’s.  (And I would add that the national offices became “socially conscious” and did things that the average person in the pew did not understand and agree with and the national offices did not adequately communicate to the average member.)

If I were a pessimist maybe I would think that the PC(USA) is releasing this into their system because of Rev. Ehrich’s comments on the institution: “Now [those in the present generation who are seeking] look to church for meaning and depth and
for a Christian community that can nurture faithful living. They have
zero tolerance for institutional overhead and stale arguments. We might
think we are saving society with our power struggles. In fact, we are
just driving people elsewhere.”  A conspiricy theorist might see a message from Louisville for dissenters in here.  Dissenters might see the national office holding a mirror to iteslf.

But even if we have heard it before the article does remind us, “what is our market,” “what does our customer want,” “what are we trying to ‘sell’?”  Rev. Ehrich does seem to be saying that we should not conform our message to the culture, but we should be attentive to how the culture is changing and what people are attuned to.  A couple recently visited my church based on our web site alone.  As our world changes do we continue our “proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of human kind” in ways that reach the people who need to hear the message?