The last time we attended church was March 8, 2020 but I have accumulated enough church attendances to fill two lifetimes of weekly visits. I was born on a Sunday and attended church the next Sunday, every Sunday morning and many Sunday evenings thereafter for decades. My parents were always involved in ministry making our attendance mandatory, participatory and never passive. Churches of the 1950s, 60s and 70s were usually led by one pastor and volunteers from the congregation who led the choir, taught Sunday School, discipled youth and organized everything from Christmas concerts to Sunday School picnics.
A shift toward multi-staff churches started in the 1980s with paid associate pastors, youth pastors, worship leaders and childrens' pastors. Congregational volunteers gradually transitioned to minor roles such as ushers, greeters, and assistants in children's programs. As more women entered the work force, their availability as church volunteers decreased. Church attendance has been dropping in North America at a steady rate and temporary church closures due to COVID-19 have hastened this trend. Hardly any of the children I taught in Sunday School over a 25 years period attend church as adults. Church has become less relevant to me in recent years even though I remain a spiritually engaged person. I am not surprised that people have dropped out of church permanently over the past year.
Sunday shopping was allowed in Ontario beginning in 1992. As a hospital employee, I had worked rotating weekends for years but now workers were needed in retail positions seven days a week. Students and young adults are most likely to fill irregular part time retail positions as well as part time work in essential services. Many younger people I know, even those with university degrees, work more than one part time job. My co-workers who worked full time 12 hour shifts at the hospital had only one Sunday a month where they were not working or sleeping. But most churches continued exclusively with Sunday morning services and wondered why congregations were getting so grey. Churches have been slow to address the changes in society over the past generation.
COVID has pushed the world online and churches that adapted quickly have had opportunities to increase engagement with people who would not or could not attend church physically. Churches that have been slow to adapt risk becoming permanent COVID casualties. Paradigm shifts can be missed when they are gradual, but an abrupt change demands rapid adaptation.
Christian growth starts with a personal commitment to being a Christ follower with an authentic 7-day-a-week faith. Church growth is not measured by the number of bodies occupying a pew for 75 minutes on a Sunday morning, but by the production of true disciples who follow Jesus in humility and service to others outside of church walls. When COVID is over, there will be empty stores, offices and church buildings but church has always been about people, not physical structures.
I am looking forward to being part of the change and seeing a church that is organic, meaningful, inclusive, and based on God's principles of righteousness, justice, truth and love.
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