BONUS: Paul Moore on Caring About Mainline Decline

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Church and Main, and this is actually an experiment. I am wanted just

[00:00:27] to see what would happen if I take some of the recent interviews that I've done and maybe take out

[00:00:37] a 10 minute clip to make that a podcast and for it to see what happens. And so this is kind of

[00:00:43] the first of the experiment that I'm kind of calling Church and Main shorts. I don't have a better

[00:00:50] name for it. I really tried and tell me what you think about it. You can check it out at churchandmain.org.

[00:01:04] This first one is from a friend of mine, Paul Moore, he is a Presbyterian pastor. And back in December

[00:01:11] of 2023, I talked to him about how mainline churches can grow. And so he actually in this quote which is

[00:01:22] about this sound bite, which is about eight minutes, he kind of gave his explanation as to why he thinks

[00:01:30] especially in his denomination that hasn't happened but also provides how it can happen, how churches

[00:01:39] even in mainline churches can grow. And I will put the link to the full interview if you are interested

[00:01:46] in the show notes so that you can give it a listen. But let me know what you think about this short

[00:01:53] and I still have a few others that are in the pipeline that will be coming out soon. So

[00:01:58] I hope you enjoy this bonus episode and I'll talk to you soon. And this is Dennis Sanders.

[00:02:04] Yeah, so what concerns me about that is it just feels to me and again I'm not really trying

[00:02:12] to poke anybody or poke the bear if there is a bear. But I just think that we as Presbyterians

[00:02:19] have come to accept that as our reality. And there doesn't seem to be this impetus to change it.

[00:02:29] And that's what is frustrating. Now if we were a business nobody would accept this.

[00:02:41] Because you know and I'm not calling for this but I mean you know the CEO on the board did get fired

[00:02:50] immediately. But we I think as Presbyterians have come to accept our decline and you know we might

[00:03:02] make fun of it or make jokes and I mean it's a big thing to reverse the decline but I'm

[00:03:12] and you know I certainly would love to be a voice for growth in the Presbyterian PCSA.

[00:03:17] You know my focus is on channel lakes and that's where we're trying to grow. And we are growing.

[00:03:26] But that's yeah, we are. Yeah I mean it just doesn't seem to resonate this kind of clarion call for

[00:03:42] we need to grow. Why do you think that that is because it's not just a Presbyterian thing. I see that

[00:03:49] in my own denomination and I see that across many other especially mainland Protestant denominations.

[00:03:56] Why do you think that? Well many people who are much smarter than me have written a lot more about

[00:04:05] this. So I just share my perspectives as a frontline pastor and I want to say everything I do

[00:04:15] with a sense of humility but I think we've just come to accept it that this is our reality.

[00:04:21] So why do we accept that because I don't think we really know what to do

[00:04:27] and I think that we've kind of accepted the secularism, the secular I mean I'm not finding

[00:04:33] the right word but how our culture is moving to a more secular society. Even though there are many

[00:04:40] churches who are growing and there are many denominations, I don't know many but there are people

[00:04:46] who denominations who are growing and I just don't think we know what to do because it's really hard

[00:04:53] work. So I don't know I don't have a great I don't know why we accept it but I just think that we have

[00:05:02] and I don't I mean I can speak on my church you know if that happened in my church first first of all

[00:05:13] I'd get fired. Well maybe I could hang onto my job but I highly doubt it. So you know we have

[00:05:22] an hand fantastic growth at Chan Blake's I mean we average you know we started from scratch 14

[00:05:28] years ago we average you know 65 to 70 but on a Sunday but if you came here you would

[00:05:36] and again I say this without humility no there's no pride. But if you came here you would experience

[00:05:42] a great sense of vibrancy and energy and a lot and a lot of ministry and people's lives are being

[00:05:51] touched and it's really exciting and I think that we're at Chan Blake's actually we're on the

[00:05:59] precipice for some significant growth. I think we're going to and I'm really excited about that.

[00:06:08] So anyway I feel like I'm kind of ranting or drifting but no but I think you know the other side of

[00:06:15] that is the concept of church growth and you even shared it seems to also be something that people

[00:06:23] are wary of. Why do you think that is? I think it's because a couple things so our denomination

[00:06:31] is more on the left side and we and so we those folks who are on the left don't really think

[00:06:40] that church growth is all that important and you know they certainly don't worry about people's well

[00:06:49] I'm projecting but it doesn't seem that there's a great sense of concern about like somebody's

[00:06:53] salvation and we don't want to be like a Billy Graham type of place where you know you have

[00:07:02] to accept Jesus your Lord Savior immediately and you know convert or you're going to go to hell.

[00:07:06] So I think that those are a number of reasons that I think that we haven't done a great job at

[00:07:16] growing and have just kind of come to accept it. So one of the things in your second blog post

[00:07:27] that you talked about was about growing young and you kind of had this interesting proposal

[00:07:34] that in some ways you're kind of living out at chain of lakes. Yeah, it's to focus on youth and family.

[00:07:42] Yes. And you even know that earlier when you talked about Westminster and Worthington that there weren't

[00:07:48] any kids there. Right. What is so special about focusing on youth and family and how is that the

[00:07:55] key to grow? Because that's where a lot of vibrancy has to come because we're a congregation,

[00:08:01] we're a denomination that's old and elderly and you know and people have been talking about this

[00:08:07] for a long time. And there are a lot of people who are doing really good work on youth and

[00:08:12] children's ministry. So again, I'm not trying to poke the bear but we have to get young. I mean it's

[00:08:18] just it's all I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. We have to do that

[00:08:25] and I think part of the frustration is we've had a significant focus within our wider denomination

[00:08:33] on Matthew 25 kind of a social justice movement. And I think that's wonderful to focus on

[00:08:39] social justice ministries and we've done that at chain of lakes a lot. In fact, we're known for

[00:08:44] that in the wider community. And I was just throwing out because I'm one of my gifts, I don't know if

[00:08:52] this is spiritual gift, but one of my gifts is kind of vision and dreaming about the future. So

[00:08:58] what if we intentionally try to get young and try to really focus for five years on getting young

[00:09:07] relating to youth relating to children and growing in that ministry relating to families?

[00:09:13] Now that's not going to work everywhere I get that but

[00:09:16] and you know I think if you accept the fact that there's a lot of people who aren't going to

[00:09:24] church even in places that aren't growing, there are many young people who aren't going to church.

[00:09:30] And so I think that and I think it's very hard. I don't think it's easy like the church that I

[00:09:37] served before in plebingham Minnesota when I came there we had like five we had hardly any kids

[00:09:43] when I first came there and when I left we had I think 30 to 40.