Back to basics

by David Haberstock

Is your church as full as it was about two years ago?

Recently I heard on CBC that Canada’s movie theatres and concert venues were averaging about 40 percent of their pre-pandemic attendance. This statistic is good to know, because if your congregation has experienced a decline to about 40 percent of pre-pandemic attendance, then you are experiencing the same thing that every public venue—where people gather in close proximity— is experiencing. However, if your congregation has rebounded to 50 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent, or higher, then give thanks to the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies His Church to buck worldly trends!

At the recent B.C. Church Workers Conference, one analysis shared suggested that, due to the pandemic and online attempts at ministry, about 20 percent of regularly-attending Christians across North America have developed new habits. After all, a habit is something you do about five times and which is deemed as beneficial or workable for yourself. That may be where some of your congregation folks have gone— online. Moreover, one commenter early in the pandemic predicted a two-year “hard pandemic,” and then a year and half to two-year period of re-normalization. If this proves true, we may not know what’s what for some time yet.

But what have we learned throughout all of this? We have seen what the essence of the Church is. As Luther said in the Smalcald Articles, “a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd” (SA 3.12.2). In 3.4, Luther says the voice of the Shepherd—through Christ’s under-shepherds (Romans 10:15)—comes to us through the spoken Word, Baptism (SA 3.5), the holy Sacrament of the Altar (SA 3.6), the Power of the Keys (SA 3.7), and the “mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren.” (This is often understood as “fellowship,” but seeing how SA 3.8 and 3.9 refer to Confession and Excommunication, it may be a reference to the Matthew 18 process of reconciliation—which is the Scripture citation given in support of mutual consolation and consolation of the brethren ).

These things are the essence of the Church! They are the means by which we are the Church, sheep gathered by and around the voice of the Shepherd (John 10:11-16).

We have learned that the essence of the Church is what is essential. When the lockdowns happened, did meetings, Bible Studies, choir practices, or Sunday School continue? No. And yet the Church continued! We boiled it down to the essence of things, to what the Church is about— Christ and the forgiveness of sins coming through His preached Word and distributed sacraments. When we Christians were without the gathering together around those things, boy did we miss it! When we were able to gather, even in smaller groups, that’s all that mattered.

Of course, there is always some necessary business here and there, and beneficial things such as choirs and opportunities to study God’s Word. But necessary and beneficial things can never replace what is essential.

For the last six months or more, John 15 (the vine, the vinedresser, and the branches), has been on my mind. As we ponder what the Church looks like in the days ahead, I wonder if there is not some pruning the Lord is doing—pruning of branches, which, according to Jesus (vv. 5, 2, 4), refers to people who do not bear the good fruit of faith. I wonder if this is not a time of pruning people and things that were not of the essence of the Church, but to which our hearts clung and in which we trusted (an idol!).

We are smaller at the moment, but our Father’s pruning always occurs so that we might bear more fruit (v. 2). Pruning hurts for the branches and the vine. It is always sad to see loved ones, or beloved local traditions, or groups, fall away from the Lord or come to an end. But in all of this, the Lord’s Church remains.

The Lord of the Church is calling us back to basics! Back to the essence of His Church. Back to His voice, which the sheep hear and know. Back to His spoken Word, back to Baptism, back to the Sacrament of the Altar. (Did your Church increase the number of Sundays when it offers the Sacrament in the last while? If so, good!) Back to knowing the Power of the Keys through which our sins are truly forgiven here in time, and back to the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren.

O little flock, fear not the foe! For Christ is with you in the unique ways He promises.

Rev. David Haberstock is Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC)'s Central Regional Pastor.