Why is the church struggling to evangelize today? It’s a
complex question but lurking in the shadows of the “usual suspects” (conservatives
decrying relativism while the liberals bemoan virulent strains of
fundamentalism), there may be something else at play here, something that
doesn’t exactly sport horns and a pitchfork but may very well be the devil in
the details of our ministry work.
The question for today is, “What is our operating image for
the church?”
The Apostle Paul called the church “God’s field”, “the
pillar and bulwark of the truth”, and (his personal favorite) “the body of
Christ.”[1]
Jesus is the head of this body, the activating agent and cohesive center of the
church.[2]
Vatican II’s primary image of the Church was the “people of God”, proclaiming
the Gospel and advancing the redemptive missio
Dei (mission of God) in the world.[3]
But what happens when the church becomes something very
different? What happens to mission and ministry when the church becomes a clearinghouse? By definition, a
clearinghouse is an agency that collects and distributes something, be it
goods, services, or information. A clearinghouse is a third-party player, one
that doesn’t actually produce goods, provide services or publish information.
It merely connects pre-fabricated goods, ready-made services and packaged information
with the consumers who desire them.
In many ways I worry that this is what the Church is
becoming today. How do we catechize? We find ourselves scouring the publishing
venues for just the right materials. How do we get encounter and conversion? We
search for the perfect retreat, conference or DVD series. Parish staff and diocesan
directors, caught in the crossfire of a highly pressurized “produce-or-perish”
culture, line up an endless litany of programs and events, hoping that this new program or that event (or the perfect constellation of programs and events)
will unlock the mysterious doors of ministry success.
The tragic effect of this paradigm is that the catechist isn’t
necessarily encouraged to catechize. He merely provides the right materials
that will catechize for him. The pastoral minister isn’t asked to personally
evangelize. Her role is to promote the right conference or retreat experience
that will hopefully foster a life-changing encounter with the Lord. In this
scenario, parish and diocesan staff become event-planners, program-promoters
and resourcing outlets that market the products and facilitate the ministerial exchange.
In a word, they become a clearinghouse
while the hopes and dreams of their original call into ministry slither away
over a mountaintop of promotional materials and registration forms.
While good events and resources are incredibly helpful, I
worry about the hidden consequences of an approach that overplays the promise
of program. I call it the “tyranny of
the expert.” We no longer call on our own personal encounters with God as the
primary resources for our ministry. We have materials for that. We no longer
attune our ears to the voice of God, trusting in the power of the Lord to truly
speak to us, guide us and send us out as ambassadors. We have national speakers
and professional evangelists for that. We no longer spend our time investing in
relationships and building a culture of discipleship. We have DVDs for that.
“Who am I?” we ask
ourselves, “to discern God’s nudges, to read the signs of the times and
proclaim the Good News in bold and powerful ways?” In the
church-as-clearinghouse model, the pastoral leader unwittingly exchanges
his/her God-given calling as a divine image-bearer for the vaunted insights of the
latest author or speaker, some “professional” who (we feel) really gets it.
Are we locked in this interminable system? Is this simply
the lot we’ve been given? Pope Francis, the servant-leader of the Church
universal, speaks to all of us, giving us permission to break out of this
clearinghouse gridlock that undermines our true vocation and spins us
mindlessly on the hamster-wheel of programmatical promise:
When the Church summons Christians to take up
the task of evangelization she is simply pointing to the source of authentic
personal fulfillment. . . May the world of our time, which is searching,
receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged,
impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of
Christ.[4]
That glow is not just in the latest circuit speaker, it’s in
you. That spiritual insight and
conviction doesn’t just reside in the new DVD series, it’s in you. God wants to reveal himself in an
unrepeatable, unmistakable, utterly unique way – in you. “Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and
recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of
creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and
words with new meaning for today’s world.”[5]
Return to the Source. Go back to your calling. Revisit your
Galilee. Vocation is not just for the “experts”, it’s for all of us. Open your
heart and let the joy of the Gospel flow through you. Let us embrace this new
phase of Catholic evangelization with enthusiasm and vigor. God is calling.
Without new life and an authentic evangelical spirit,
without the Church’s “fidelity to her own calling,”
any new structure [or program] will soon prove ineffective.
~ Pope Francis, EG,
26
