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Monday, March 9, 2015

A Matter of Perspective


One of the most interesting parts of Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal is his description of research conducted by psychologist Laura Carstensen into emotional experience (pages 115-120).
Carstensen conducted a major study in which she followed the same group of people over many years, asking them to record of their emotional reactions. She found that, as people aged, the places where they found pleasure, fulfillment and happiness changed.
Younger people tend to be future-oriented. They are driven by the desire to achieve long term goals, and they strive to realize the plan they have laid out for their lives.
As people get older, their focus shifts more to the present, to the here and now, to the simplicity of everyday pleasures and the people closest to them.
When I read that, it helped me understand what is happening in our aging churches. It explained why churches in decline seem quite indifferent to doing things that could change their reality -- bold changes in direction or radically new practices -- preferring instead to be content with the comfortable and the familiar. Like most of their members, they sense that the future is not unlimited.
If this was all Carstensen was able to demonstrate, it wouldn’t be very interesting. But, what is really fascinating is that the difference is not really about age at all. It is not age, but perspective that counts. It is not how old you are that determines how you view your life, but your personal sense of how much time you have.
Young people famously believe they have all the time in the world. So they tend to focus on the long-term, on striving towards goals that may take them decades to achieve. When we reach our 60s, 70s, 80s, or beyond, however, we know that most of our years are behind us and so our perspective changes. We are more likely to seek contentment in the present moment.
But it’s more complicated than that. Carstensen was able to introduce variables into her study that changed the perspective of her subjects, and when she did that, she found that differences of age tended to disappear. For example, when asked to say whom they would like to spend time with, younger people tended to say people they would like to get to know, while older people said those closest to them now. But when the question was put to young men with AIDS, they responded in the same way as older people, because they shared the perspective that time is short.
Conversely, when she asked older people to imagine a medical breakthrough that could guarantee they would live at least another twenty years, their responses were more like younger people.
So what’s this got to do with churches? Many of our congregations live out of a sense that their best years are behind them and their remaining time is short. Like aging individuals, they are more likely to focus on what they are now (or perhaps what they once were) rather than what they might become.
Remembering Atul Gawande’s key question -- “How can we help people to live as fully and abundantly as possible, given the limitations of their situation?” – we might focus on strategies to help congregations maximize their immediate potential. We would explore how aging churches can discover authentic and life-giving fulfillment, satisfaction and vitality, rather than simply feeling like failures because they are no longer what they once were.
But – does this mean just leaving our churches to be contented with the status quo – the equivalent of “keeping the patient comfortable” until the inevitable end comes? What about the challenge of the Gospel? What about the power of God to do a new thing? Does that promise not apply equally to the old – either individuals or congregations – as to the young?
The key, I think, is to be found in another characteristic of that foreshortened time perspective that comes with aging. That is a heightened concern with legacy. As we sense the finiteness of time we become more focused on what we will leave behind. What difference will it make that we have been here? What do we have that we can pass on?
This is one point at which we need to recognize the differences between individuals and institutions. Institutions cross generations. They are not limited by a biological life-span. Individuals may grow old and die, but institutions have the capacity to reinvent and regenerate themselves.
And so the critical conversation is not “How can we remain contented until we die?” but “How can we maximize our vitality as a community here and now – with a view to leaving a legacy for the future?
For some churches, that might mean reinventing themselves so that a new generation can find and experience faith. There are churches that have come back from the brink and found a new lease on life. Hillhurst United in Calgary is the one everybody is talking about. In ten years, it’s gone from almost closing to an average Sunday attendance of 400. My wife’s former congregation, Bethel Stone United outside Paris, Ontario, took a big leap of faith 25 years ago and hired her 1/3 time. Today, Rev. Adrianne Robertson is full-time and the church is looking at how to deal with a congregation that continues to grow. It can happen.
But the legacy conversation might mean that churches begin to talk about the long-term use of their financial assets before they are forced by dwindling numbers to disband.
It might mean saying, “We can no longer sustain ministry in this big old building, but we’re going to reach out to somebody who can” – even if they are not (heaven forbid) United Church!
Or it might mean saying, “How can we remain a viable Christian community and continue to serve Jesus, even though we can no longer afford our building or the other paraphernalia of the traditional congregation?”
Those are legacy questions – questions about what of value we have to leave to the future.
I think it starts with each congregation being honest about who they really are – not who they remember being or who they wish they were – and taking steps to be as faithful and vibrant a Christian community as they can – attending to what really matters here and now, and nurturing what is good, faithful and life-enhancing. One of the problems with declining congregations is that fear and anxiety cause them to dissipate their energies in needless conflicts or strategies that aren’t likely going to succeed. They need to locate the embers of their own vitality and fan those into flame.
And then to ask, “What can we do to ensure that the legacy of our faith is passed on so that it blesses those who are yet to come?”

It’s all a matter of perspective.  

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