Is there any word of grace to be found in empty pews?
Living into loss, finding hope in pain
I look out on a Sunday morning, and I count them: empty pews, empty spaces. One-by-one, I tally up the seats once filled, and I envision the faces that filled them. During my time here, many of our members have moved away; many more have passed away. As our congregation ages, our attendance continues to decrease, and our collection plate grows ever lighter. A few new members have appeared here and there. Still, seasoned members intentionally leave gaps where friends and family once sat. Even with a dusting of fresh faces, it remains easy to count the spaces in between.
We are a little, rural congregation nestled away in the woods. Originally established as a log cabin, our church represents the era of itinerant preachers riding the circuit on horseback. Cracked and faded headstones in our church cemetery find refuge under ancient, twisted tree trunks and great, sprawling limbs. Winds whisper over the church grounds of historic wars generations past and seasons upon seasons of white men entrusted to wield the power of our pulpit.
Churches like mine were established in an age that has passed away. Today is a new era, an era of welcome change, in which someone who looks like me can step up to the pulpit as the first female minister of my congregation. My church is part of a mainline denomination currently in a long pattern of decline. Living together as part of the declining church means that we are witnessing firsthand the passing away of something and the beginning of something else. As we continue along on our sojourn into the 21st century, we remain uncertain about the shape the broader Church is going to take and how particular faith traditions will eventually come into their own in a new time and era. Some denominations will find renewal and gain momentum; others will fade away entirely. Living in this transitional phase of ecclesiological transformation is challenging for all, exhilarating for many, and for some: it can also be downright terrifying.
For some, the empty spaces in pews — accentuated in many churches by already modest attendance records — trigger deep-seated anxieties and desperate desires for solutions. We’ve got to fill up those spaces! We’ve got to bring new members in! Dedicated members embark together on long discernment studies and intricate visioning projects to learn more about the neighborhoods and communities around them, and ultimately, how to best serve and reach the un-churched potential. These can all be valuable efforts, that’s for certain. But the race to regain lost membership has no guarantees. After all, many of us have already run this race before. We have placed our faith in programs and ideas that promised growth and revival, but ultimately, had our hopes dashed.
Now, many churches are simply scared. We’ve already tried so many things! The gaps in our pews serve as glaring reminders of who and what we have lost along the way. Today, committees and church leaders are looking toward the future and anticipating how much more could be lost. Important decisions are being made with one hand clutching the proverbial dollar-sign bag and the other on the “pull-in-case-of-emergency” handle. The hard truth is that many churches are tired of losing and afraid of losing more. We know that the broader Church is changing, that our denomination is shrinking, and we are well aware that some churches may not survive the transition. Since some churches may only have a few years left, many members have given up hope. Many are simply trying to get out of this with as minimal hurt and damage as possible.
Those who live with chronic pain or love someone with chronic pain may be familiar with something called “pain-acceptance theory.” The theory goes roughly like this: if you have a chronic medical condition, some days are going to be pain days. That’s a fact. Now, either you can drop everything you’re doing and cancel your plans for the day. Or you can do your very best to live your life, one step at a time. This certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of yourself, and you also shouldn’t try to push through the pain. Instead, it’s adopting the mindset that a certain amount of pain is going to come regardless. Rather than attempting to avoid that pain or struggle against it, you get to choose how to live with it.
Many congregations are currently living in something of an acute pain episode, as part of the long-term chronic condition of decline that we find ourselves in today. In short, we are hurting. Seasoned members tenderly hold on to distant memories from a former time. They look sadly at the empty spaces in the pews next to them, where dear friends once sat. As we continue to live into this moment of transition: it’s going to hurt. Whether in a big church or a small church, as our membership continues to age and decline, as our resources and budget continue to ebb and flow, this will continue to be a difficult time for the Church. And yes, it’s going to hurt.
As churches, we can do everything in our power to manage our chronic condition, lock down our budget, cancel our risky plans, and just keep the sanctuary doors open as along as possible. Or, we can choose to accept our pain. We can acknowledge the hurt and risk of living together as a faithful community in Christ together, knowing that this is never easy to do. We can take comfort in knowing that we are not alone, and we can support one another in our grief. We can accept and live into our experience of loss together, knowing that a certain amount of pain will come but being ready to meet it.
Church congregations, however large or small, are stepping into this void of uncertainty and transition together. A central challenge to our faith is this tension between what we know and what we don’t, between what is and what is to come. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18 NRSV). Scripture invites us to place our faith in a God who calls us to a higher purpose, who asks us not to cast our eyes downward and shut ourselves away from the world, but to gaze forward in trust and to step into the light of God’s grace, into the limitless possibilities of God’s love. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). We live into our experience in order to bear witness to something far greater, to something more.
One particularly challenging aspect of God’s radical calling upon our lives, to paraphrase Christ’s own words, is that we should put our hand to the plow and not look back. It’s true that we are weary and hurting from our past. Yet, in Christ, we are promised a new beginning. Though we do not know what exactly is to come, God ushers the Church forward together, into this world and the hope of the next.
So we are called to keep trying, to live into our pain and our scars, and to learn from our experiences. We put a hand to the plow and step into this transitional moment together. We are called out into our neighborhoods, communities, and our world, never out of the self-serving attempt to simply boost our membership rolls, but out of the self-emptying witness to the grace of Jesus Christ. Because Christ so loves us, we are called out to show that love to the world, to remind those who are hurting that there in the midst of our pain, we find God’s grace.
After all, isn’t that what being the Church is all about? Churches are imperfect communities of broken people, and in the middle of it all, there is grace. In the midst of our hurt, there is hope. So too, these empty spaces in our pews remind us of how far we have come, and now, these spaces present brand-new opportunities. Empty seats hold the capacity to be filled with new faces, new voices, new perspectives, and new ideas. For a new age.
There is grace in empty pews: grace in the midst of our hurt, love in the face of loss, and hope in the courage to keep trying.
