Where have all the acolytes gone?

Confirmation class, Christ Lutheran Church, Wantagh, N.Y., May 25, 1969.

Originally posted September 11, 2011, at A Front View Pew. Republished with permission of the author.

Where have all the acolytes gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the acolytes gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the acolytes gone?
They need to be here when they’re assigned.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the children gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the children gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the children gone?
We have all these Sunday School rooms to fill.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
(adapted from “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” by Pete Seeger)

Looking backward

I’ve heard those words (or something along those lines) more often than I would like. And while I can sometimes sympathize with the sadness that is experienced by those who look so fondly upon the church of their memory, I also feel impatient sometimes, wanting to move forward, past the grieving for what used to be and on to the work of being the church of the present.

Since I’m not a cradle Lutheran, most of what I know about the glory days of the church is from the stories I hear and the education I’ve received reading “Lake Wobegon Days” and “Growing Up Lutheran.” Through these sources, I have gathered that once upon a time, our congregations all had:

• acolytes who took their responsibilities seriously and were properly attired;
  
• Sunday School classrooms filled every week at every grade level;
  
• throngs of teenagers coming to Luther League meetings, playing games, electing officers, etc.;
  
• confirmation classes that memorized the catechism as well as scripture;
  
• large, beautifully-robed junior choirs that sang arrangements in four parts;
  
• members who attended worship so reliably that others noticed and worried about their absence;
  
• pews that were filled every Sunday with people who sat in their regular spots; and
  
• pastors who preached about hell.

Great expectations

There’s a kind of a common theme in the song stanzas above. It reflects a question I have often asked, but haven’t come up with a good answer for yet. To what extent did all of those things take place in the past because there was, at best, an expectation?

Yes, we had posteriors in the pews and kids in the choir, but how many of them were there because they were afraid something bad would happen to them if they weren’t? Is fear a good way to motivate people? Sure, it’s effective, but is it really fair to award a prize for perfect attendance if the alternative was something a lot worse?

Feeling our oats

“We weren’t given a choice,” is a reason commonly given, and that was true at my house as well. One Sunday, my brother and I, while dressed in our church clothes, decided to go play in the oats shed. Oh, that big pile of loose oats was so much fun to roll around in and throw at one another.

When our mother called out the door for us to come get in the car to go to church, she quickly discovered where we had been because the oats clung to our hair and our clothes, inside and out. The yardstick was swiftly employed (and not to see how much we’d grown), we were cleaned up and brought to church.

I’d be willing to bet that not all of those former acolytes, junior choir members and Luther Leaguers are still active in the church today. You’ve probably heard the joke about how to get rid of bats in the church. You confirm them, and then you’ll never see them again.

Even though we weren’t Lutheran, I went through a similar indoctrination. The result? My 20s and 30s went by with very little church involvement. At best, I was disinterested and at worst, disdainful.

So, how effective was that old system? I’ll admit my own stubbornness, but does that account for everyone who chooses to do something else on Sunday?

Does the end justify the means?

Even putting aside overt threats of bodily harm or burning for eternity in the fires of hell, do we still want people coming to worship out of nothing more than a sense of obligation? Do the ends, Christian fellowship and the opportunity to hear the gospel, outweigh the means by which they have come?

I don’t know, maybe so. Though Jesus does warn against praying loudly and conspicuously like the hypocrites, he encourages some people who were casting out demons in his name to continue. If absolute sincerity were a prerequisite for entering the sanctuary, I doubt any of us would get inside. I know I wouldn’t.

We may be inclined to paint history in a more favorable light, but I do think that trying to compare the present church with the past church is an apple and orange kind of thing.

There are different external forces acting on us today than what we experienced years ago. Those influences once tended to drive people in the direction of the church. Today, they are driven in other directions, and we don’t have control over how people respond to those things.

I question though how constructive it is to speculate about others. What we can do is respond to and share what (Who) does draw us.

The church to come is not going to be the same as the church of the past. That time is gone.

But maybe rather than being so concerned about doing what we think our parents, our neighbors or our pastors expect of us, we can learn to focus our attention on what we see God is doing in, among and through us now. Then we can begin to move ahead together in perhaps even more intimate communion than what we had previously, where the church can come closer to being Christ’s living body.

Find a link to Anita Nuetzman’s blog A Front Pew View at Lutheran Blogs.