Revolution is far from the only congregation that has closed its doors in recent years. Church attendance in the U.S. continues to decline and, rightly, that has spurred on a lot of soul searching about what it all means.
I’ve heard a lot of thoughtful, nuanced, discussions on this topic. Conversations that take seriously the very real harm that religious institutions have caused for centuries. Conversations that honor the journeys of people who are connecting with God in alternative and beautiful ways outside of religious services. I’ve also heard a lot of pretty bad takes.
The point of view that probably upsets me the most, however, is when I hear religious leaders talk about how people just don’t care about spiritual things anymore, about how churches are closing or shrinking because people have become too self-centered, too busy, and too apathetic. That’s never been my experience at any church I’ve been a part of. It was certainly never my experience at Revolution.
I’ve never seen a group of people work harder to build and sustain a faith community than I did at Revolution. I’ve never seen a group of people fight harder to keep alive a vision of what a church could be , even when the odds were stacked against it, than I did at Revolution.
The Revolution community made the difficult decision to close its doors permanently for a lot of complicated reasons, and a few very simple ones, but it was never for a lack of effort, commitment, sincerity, or faith.
Sustaining a small community of millennials and gen x-ers in a historical church in need of big, expensive repairs, in a denomination that was often as inscrutable to our congregation as we were to it, was always going to be an uphill battle. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth the climb
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