The Church: A Broken Institution That Can’t Be Fixed

It’s a statement that resonated within me as soon as she said it.

“I went into ministry to help people. Now that I’m retired, I realized that I spent most of my time trying to fix a broken institution which can’t be fixed.”

I’ve known my friend for over twenty years.  She’s well educated, compassionate, intuitive and now retired from professional ministry.  While we live in different parts of the country, we keep in touch by phone and email.  A couple of months ago, we spent an afternoon together while she was attending a conference not far from me.  We both struggle with how to make sense of our lives and work as ordained ministers in the Christian church.

Organized religion is crumbling.  In the United States, the downward spiral became evident in the 1960s. However, the origin of the demise of religion in the US can be traced to events that occurred before that as Christianity attempted to align itself with political power.  Increasingly, institutional religion continues to fall from its primary mission:  to empower people to transform their lives for the better.

I’m much like my friend.  I was drawn to ministry to help people.  It’s for that reason I also earned a doctorate in counseling psychology.  I’m passionate about the importance for people to find or create meaning, purpose, and value in life which has led me to engage in research on the integration of spirituality and psychology.  Yet, after spending my life engaged in ministry within church institutions, when I retired from a formal role in ministry last year, I did so out of the realization that the institutional church is crumbling under its own weight.  Stepping back, I can more plainly see that the focus of religious institutions is their own survival rather than empowering people to transform their lives. 

After much reflection on the time I spent with the churches I pastored and programs that I administered, I am aware that most of my time was not spent in helping people.  Instead, my time was consumed with meetings that produced no real results. Too often, petty issues consumed endless hours and were driven by people wanting to have their way at the expense of others.  I was often exhausted – not from visiting those sick or providing support to those in need, but from trying to sort out meaningless power struggles. 

Members of the millennial generation (born 1981 – 1996) and generation Z (born 1996 to 2011) have essentially left institutional religion behind.  Both generations view religion as more harmful to society than helpful.  They distrust religious people and view religious leaders as irrelevant. As one millennial woman said in an interview with me for a research study, “Why would I give 10% of my income to a church that is supposed to feed the hungry and clothe the naked when they only do that once a year? I’d rather donate to the food bank and volunteer at the soup kitchen.” 

It’s taken me far too long to realize what is obvious:  that religious institutions as we know them are failing us and society.  That doesn’t mean that I have given up on the teachings of Jesus or my faith.  Instead, I believe it’s critical for people to find new ways to connect with other people of faith in order to experience spiritual growth and transformation for themselves and for the world. 

For the last few months, I’ve not attended church services.  It’s helped me to step back and see how I was caught up in dynamics which were only hurting me.  Simultaneously, my time in prayer and meditation has increased in quality and I have a greater sense of peace.  While I miss having a community of faith, my connections with people in local congregations didn’t constitute a community.  Perhaps in time I’ll find community in a different way.

I understand why it is that more people are leaving institutional religion today than participating in congregations of all brands.  Ultimately, what is important for me to remember as a Christian is that Jesus never planned to create an institution.  Instead, Jesus invited people to follow the way of life he taught.  It is that way of life which I value.

Photo by barnyz on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND