GREYFRIARS’ FUTURE

With its 90-year history, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church faces some major challenges to overcome institutional inertia and achieve a much-needed move forward. Basing his message on the biblical prophets, minister Rob Yule frankly assesses Greyfriars’ recent performance and calls for a bold commitment to future development. Originally entitled ‘The Best is Yet to Be: God’s Call to Proactive Faith’, this inspiring message was given before the church’s annual meeting on 15 August 2004, just as the Athens Olympic Games were beginning .

As the Olympic Games start in Athens, it’s perhaps appropriate that I begin by commenting on two differences between the ancient Greek and Hebrew views of life.

The first is their approach to truth. The Greeks were an intellectual and philosophical people, thinking their way from humanity to God, whereas the Hebrews were a practical and theological people, the recipients of God’s revelation to human beings. It’s a difference between speculation and revelation.

The second is their view of time. The Greeks thought of time as a circle, eternally returning back on itself: the circle of birth, decay, death, and reincarnation, where nothing is really new, only experienced over and over again. But the Hebrews thought of time as an arrow, with a real historical process moving from a beginning to a goal.

The Greek view of time is understandable, and rather comforting. You don’t ever have to leave something behind and move on, because it will come round again. But the Hebrew view of time - the Bible’s view of history - involves real leaving, real loss, and real pain ; but it also makes room for faith, for a real hope, and for a future that is genuinely new.

Prophetic Visions

Because it offers a future that is truly new, the Bible has many prophetic visions of what the future will be like. History and prophecy go hand in hand.

One of the prophecies I have loved since childhood is Isaiah’s vision of a coming age of peace (Isaiah 2: 1-5, NIV). It says that in the latter days ‘the mountain of the LORD’s temple’ will be raised above the surrounding hills. Many will go up to Jerusalem to learn the ways of the LORD, and the law of the LORD will be observed in international relations.

He will judge between the nations

and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into ploughshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.

Tanks will be turned into tractors, military equipment will be melted down and put to use in agriculture, and the vast drain on the world’s economy of expenditure on armaments will be put to productive purposes.

Another of Isaiah’s prophetic visions foretells a coming age of faith (Isaiah 11: 9, NIV):

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full

of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

This prophecy foresees a time when the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the LORD as the oceans are full of water. It’s a metaphor for a coming abundant, worldwide age of faith, that should inspire our mission endeavors.

Counter Indications

Wonderful though these prophecies are, there’s an obvious difficulty with them. World conditions are not like this. In the world today are many counter indications. Contradicting the vision of peace we see terrorism, civil wars, children conscripted as soldiers, the scourge of landmines, and vast sums spent on armaments and military expenditure. Contradicting the vision of the knowledge of God filling the earth is widespread unbelief, even in the churches, scorn and cynicism towards faith among many intellectuals and people in the media, and widespread immorality and lowering of moral standards in society.

These counter indications are one reason why Orthodox Jews don’t believe that the Messiah has yet come. The signs of the Messianic Age aren’t yet present in the world. The fact that they are only present in a small measure, is a very real test of faith and hope. We are in the same situation as Abraham in the Bible. He had received God’s promise that he would be the father of a great nation and of offspring as numerous as the stars, yet for many years, into old age, he and his wife Sarah were childless. His age and childlessness were discouraging counter-indications that seemed to negate God’s promise. Yet the Bible tells us that ‘Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations.’ (Romans 4: 18, NIV).

There’s something courageous, counter-cultural, even heroic about hope. It perseveres and doesn’t give up in face of obstacles and difficulties. Biblical hope is ‘hope against hope’. In the past Greyfriars Church has been noted for such hope. The church building was built during the First World War (1917) and paid off during the Second (1941). McKinney Hall was built during the Depression (1928). Memorial Hall - the second largest hall in Auckland at the time, next to the Town Hall - was built immediately after the Second World War (1952). Greyfriars has shown great faith at times when it wasn’t easy to do so, when counter-indications were very obvious.

Proactive Decision-Making

The time has now come when Greyfriars needs to take a similarly bold step of faith, perhaps for its very survival. The following graph tracks adult church attendance (age 13 and over) at Greyfriars’ worship services over the last forty years, from 1960 to 2000.

Greyfriars Presbyterian Church

Statistical Summary (1957-2004)

	1957	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2004
Attendance	600	625	510	324	190	262	334	237	212	198	156
Membership	546	546	465	349	296	250	294	257	236	144	140
Professions	44	19	2	0	11	5	2	2	1	3	7
Youth	107	89	78	60	44	80	33	40	50	27	90
Children	266	236	168	115	112	68	114	69	43	61	30

The Falling Graph shows an overall decline from the hey-day of church attendance in New Zealand in 1960 to the very secular society that we live in today. In 1960 625 attended services in Greyfriars, falling to a low of 190 in 1975, growing again to a peak of 334 in 1985, and falling steadily ever since to under an average of under 200 today.

Clearly, with quite a number of people in the older age bracket in Greyfriars, if urgent steps are not taken to turn this situation around, we could be facing a terminal decline in a few years. We face a situation that challenges us to exercise a truly biblical faith and hope if we are to reverse this trend, commit ourselves to effective evangelism, and see Greyfriars put on a growth curve again for the first time in twenty years.

The time for such proactive decision-making is not when disaster is staring us in the face, but now, when the church is quite comfortable the way it is. Let me illustrate this from American institutional consultant Charles Handy’s 1994 book on visionary leadership, The Empty Raincoat : Making Sense of the Future. Handy says that the rise and fall of institutions, organisations, movements - even of entire nations and civilisations - can be represented by a horizontal S-shaped curve, the Sigmoid Curve:

Handy says the secret of continual rejuvenation is to start a new curve before the first one peters out (at point A, the point of optimal rejuvenation). Sadly, in many churches and organisations the energy for change comes too late, beyond a critical threshold of decline (point B, the point of terminal decline), when disaster is staring them in the face and the situation is virtually impossible to redress.

The Best is Yet to Be

The biblical view of history is that the best is yet to be. Hope-inspired proactive decision-making is a key component of biblical faith. The Bible defines faith as ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ (Hebrews 11: 1, NIV). Hope is essentially creative, because it trusts in a God ‘who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist’ (Romans 4: 17, NRSV).

Hope opens us to genuinely new possibilities. Our future as believers doesn’t have to come from what is presently possible, but from what is possible for God. Hope is the power that can turn seemingly irretrievable situations around. Hope leverages change when obstacles appear insurmountable.

Rob Yule, 15 August 2004

© 2004, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church