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You've hit the nail right on the head--most mainline Protestants who go over to Orthodoxy do so to escape the liberalism that has become so pervasive. I know more than one Roman Catholic who has converted to Orthodoxy because of the Catholic stand on remarriage after divorce.

John K.

Dear Monomakh:

I don't disagree at all with the idea of restoration (although you and I would probably have some differences in priorities), and most certainly not on the pressing need for evangelism.
I think that there are numerous reasons to support these goals. But I think that the story that you tell provides little probative evidence to support conclusions. Carole makes an important point:
To understand why requires much more than the selected comparison that you give. For example, Did you really mean to imply the dating of Pascha as a significant factor. Or is it the unusual mix of east/west dating that is of importance? And pews? Who left and where did they go, tlk asked, is a crucial issue to answer before one can really soundly speculate on their reasons.

And perhaps a very important point to consider is the analysis is that our losses to Orthodox churches are tiny compared to losses to RCC.


Are they? I think that they have seen declines similar to ours from ~1950 to 2000. I think, however, that they are way ahead of us in evangelization, and in vocations. (On the other hand I think it can be said that our Synod has greater comity.) So in some ways I would agree with your oveal assessment, but let's also agree that the actual, overall situation is similar and nothing like the stark contrast you gave.

Moreover, I don't think that your assessment of causative factors is on the mark. Even though I think that the objectives that you outline are, for the most part, worthy and important, I don't think that you can conclude that they are the cause of the differences of the solution to Holy Ghost's problems. And a number of further suggestions have been made on this thread that I find a bit of an insult, including ones made by Andrew.

It is, as you have noted, important to learn what can be learned from others about how to enliven parishes. It's clearly important to do this right. And I don't think it is mandatory to look outside ourselves for that. I think that we can look at Aurora, or Cary, or Albuquerque, among others, to learn. Celebrating our own success rather than just denegrating our weakness is not a bad tactic to consider in outreach.

Btw, I am not upset with your post, although I wanted to voice disagreement with some parts of it. My first post here was on precisely the same topic.

djs,

I wrote in another post and topic which you might not have seen, that restoration alone is not going to reverse the current negative trend. Putting up a curtain at Holy Ghost this afternoon wouldn't mean 100 people on Sunday. Other things like evagelization, supporting missions, education of our youth, etc. must be done as well. One of the interesting points of this story is that the OCA is not undergoing as much restoration because they stayed on the path much more than the BCA did overall. Does that mean that there isn't an OCA church out there that doesn't have to do any restoration if they so desired? No, there's probably examples out there, but from what my eyes have seen it is the BCA that has to perform restoration more.

Both churches in this example experienced similiar declines when the Slavs who lived near and attended these churches began to move out. tlk and yourself ask 'who left and why did they go'. Well, the biggest loss of those who remained at Holy Ghost after the exodus from Tremont was from being called home to the Lord and there kids either go to another church or don't go to church at all. The point here to be learned is that St. Theodosius overcame and adapted to the situation by evangelizing and taking in 'outsiders'. Holy Ghost having 7-20 people on Sundays tells you all that you need to know as to whether they did any evangelizing.

Going back to the fact that many people were lost at Holy Ghost by being called home to the Lord and are now left with a very small attendance on Sundays, don't think for a second that this isn't going to happen at others churches in our Eparchies if the current path is not changed.


While the OCA has declined in overall numbers like the BCA since its glory days during the first half of the 20th century, from the churches that I have attended I see a trend in a different direction from what I see at BCA churches. There are young kids, converts, when I do the math with peoples' ages in the next 20 years I'm not the only one standing there in the church. Sadly at many of the BCA churches in Northeast Ohio that is pretty much the truth.

Monomakh

We know that unless the Archeparchy is willing to combine some congregations in declining areas and use the resources in areas of potential growth as well as support people who are willing to do the work to establish missions designed to become healthy Churches we will continue to decline. Will we do it? Got me.

CDL

be that as it may. but I'm sorry. what is convenient is NOT a reason, even a poor one, to convert to another Communion. there are many people who convert out of spiritual conviction, and I can't help but wonder if convenience conversions by a few does not cheapen the true convert's experience in the eyes of the world.
Much Love,
Jonn

Dear Monomakh:

I am not sure how your response addresses my posts. Do we need evangelzation, of course - as I indicated in the first post. Is there evidence that the OCA is doing a better job of this? Yes. Are there lessons applicable to us to be learned from that? Yes, at least some.

But:
It is important to really understand what is happening. What other churches did the absent Holy Ghost parishioners go to? Did they move far away, did they just go to other BCC churches in the area in better neighborhoods, did they decide to go to the closest Catholic (RCC) church. As Dan points out, the shifting demographics in the old country mean that we will close parishes. I don't doubt that every closure will be reported here and agonized over, even as new outreach initiatives in Idaho, Washington, California receive little or no attention.

What is the evangelical value of highlighting declining parishes while paying little notice of vital ones. I saw this on another board:
I am pretty confident that the person who posted this hasn't really thought this through. Fifty years ago, for example, we had nothing going on in the West. Now we have 19 parishes ith 1100 families, and at least 4 mission/outreach initiatives. While the eparchy is smaller than OCADoW, mast notably in missions, the development is clear enough to show the thoughtlessness of the the post.

As I said before, there are examples of success in our own church to inform these discussion. Dismissing such examples, coupled with the elevation of e.g, the OCA as the epitome of success is not IMO particularly helpful.

And it just is not accurate.
Here [ocanews.org] is a view seen of someone within the OCA of the challenges that that church is facing.

DJS,

"I am pretty confident that the person who posted this hasn't really thought this through. Fifty years ago, for example, we had nothing going on in the West. Now we have 19 parishes ith 1100 families, and at least 4 mission/outreach initiatives. While the eparchy is smaller than OCADoW, mast notably in missions, the development is clear enough to show the thoughtlessness of the the post."

Could you define "West" for us? If you mean West of Cleveland, then you are mistaken. If you mean West of Kansas City, then, you may be right. I do not know.

CDL

West: What is now the Eparchy of Van Nuys (give or take Alaska in the above discussion). Rocky Mountain states and points west. West of Cleveland? Reminds me of that old New Yorker cover.

I can't really see Catholics becoming Orthodox over the divorce issue, or contraception, because unfortunately, a significant percentage of Catholics simply ignore the church's teaching on those issues. The fact that now controversial topics like that are seldom addressed from the pulpit, doesn't help matters either. It's true that traditional Catholics often say, in regards to Protestants, "If you don't like the spouse you married, you just go and get a divorce" but they often forget that conservative Protestants say in regards to Catholics "If you don't like the spouse you married, you just go and get an annulment".

Zenovia

I'm sure it was just a small error on your part, but Catholics do not adore the Pope.

djs,

St. Theodosius(OCA) and Holy Ghost(BCA) both went through a decline starting around the 60s. Both the OCA and BCA experienced growth in the suburbs of Northeast Ohio. Also in the last 50 years out 'west' both churches have experienced growth.

Somehow St. Theodosius has overcome and adapted to the situation that exists and get around 200 people for Sunday Liturgy. Holy Ghost gets 7-20. We aren't talking about a few people more, we're talking about 10-15 times of a difference. You can make excuses and wonder what the legitmate reason that Holy Ghost is on the verge of being empty is, the fact is that St. Theodosius experienced similar problems, at the same time, in the same neighborhood, and yet are moving in a positive direction.

No matter how many excuses you come up with or say that the comparison is not valid, doesn't make the comparison not valid. For third or fourth time, two churches founded at the same time, by similar people, less than a mile apart, experiencing the same demographic issues, with completely radical different results today in terms of practice and attendance is a valid comparison and just because you don't like the results, well too bad.

I noticed in your past posts that you say you are all in favor of evangelization, but don't take anyone to task for a lack of progress in this area. You are for restoration, but are content to wait forever and a day for it to occur. Just complaining is not going to solve our problems, but not acting or having any leadership in our church is unacceptable and acting, and having leadership will go a long way to solving our problems.


One of the things you are right on is that the OCA is not the 'epitome' of success. Yet how sad is it that relative to the BCA they are?

Monomakh

I have excused nothing. The fact that you cannot see the limitations on the validity of your comparison is too bad, but doesn't make it a valid one. The fact that you like the results doesn't make it valid either.

I'll repeat the two points I think are important.

1) Limited sampling of data can lead to erroneous conclusions that can, in turn, lead to false identifications of the problems and of the solutions. Why fixiate on this limited comparison rather than looking at the broader picture from which surer conclusion can be drawn?

2) I think that the tendency of many posters to post negatively about our church - in ways that are often at best poorly informed, and frequently just baseless - is poor evangelism. I understand when opponents of our church post this way, I don't understand when its members do.

The point being what? Do you really think that the taking-to-task of Bishop's that goes on here is really profitable, in particular for evangelism. Do you think that dissing over minutiae is profitable? As to waiting forever: if I were associated with Holy Ghost, I would be singing the Matins before Sunday liturgy, NOW; what are you waiting for?

I don't disagree with this at all. Not at all. But we probably disagree about what constitutes "just complaining" and what constitutes "acting" and "leadership".

I think the witness of these two congregations has some signicance. But it should be enough for all of us to realize that we seem to be a ship without direction going toward a whirlpool about to suck us under. How much longer can we with any integrity continue to subsidize congregations who have shown little or no interest in reaching new people and for whom strategies exist for their growth.

Whatever plan we may have, and for the life of me I cannot discern any, needs to be dismantled and we need to start over using the examples of parishes that are growing as starting points. Why should there be any disagreement over that?

CDL

djs,

Any organizational analysis will take a wholistic and realistic view of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (the classic SWOT analysis).

I respect your opinion and analysis re: this. I can certainly see that it would be more effective to focus on our strengths and opportunities, rather than exclusively on our weaknesses and threats. Following the Pauline principle of "overwhelming evil with an abundance of good", we need a positive strategy to support our restoration and mission, while being realistic about our challenges.

So what would you propose? If you could recommend a game plan for a parish like Holy Spirit, what might that be? What type of "action" and "leadership" are required to make it happen at all levels of the church?

Gordo

Originally posted by djs:
But the truth of the situation makes it valid and that is what I have written about.

The ship is sinking and noone is supposed to ask why all of the water is coming in. Noone is supposed to ask what the heck is going on. Two churches virtually next to each other are going in two different directions but there's nothing to worry about because it is poor sampling. I'm sure it's fine everywhere else. Father Loya must be incorrect when he says that we are imploding as a church.

Here, have some more koolaid.

Have fun singing them by yourself in 15 years. Our leadership thinks just like you and it's no mystery where we're all going.

Monomakh

I believe what Monomakh is trying to point out is you have two churches in the same area -- one adapted, one did not. Obviously, there are people who live in the area (I know this for a fact)who attend church. They just don't attend OUR church. Wherever there are people, there is a need for God. So you can keep saying the people left because they moved to the 'burbs, but what about evangelizing to the people who currently live there? Are they not worthy souls to fill our churches? Or do they not have the right last names and the right color skin?

It's a sad, sad day when we have to "relocate" a church because all its members moved away. Why are we not evangelizing to the people in the neighborhood? Maybe they wouldn't be "bad neighborhoods" if we invited them in to hear the word of God!

When you talk of moving churches to fill population needs, I laugh. It's the most laughable statement I've ever heard! It says we do not understand the Gospel enough to proclaim it in every language, which is excatly what we are supposed to be doing! Every time we relocate it shows how clannish we are, not how Christian we are!

Every church, including Holy Ghost, should be busting at the seams, but it will only happen if the people inviting them into our churches are living examples of the Gospel.

As a cradle Byzantine, I have witnessed others asking new members their last name, what their ethnicity is, etc. How sad. A priest once said to me that our ethnicity was going to be our undoing. I think it's going to be a close finish with our liturgical tradition being monkeyed with and our lack of evangelization.

Stay tuned, the coming years are going to be interesting!