The Proclamation of Free Grace, Pt. 2
The Church’s Freedom from Anxiety for the Future
About the author: Sara Mannen is the McDonald-Agape Research Fellow in Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen. She is working with Professor Tom Greggs on the Ecclesiology After Christendom project. Sara recently completed her PhD on the concept of divine personhood in Karl Barth. She is passionate about theological study, especially modern and contemporary doctrines of God, and its import for the life of the church and world. She currently lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with her husband and two daughters.
As we noted in Part 1, we live in a time that is often difficult and challenging for those in ministry in the church, regardless of denomination. The church in the US (and Europe) is facing a continuing long-term decline in attendance, which has led to more churches closing their doors than new ones opening in recent years. Nearly a third of adults in the United States identify as religiously unaffiliated. Often called religious “nones,” this group identifies variously as atheistic, agnostic, or with no religion in particular.
The church faces a vastly different cultural and religious landscape from several decades ago. With these changing conditions, there can often be a soul-crushing anxiety for the church's future and its ministry's future success. The worry for the church's future can leave the minister feeling like they are in a pressure cooker being squeezed from all sides with the demand for “success.”
Many in ministry have directly felt the pressure for “success,” whether that pressure comes from their bishop, presbytery, elder board, congregation, or personal expectations. Although the desire to participate in the church’s success in the future is admirable (who does not want to see the growth of the gospel through transformed lives and local communities?), success is usually defined narrowly. Success in these circumstances is generally described as numerical growth of attendance and financial resources. Pursuing this type of “success” leads to pastoral burnout and attempts to control the “success” of the church through compelling pastoral personalities, ministry methods, and programs.
What is the importance of the church’s purpose in proclaiming God’s free grace in these circumstances? I believe the church’s commission to proclaim God’s grace frees the church from precisely this worry and anxiety for the future “success” of the church.
As stated in my first post on this topic, the church’s commission to preach the free grace of God reminds the church on whom it relies—the God who is grace. It is vital to remember that after Peter confesses Christ as the Son of the living God, Jesus states: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The One the church trusts promises that nothing will prevail against the church—the God of grace has chosen the church, and God is the one who will ensure its future—not us.
Importantly, in Acts 2, Peter preaches the gospel at the beginning of the church’s formation. The church is not an end in itself; its purpose to proclaim and embody the gospel is its life and being.1 The message of God’s free grace generates a hopeful trust in God. The church is free from worry about its future and success because it knows the God of grace is its future.
The church recognizes that God works through its various activities of proclamation—worship, service, administering the sacrament, and preaching, to name a few. The church's activities are not the source or guarantee of its future—this is exactly what grace tells us. Barth states: “God’s free grace. Because it is free, it is not bound to human ways and means.”2 This means that we can seek to plan for ministry wisely, but the success and future of the church are never under our control. Thankfully, the church's future does not rely on its ability to create the “right” formula or method for “effective” ministry—through human ways and means. The future and success of the church are always the result of God’s gracious working and action through the church.
Although it is God’s grace at work through the church, that does not devalue the human response to grace. God’s grace calls for a response from us as it seeks to make us witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.3
Importantly, the worry for the church’s future wanes once we understand that God’s free grace can work through the frail, struggling, sinful, and broken church. The difficult and challenging circumstances of the church are no hindrance to the God who works salvation for all through Jesus of Nazareth. Barth is straightforwardly honest about God’s grace at work “even when proclaimed in a stupid manner.”4 With his characteristic bite, he states:
God’s free grace. Because it is free, it has the power to do its work even among us miserable sinners, to set its word even in our foolish and wicked hearts, and even on our filthy lips . . . Even the Church, which one might sometimes have reason to think of as the darkest of all dark places, even the Church is no hindrance to God’s grace.5
Now, this in no way excuses the foolishness, wickedness, or darkness that can be in the church (which I participate in as a member and miserable sinner. I have also addressed this issue here).6 The Bible is full of examples of God’s grace at work despite the frail, miserable sinner starting with Cain and ending with the Apostle Paul.
I am confident many ministers can identify with this sentiment—who am I to proclaim this message? I am an unworthy sinner. Why do I even bother? Have you seen the state of the church? The church's commission to proclaim grace becomes vital when we feel like giving up in the face of real struggles and a bleak future. The church itself is grounded by the love and grace of God in Christ.
The church’s end to proclaim grace is not just about the words of the church but about its whole existence.7 The church's success cannot be reduced to a numerical increase. Instead, the church should be concerned with seeing holistic growth in its ministry instead of numerical “success.” This means ministers and others can evaluate the expansion of their ministry by the extent to which the church community embodies the proclamation of grace.
Are people being transformed by the Holy Spirit? Is the church faithfully preaching the Word? Is the church serving the wider community? These are important measures of growth.
The proclamation of grace means the church is free from worrying about the future despite its current troubled state. My next post focuses on the church’s freedom from nostalgia. As the church trusts God for the future and redefines success in terms of holistic growth, it no longer needs to look longingly to a “perfect” past that it attempts to emulate.
Karl Barth, “The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace,” in God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (New York: Routledge, 2003), 48–49.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 43.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 42–43; cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4 vols. in 13 pts, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75), IV/3, 481–680.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 53.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 41.
Barth is clear that part of the church’s freedom is that its proclamation of free grace includes its own judgment and the freedom to be reformed of all its deformations (Barth, “Proclamation,” 52).
Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/2, 646–7.
What a refreshing post!
Amen and Amen! Sara. it is a word the whole church needs. We have become captive to demonic notions of success and evangelism as a numbers game rather than life-style that brings new life to us as well as those we are called to serve.
Fred R. Anderson
Pastor Emeritus,
Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church,
NY, NY.