The End of Central Easter Camp - An Autopsy
This week, Central Easter Camp announced they won't be running this year. The reason? “We don’t have enough people to make camp happen.”
This struck me, because only a week ago I was in Auckland talking to a group of church leaders where we reflected that the end of Easter Camp must be coming. Not because Easter Camp is inherently bad or mismanaged, but because the decline of the Aotearoa church is coming for us all.
I am not setting out to denigrate the important work of Easter Camp leaders who have no doubt helped to lead countless people to faith. I have spoken at these events myself, and I know the positive impact they can have. But as an Anglican Priest, I know what decline smells like.
Our Anglican congregations are shrinking and closing rapidly, as are those of our Catholic sisters and brothers. For a while, I think many put this decline down to the traditional shape of our worship. But as less traditional denominations are beginning to fade, we are realising that the Anglo-Catholics were just the canary in the coal mine. What has begun with the Anglicans is now moving to the Baptists, and when there is no more transfer growth left for independent commuter churches to take from neighbourhoods, they too will come into decline. Not even the mega-churches will be insulated from the wave that is slowly crashing. They have just built their houses a little further up the beach, but we’re still all built on sand.
The inability to find a suitable team to lead the Baptist Youth Movement’s showpiece event is a significant moment in the story of church decline here in Aotearoa because it is reflective of what we’re seeing in the Church and broader New Zealand society. People do not want to lead. As a 13 year-old new-believer I would go to big events like Easter Camp, Parachute, and CTC. As one of the few Christians at my school, I would get to stand in a field or an auditorium surrounded by tens of thousands of people who were following Jesus. It was powerful. And as I’d look to the stage and the people who were leading us, I would think about what an enormous privilege it would be to one day lead crowds of people to love and follow the living God.
Simply put: I wanted to lead.
Amidst the mixed teenage motives of ego, fame, and sexual frustration, I think I genuinely did believe that leading in God’s Church was a worthy and beautiful calling. Sadly, I don’t think that is the case for our young people anymore. But why not?
Firstly, we have entertained them rather than discipling them. We believed that if we could just “keep them in the room” and get them to marry someone else of faith, then young people might sustain their commitment to Jesus. But as the culture has shifted, we’re realising that wasn’t enough. Even though God was without doubt moving at Easter Camps around Aotearoa, the medium is the message: a consumer experience creates consumers. And when the reality of faith hits - which often feels like it takes more than it gives - these kids were not equipped for the long road with God. And when they aren’t following Jesus, they aren’t here to lead the next generation to do the same.
Secondly, we live in an age of institutional deconstruction. Many have lost trust in our leaders - both in state and religion - to be people of character that we can trust to follow. Largely, we do not believe in the ability of large organised groups of people to come together and make positive change. This is both a response to years of public leadership failures, and a reflection of our increasing capitalistic individualism which struggles to cooperate or play well with others. We are now used to an extraordinary level of comfort and convenience, and interpersonal relationships are scarcely comfortable or convenient, especially in institutions. Why would a young person stand up to lead when they might have to be tainted by all the complexity of a larger institution of people trying to follow God?
Finally, we live in an age of ideological puritanism. There is a saying: you can’t be everything to everyone. But within our current moment, the expectation of perfection from leaders is crushing. They must be pastorally present and loving at all times; or be seen as lacking empathy. But they must also have the strategic skills to run organisations which are completely healthy, for risk of having created toxic environments. Add to this that they must be actively engaged and social-media quick in their responses in advocating on a myriad of causes which they deeply care about. A failure in any of these can lead to enormous scrutiny, often from those who are perhaps well-meaning, but have themselves never had to lead or make decisions in situations where there is no path of ideological purity. Why would a young person want to lead if leadership means exposing themselves to this kind of scrutiny?
So where will the future leaders of the church come from?
Three thoughts:
Firstly, entertainment is not enough. None of us will be able to compete with the scale and spectacle around us at the moment, and I don’t think we’re meant to. Remember that the early Church flourished in little house churches despite the oppression of the Empire, not by co-opting its methods. It’s time to go low, slow, patient, faithful, and unspectacular. I remind the team of our little church in Brooklyn each week: “no one can out local us!”
Secondly, there is nothing more generative or life-giving to the Church than the presence of those who have just met Jesus. If there is to be a future for the Church of Aotearoa, it will be people who don’t know Jesus yet. It’s time to divert our resources and our energy away from providing more comfort to the congregation, and instead equipping our people to know and share the Good News to those who have never heard it.
Thirdly, we need to disciple people in such a way that they can suffer discomfort, misunderstanding, scrutiny, and accusation without questioning their core identity in God. We need to help our young leaders to have a supernatural security that allows them to weather the cultural tide without being eroded by it. In short, we need to form people who believe that a hard life with Jesus is better than an easy life without him.
My friends, decline is coming. In the coming decades the Aotearoa Church is going to undergo a seismic change which will be far bigger than any one conference or convention. But as we know, the people of God are at their most potent at the moment of death. Here is our resurrection opportunity, but only if we are courageous enough to take it.
Rev. Scottie Reeve
Scottie heads up the Catch Network. He loves helping people starting brand new things to make it through the trickiness and the loneliness of starting from scratch. Scottie is based in Wellington.