Window Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 2, 1993 Copyright 1993 [Permission is granted to use, print, reproduce this article provided the following acknowledgment is given: From Window Quarterly 3, 2 (1993); ACRAG c. 1993. *** A WAKE UP CALL by Fr. Yeprem Kelegian At a hotel, when a wake up call comes, some people are indifferent, some are angry, some appreciate it and some say the operator has the wrong number. This is a wake up call. The institution of the Armenian Church in America has ceased to be a "church" and has become more of a pious fraternal social club. If your response is indifference, there is no need to read on. If you disagree or simply want to read on, consider the following description of what a "church" is meant to be: The Church is a group of people who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and gather periodically, but especially on Sunday, to rejoice in their salvation and to praise the Lord. In addition, they are a group of people who all love one another because they have been so loved by Christ. The Armenian Church, established by St. Gregory the Illuminator, is a group of Armenians and non-Armenians who gather to worship and love Christ in a particular way, based on certain Traditions and customs. The prime focal point of a church is Jesus Christ. All energy and effort are poured into serving, loving and knowing Jesus Christ. And, of course, there may also be many who come to church because they are yet seeking the higher being whom the other members of the church have already met. If this is a broadly acceptable definition of a church, what can we say about the present state of the Armenian Church? Consider the following "reality checks" for our churches and her sub-organizations: Church attendance: This Sunday, calculate the percentage of our community which attends church. Then, deduct anyone not born in America and deduct the first generation Armenians. Then, deduct those who may have simply come in the last 20 minutes for hokehankist. Then, calculate the number of second and third generation Armenians. If the numbers are low, this is partial evidence that we have not effectively done our job of creating a "church." We have been more concerned with creating and maintaining our Armenian ethnic community. This is natural. But the effect of not making Jesus Christ central is that many of those in the second and third generation, so distant from the soil of the "old country," cannot identify enough with this Armenian identity. Perhaps, if we had made our focal point Jesus Christ, more of the second and third generation would be in the church today. Our Church members: Are they primarily interested in building loving Christian relationships with all others? Before you answer that, have you ever talked negatively about a fellow parishioner with others or, worse yet, while your children were listening? It is a sad fact that in many of our parishes everyone who walks in is not received with unconditional love. We must remember that we are a "church" only if members are exhibiting the love of God to all others in the community. Our Clergy: Do we, the clergy, get along with and attempt to love one another? The youth in the Eastern Diocese were very clear in their observations of the Armenian clergy that was presented to the 1992 Clergy Conference. They said: "As the leaders of Christian faith, we want to see you, our clergy, illustrate more love and respect for each other and we want to see you work together for the betterment of our Church. We often hear clergy gossiping about their fellow clergymen and feel that there is too much competition and not enough cooperation. We feel that respect and cooperation amongst the clergy is essential if the clergy, as the spiritual leaders of our flock, are to teach us by example." (see Window, Vol. II, No. 4, 1992, Call to Excellence, p. 19.) The youth have said it all in this statement. Parish Council meeting and Diocesan Assemblies: Very little, if any, time is allotted to the real work of the church. We spend very little time on things like Christian outreach, bringing people closer to the God, Christian education, the spiritual needs of the youth, the elderly and the children of the church. For example, encouraged by the Primate, at the 1992 Diocese Assembly there was a three hour discussion on the youth. The discussion was interesting. However, one fourth of the delegates and more than one half of the Diocesan Council chose not to be present. How can we call these meetings "church" activities, if precious little "church" work is being done? How we hinder the youth of our communities: In many of our communities we treat our youth as if we don't want them involved. We, unfortunately, regard the youth as the "future." This sentiment relegates them to a non-existent "present" in the church. We must now begin to nurture and guide our youth to roles of leadership.... A thirty year old young person is being "incorporated" into the community by giving him/her jobs, such as clearing tables, cleaning the church yard, and, generally, doing the work others do not want to do. We must all be doing these types of jobs together. We must encourage our youth to become members of the church and then listen to them. We must encourage them to run for positions as Parish Council members and Diocesan Delegates. We can make room for them by having a few Parish Council members and Delegates, who have been in their positions for years or decades, STEP ASIDE. Yes, step aside and let younger people serve the church and try out their ideas. If you think they do not have enough experience for these positions, how will they ever get that experience if some of our more tenured people don't step aside? If we keep youth in the "future" tense, they may not be there when we need them later. Bazaars and dinners: Great food. Do we hold them primarily to draw people closer to the church? Or is making money is the primary reason? If it is the latter, stop them. Some will say that money is necessary to keep the church alive. Wrong. These events simply allow us to subsist. A living church would have parishioners giving themselves financially to support the church. Then bazaars and dinners could be held for the right reasons: to bring people together; to allow others to be attracted by our Christian joy and love; to have those preparing the "feast" the opportunity to work together in harmony with others; to bring children together with their elders to cook and eat food which has been prepared with love. Bingo, Monte Carlo and organized lotteries in the church: These activities can never be justified for any good purpose in the church. Religious education: While Bingo, dances and dinners abound, attendance at Bible Studies and Adult Christian Education programs is almost non-existent. The knowledge of our faithful regarding the faith of the Armenian Church is negligible. A good portion or our faithful do not know much more than Sts. Thaddeus and Bartholomew; that we converted with great stubbornness to Christianity through the blood of non-Armenian martyrs (St. Gayane, St. Hripsime and their sisters) and the living martyrdom of another non- Armenian, St. Gregory; that we should be rejoicing over the martyrdom of those who fell in 1915 rather than mourning them as political martyr-victims. Honoring people: In the church, we honor people who have money, will give money or have given money, especially on a Diocese level. A church, however, would recognize a person for his/her Christian witness, selfless Christian love and Christian action. Then that person - being a person who wants all praise to go to God - would refuse the honor. Our Youth Groups: Our agenda is not to radically convert our youth to the love of God. Because of this, they will eventually see the hypocrisy of us using the oxymoron of "Armenian Christian Youth Organization." On the whole, can we honestly call ourselves a church anymore? On the whole, is the Armenian Church as an "institution" synonymous with the "Body of Christ," directed by the Holy Spirit to do the will of God the Father? The church is not a building. The church is a group of people who have "the mind of Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16). We are not to be ordinary people. We are to be God's "fellow workers; God's field; God's building," (I Corinthians 3:9). We must either accept our compromised position and stop calling our institution a "church," or we must step away from our hypocrisy and build a "church." Where do we go from here? For a moment, let us look to the church in Armenia. When I was in Armenia preaching in the winter of 1992, I was struck by the effects of faith. They have been substantially stripped of everything: heat, electricity, water, food, housing, employment, physical safety.... On a "Maslow-ian" scale of needs, they are at the very bottom. Yet, a great segment of them have hope and, yes, joy because they have turned to Jesus Christ for Salvation...not as a crutch... Armenians in Armenia are not psychologically weak. They have turned to Jesus Christ as a real solution. He is not a myth or a story or a fantasy. He is real to them. I was struck by the fact that most of those who go to church services, prayer meetings or religious education class go because they have faith in Jesus Christ or are seeking Him. What a beautiful and simple concept: they are Armenians who go to church because they believe in or want to believe in Jesus Christ. What a great "model" of a church! What makes it difficult for us in America to move toward this model? First, we are generally distracted by affluence, busy-ness, the cares of this world. In Armenia, they have been stripped of material goods and, thus, are forced to reflect on what is important. In America, money, basic safety and comfort have kept us insulated. As we have become "safer" and more secure, we have sensed less of a need for God. Thus, we not only physically moved far from the church in pursuit of suburbia, but we have also spiritually drifted. At the same time, our extended families have been weakened and even our "nuclear" families are in trouble. For those who can remember back forty years, remember what a family might do on a summer night? Probably sit on the porch and talk with each other and the passing neighbors... or go down the street to visit friends. Today, if a family is home together at all, they might be in their own rooms or all huddled around the television. With the family unit disintegrating, our churches are suffering because the church "Family" depends on the sanctity and wholeness of the individual families. Affluence and family structure are only two probable causes which keep us from being a true church. What are the various solutions? Perhaps the only solution is for us to be brought to our knees by a depression. I hope not. Certainly liturgical reform is necessary. One of the reforms we need to make is for families to come to church services together and pray together. The Sunday School cannot teach a child to worship and pray. That is the daily job of parents, grandparents and god parents. It is spiritually unnatural for parents to drop the children off at Sunday School and then go to church (or to the local restaurant). To implement this simple concept all that is needed is a shorter service and a service more understandable to the second and third generation parents (perhaps the traditional two and half hour service could be reserved for a dozen or so Feast Day Sundays). After services the children go to Sunday School; toddlers and infants are probably ready to go home; the remaining adults stay for sermon/educational program. The only problem with this plan is that some families come to the services very late and some parents don't even come. Faith cannot be forced on anyone. We need to look at the basic structure of our the church also. If a parish has over 250 families, a new parish should be formed. You can imagine the objections to such an idea. But it stands to reason that a very large parish cannot be a church "Family." We need to address the problem of people living a great distance from the church, e.g. 30-60 minutes away. This is a common problem. What is necessary in these cases is for "satellite" groups to be set up. Find a family or two which would periodically be willing to invite the fellow parishioners in their area to their home for a church get- together... invite the priest and have a service. There is also a need for some real loving Christian outreach. We must have large numbers of people in each parish making a concerted effort to reach out to people who do not feel a part of the church, to new people in the community, to those on the fringes. Their sole motivation must be love. There are many other solutions which can be applied to the problem. However, the only solution is Jesus Christ. The only way for Christ to work is for a critical mass of people in all churches to accept Him as their personal savior; to make God their first priority. Once this happens, everything in our churches will be transformed. More people will attend, because faith and love can be contagious. The church will be spiritually and emotionally attractive. All our activities will take on a new meaning. They will be opportunities to serve and love Jesus Christ and each other. It is time to wake up. If we continue along our present path, the Armenian Church in America will spiritually languish and wilt. Yes, we will still have great bazaars, dances, dinners, bingo, picnics...but there will be a spiritual emptiness. If we can find ways, methods, energy and the will to convert our people to Jesus Christ, then we are on the road to growth. Where does this change start? It starts with me. I end this article still grappling with my own hypocrisy. How centered am I on Christ? Do I give the love and acceptance Jesus has given me to others? The Lord has entrusted me to be an "ambassador" of His reconciliation.... The "love of Christ" must control me (II Corinthians 5:14-20). The wake up call is ringing. We must respond to the call if we are once again to be the Armenian Church. *** =================================================== _ _ _ _ _ |_| ___ _| | ___ _ _ _ | | | | | | _ / _ \ / _ | / _ \ | | | | | | | |_| |_| || |_ | | | || |_| || |_| || |_| |_| | \_________/\___||_| |_| \___/ \___/ \_________/ View Of The Armenian Church ===================================================