The church is in trouble and doesn’t know it. Everywhere across the Western world there are signs that Christianity is failing to win new members and having difficulty retaining existing ones. Of course the institution grinds on, with many of its guardians blissfully unaware that anything is amiss. But a new generation and an emerging post-Christian culture are both indifferent to, if puzzled by, the claims of Christ. Rapidly now, the West is becoming repository to the relics of a faith which once was central but now is peripheral.

In the antipodes we have a phenomenon known as ‘white anting’. It refers to the activity of the voracious white ant, which chews its way through woodwork of any sort. The interesting part of this pest’s method of operation is that it always works from the inside out. Timber framing looks in perfect condition from the outside, while in reality the heart of it has been entirely consumed, leaving it hollow. It is not unknown for an entire house to collapse, with no prior sign that anything else is wrong.

It is a useful analogy for the current predicament of the church. On the surface, it seems like business as usual. There are weddings and funerals to be conducted, prayers to be said, sermons to be preached and buildings to be maintained. In some sectors there are new spiritual experiences to be sampled, and a seemingly endless progression of fresh songs to be sung. But in the meantime, the church in the West is both withering and hemorrhaging. Increasingly, church adherents are sneaking quietly out the back door and not returning.

Many youthworkers are aware, if they allow themselves to be, of the difficulties of leading people to conversion in the contemporary culture. Of course there are exceptions, and the crisis-racked times of adolescence still are a time when people are more open to reviewing their life-commitments than at other stages. But here is the open secret: we are not succeeding in evangelism, and every year the Christian church in the West suffers a net loss.

It is not difficult to discover speakers who have easy answers. What we need is more commitment, a fresh approach, new music, an empowering experience, a better programme. But the truth is that such solutions are band-aids; temporary patches for a wound that goes right to the heart of the church. Serious problems call for serious solutions, and the contemporary crisis for Christianity in the West is of such proportions that it threatens the very survival of the enterprise.

No, at such times we need to dig a little deeper into the tradition that has been handed down to us, and reflect a little more keenly. The community of God’s people has survived many crises down through the ages, ranging from the Jewish people finding themselves in exile to the doctors of the church struggling with the discoveries of Galileo. In these situations, there is always a need for a reframing of the tradition to meet the challenges of the new age. Those who undertake are regarded as radicals and mistrusted, but the process cannot be avoided.

As we begin the third millennium, the West finds itself halfway through the sort of cultural transition which overturns the entire social order. What is sometimes spoken of as postmodernity or referred to as the emerging culture is the new mission environment for the church. It is a context which is still in a state of flux such that participants in it still don’t understand it. But the call of God leads us forward with the rest of society, to make the story of Christ known in this strange setting.

To date many Christian voices have been directed towards discounting postmodernity as a hostile climate for our faith. This denunciation brings to mind nothing so much as the majority voice of the spies sent across the border by Moses in Numbers 13. They rejected the land which God had brought them to, arguing that it was too dangerous to enter. As a consequence, the people of Israel spent another forty years wandering in the wilderness before finding the courage to enter the promised land.

The fact is that we don’t have to travel anywhere to be brought to the border of a strange land. Our society has changed so vastly and rapidly that we find ourselves displaced while still occupying familiar geography. It wasn’t so long ago that we could safely make the assumption that we were living in the ‘Christian West’. Part of that era was the security that the stories and traditions of Christianity were deeply embedded in the heart of the culture, even if many people rejected them.

Those days have gone. We are living in a mission field as strangers, and we need to adopt missionary strategies if we are to be true to our calling. The first principle of mission is that of understanding the environment in which we seek to proclaim Christ. That process has hardly begun for the Western church, I would suggest. There is a great deal of work to be done in learning the language and culture of the people we want to communicate with.

If we take such a task seriously, the church itself will have to change. The reformation called for is radical and far-reaching, and I can’t imagine that the institution will welcome it. There will be resistance and pain, as there always is with transformation. What is important is that we remember why it is that we’re undergoing the change, and find ways to support each other during the troubled days ahead.

Like the people assembled by Moses to hear the conflicting reports of the spies, we stand today on the threshold. It is not just the obvious one of the new millennium. For the church it is the border of faithfulness and relevance. It remains to be seen whether we have the courage to cross it or not.