RIO RANCHO, N.M. (RNS) A dozen Presbyterian teenagers learned important lessons this week in the difference between work-and-outcomes vs. “magical thinking.”

In a mainline denomination whose latest national statistics show alarming decay, they boldly collaborated with parents and a professional chef to put on a spaghetti dinner for mission funding.

From table settings to matching T-shirts to serving food, they tended to details. They saw the payoff of being friendly and businesslike. In an auction of desserts, they learned that gooey brownies sell better than banana bread. They saw that mission zeal matters to grown-ups.

If they paid attention, they saw a few grown-ups moving deftly from table to table, making a special effort to welcome strangers, both white and dark-skinned. If they paid extra attention, they realized that these adults were taking them seriously, not as cuties who deserve to be cheered just for showing up, but as workers in a good cause.

At a time when many leaders are drifting into magical thinking, abandoning their posts to please mobs and take easy roads, these kids did the hard and open-eyed work of building a future.

Magical thinking is so alluring. Some religious hierarchs have embraced it, trying to legislate other people’s morality while shrouding their own failings in secrecy. Don’t count the missing, they say, and maybe pews will fill again. Don’t teach sacrifice and responsible biblical stewardship, they think, and maybe some “deep-pocket” givers will rescue the church budget.

Don’t take the risk of greeting strangers, and maybe they will stay because we looked good. Don’t listen to people’s needs, and maybe they will accept being ignored.

Politicians, too, are deep into magical thinking. Offer agendas based on what people want to hear, not any grasp of reality. Cater to people’s fears and anger, and don’t worry about what comes next. Get elected and stay elected, take secret millions to accomplish it, paralyze government to keep donor funds flowing, and somehow — voila! — the nation will grow stronger.

Such magical thinking extends to the idea that we can fight two wars without funding them, encourage fraud in finance, rescue banks but ignore the shrinking middle class, extend tax breaks to the wealthy, and somehow, as if by magic, the logical outcomes of such absurdity won’t happen.

Sell out the citizens, and when they turn sour, harvest their sourness for votes.

I came to this booming Albuquerque suburb to extend a bracing but hearable invitation to local Presbyterians. It’s the same invitation that needs to be heard at many mainline Protestant congregations where magical thinking is in full bloom.

Point one: There is a way forward. Your church can grow and thrive. Your community needs you to be healthy, to be training teenagers in sacrifice for mission and grown-ups in welcoming strangers. Methods for moving forward are available to you.

Point two: The way forward will require substantial change. You can’t just stay “steady on course.” The course that mainline churches are on is an accelerating death spiral. I estimate one-half to two-thirds of mainline congregations will be closed or severely curtailed within five years.

We need to end our magical thinking about change: that somehow we can keep doing what we’re doing but this time have better outcomes.

In this cold shower of reality, leaders in all venues need to stop chasing easy solutions that make people feel better.

They might learn from the Presbyterian teenagers I met. You don’t get points for showing up and being cute. You have to do the work.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)