It’s the best of times to be Jesus.
And the worst of times to be his church.
Larry’s a prime example. I met him through his girlfriend, a member of my congregation. Fresh out of medical school in Memphis, Larry prayed often. Read Scripture (Christian, Muslim and Buddhist). Enjoyed meditating. Served the poor. In fact, Larry believed no one lived a finer life or died a more noble death than Jesus. “I want to be just like him,” Larry told me once.
Larry couldn’t think more of Jesus.
Or less of the church.
“I don’t need the church,” he flatly stated. “The church is hypocritical and power-driven,” he asserted. “The church keeps its hands open for money and its eyes closed to injustice.”
And Larry lived what he preached. Larry had not darkened the door of a church in years.
It’s the best of times to be Jesus. His poll numbers couldn’t be higher.
And the worst of times to be his church. Its polls couldn’t be lower.
Whether we’re talking about the “rise of the nones” (those with no religious affiliation), the “millennials,” or Western culture in general, Christians (especially young ones) are walking out of churches in droves. Non-Christians are turning down churches in packs.
Writers like David Kinnaman (You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith (Baker, 2011) and UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity and Why It Matters (Baker, 2007)) point out with cold clarity how outsiders and insiders are repelled by their perception of the church as a hypocritical, irrelevant and shallow institution. More recently, James Emery White (The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated (Baker, 2014)) finds that a growing number in Western society reject the church because it’s too political, too violent and too consumeristic.
What do we do? Most churches pick one of two solutions: Stay the course or sell out.
On the one hand, some churches stay the course. Frozen in a 1950’s (or fill in your decade of choice) way of doing church, they insanely assume that by doing the same things in the same way, eventually they’ll get different results. Just keep rowing–never mind that the boat’s taking on water. A Christian leader recently replied on social media to something I had written about this very approach. In my piece, I had called churches to explore what it might look like to incarnate Jesus in this post-Christian culture. My social-media-watchdog objected that Jesus “is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow” and that the church’s attempts to change Jesus in order to attract young people are blasphemous. Sadly, this gatekeeper had mistakenly equated the living and dynamic Jesus of Scripture with the dead and culturally-imprisoned ways in which his church had been expressing Jesus.
On the other hand, some churches sell out. They look to culture to solve the issue. If the church can look enough like the world around it, it may have a fighting chance to make a comeback. (Don’t misunderstand me. I’m in favor of contextualization. What I’m talking about here is the wholesale loss of all biblical values in an effort to be “relevant”).
Where’s your church? Staying the course? Selling out? Something far better?
(to be continued)
I hesitate to answer this, knowing everyone is where they’re at precisely because it’s where they want to be… But, I’ll offer this..
I spent about 10 years trying to figure out what change was needed in the church. I even wrote it out in a little purple book called “Pure Gospel”, available on Amazon. I was commenting one day on a Francis Chan post about his efforts to the same in a bit of frustration that his seemed rather blind. And, then I read a quote by a pastor named Garris Elkins that week, and it ended my whole 10-year search, and changed my mind…
In a FB line, he mentioned going home from a John Wimbur conference back in the day, and his final admonishment was just, “Just go home and do what’s in the book.”. And, with fresh faith in what was already there, they went home and did exactly that…. That’s all, in the end, there really is… Not form, not program, just believing a little more.
I searched for 10 years because I wanted to search. I finally saw it was just by faith because I wanted to stop thinking and believe…
I suppose most people will carry on just as they have been. I know, as I was thinking a few days ago, the church will change, but it is wrong to change it. River beds change when the rivers overflow them, and its just plain silly to dig a ditch and cry, “Here river, river, river…”.
For those interested in changing the church, I would say its a sign of unbelief… They don’t actually believe in God, so to speak, because they believe more in the river bed than the river Himself. Get God, and the bed will take shape accordingly.
In terms of what that looks like practically, I would say it probably means just one thing: P-R-A-Y…. It is said that it alone is the doorway to knowing God. I dont think, even if you kept the most antiquated style, most boring atmosphere, and staunchest holiness preaching, if you really had God, you could keep people away, because this is exactly what John the Baptist was, and he drew hundreds of thousands over a few months… And, his only sermon was, Repent.
I think, if we really had Him, we wouldn’t care, so long as someone cleaned the loo.
Benjamin,
I do truly appreciate your call to prayer. If Acts says anything, it says that God moves mountains and prayer moves God.
I’ve found it helpful to think of change in incarnational terms. The question is not really “how do we change the church” but “how does the church incarnate the gospel in a new culture”?
How do we incarnate the Gospel? In ourselves, of course…. “On this rock I will build my church…”, Peter was the man with the revelation.. The question that I think is ambiguous is “in a new culture?” Many have their opinions… In my opinion, it’s not just a “message”, but a “message about a person”.. My job isn’t to connect people with a culture, my job is to connect them with Him.. Which is quite different with equating it with dead and imprisoned mindsets… Perhaps you have, but maybe one could glean a bit from studying how previous generations did what you’re envisioning.. How did John Wesley do it to his culture? Wykliffe? etc… The challenge is not new, it just always begins with “you”..
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