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First Response: "No Church? No Problem?" |
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Written by Editor
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First Response: January 2006
“No Church? No Problem?”
By Don Williams
As we enter the New Year the church in the US and beyond is in spasms.
The issue of pedophilia severely damaged the integrity of the Roman
Catholic Church and spilled over into the Protestant church as well.
Gay clergy and gay marriage is splitting the Anglican Church
internationally and the Episcopal Church nationally. Emerging and
Post-modern churches continue their severe critique of the traditional
church while trying to reinvent their ministries. John Wimber’s dictum
that we are to love the whole church is lost in the shuffle.
In my own backyard (Southern California), the Presbyterian Church is in
crisis. The evangelical Pastor of the two thousand member La Jolla
Presbyterian Church (in San Diego) was removed and is now building an
independent church in the same community. Mark Slomka, the other
Presbyterian pastor in La Jolla, withdrew from the denomination, taking
hundreds of his people and joined the Foursquare Church. Hollywood
Presbyterian Church, which I served for 10 years, has accepted the
resignation of its two senior leaders after, unknown to the
congregation, they ran the church into several million dollars in debt.
While this has been treated by the Christian right as an attack upon a
historic evangelical church, it is really an issue of mismanagement and
cover-up. Now the former pastor is starting an independent church. The
list goes on and on. Take a look around your city; you may see the same
things happening.
No wonder George Barna, pollster for evangelical faith, has written
that more and more, serious Christians are abandoning church. His new
book, Revolution: Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the
Sanctuary (reviewed in Christianity Today, January 2006, and cited here
from that review) asserts that 20 million (and growing) serious and
radical Christians are no longer “coming to church.” He writes that we
are in a spiritual revolution “that is reshaping Christianity, personal
faith, corporate religious experience, and the moral contours of the
nation.” This is led by people seeking a “first century life-style”
based on “faith, goodness, love, generosity, kindness and simplicity.”
They zealously “pursue an intimate relationship with God.”
For this to happen these radicals no longer attend a local church and
seek a deeper connection with God. Barna believes that in 20 years only
a third of the population will attend traditional (or even
contemporary) churches. This will reduce their finances and influence
substantially. What will begin to pass away is a “congregational
formatted ministry,” which, over the centuries, the church “made up.”
Barna concludes, “Whether you become a revolutionary immersed in, and
minimally involved in, or completely disassociated from a local church
is irrelevant to me (and within boundaries) to God.” Barna illustrates
this with two fictional characters who eliminate church life from their
lives because they don’t find a ministry that is sufficiently
“stimulating” and their church, although better than average, still
“seems flat.”
These millions of “revolutionaries” are joining “mini-movements” such
as home schooling, house churches, Bible studies at work and “Chris
Tomlin worship concerts.” What matters is a “godly life.” If a local
church facilitates this – good. But if not, and a person can live a
godly life outside of a ‘congregation-based faith,’ then, that too, is
good.”
What are we to say to this? Clearly, if millions of serious Christians
are abandoning local congregational life, we need to know why. If it is
for the sake of individual piety and purity this is clearly
sub-biblical. It continues to play into Protestant individualism which
has only an optional place for the church. Biblically, upon conversion,
we don’t opt to “join the church.” We are joined to the church by the
Spirit of God. When Christ calls us to himself he calls us to himself
simultaneously. Paul writes that after we surrender our bodies to
Christ in worship we then become members of his body and individually
members of one another (See Romans 12:1-5). This theological truth must
be concretely embodied or it is “upper story theology” with no historic
or practical meaning. (Francis Schaeffer.).
That people see their church as insufficiently “stimulating”’ or “flat”
tells us something about the church and also something about them. On
the church side, the message may include the church’s accommodation to
the culture, losing any unique message or clear identity, its
traditionalism, its inability to minister across the generations, its
major focus on the pulpit (with largely lame preaching) or its major
focus on the sacraments (with the danger of boring repetition),
entertainment presentations including entertainment worship, a lack of
genuineness or reality in its relationships or communication
(Dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional churches.), its ignorance
of the power of the Spirit in healing and deliverance and low
expectations for discipleship (caring for the poor as well as personal
piety).
But there is another side, those people who find the church
unstimulating or flat. We are all narcissists and demand that the
church meet our needs and the needs of our families. Our question in
corporate worship is largely, “What do I get out of it?” rather than,
“What do I put into it?” Rather than presenting our bodies as living
sacrifices which is our “spiritual worship,” we present our needs and
expectations and like a child in a high chair, we pound on the tray
until we get mommies’ attention. No wonder John Wimber challenged the
selfish Christians of his generation when they demanded to be fed the
meat of the Word with the rejoinder, “The meat is on the street.”
My friend Philip called me yesterday with breathless excitement. He
spotted a black man in Hollywood needing a hip replacement. He
hesitated for a moment and then approached him, asking if he could pray
for his healing. The man immediately broke and began to cry. They ended
up with an intimate conversation, praying together on the street.
Whatever the outcome, Philip’s boldness against his fears brought joy
to himself and this new friend in pain. Whether inside the church walls
or outside, church is suddenly stimulating and rich. We will get out of
ourselves when we begin to, in John Wimber’s phrase, “Do the stuff,”
namely, do what Jesus did in the power of his Spirit. For this to
happen we not only need him, we need each other. We are designed to
live as his disciples in community – and that community is the church
(where, among other things, as Calvin said, the Word of God is preached
and the sacraments properly administered.). There is no other long term
option.
As I have been meeting weekly with a small group of young Christian
men, we are sharing our sexual and value struggles, our family wounds,
our sense of the Lord’s presence and our hopes for the future. Our
goals are not merely personal holiness; they are corporate holiness
that will impact this world. There is no godly life to be found in
going to the desert and withdrawing from each other. The true godly
life is found in committed relationships where our goal is to become
more like Jesus together in the multi-gifted body of Christ and do what
he does. After all, he said that the mark of our discipleship is our
love for each other. It is impossible to display this in isolation. It
is even hard to display this in home schooling, Bible studies at work
or a Chris Tomlin concert. Not only will we be unable to genuinely
display our love for each other (with the possible exception of a Bible
study), we will be unable to display the message and ministry of Jesus
to this broken world by healing the sick, casting out demons, bringing
social justice and building up the whole body of Christ together. In
A.A. they say, “When you isolate, you’re sick.” Barna is in danger of
encouraging millions of isolated Christians, on a selfish quest for
personal holiness, to stay isolated. If we do so, we stay sick and
that’s a bad place to be. Welcome to the exciting and boundless 2006!
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First Response 
