Sometimes (when I feel brave) I wonder if my church is dying, for I know there is a season for everything.
The recent PEW research about America's changing religious landscape has got envagelicals all in a twitter of concern (pun intended), and spawned all sorts of blog essays, especially those that try and find a positive message amidst this news (e.g. evangelicals stay strong and nominals to nones). This push to try and understand the trend also causes some introspection about what we should really be worried about (e.g. Six things). But back to my church - its not in America, so why worry? Well, firstly the fact is our society follows the trends in America, so what we see happen there is very likely coming here, and arguably has already arrived. Secondly, the death of church-as-we-know-it is not the death of Christianity, but it is a huge red flag trying to get our attention and shouting at us that "you need to relearn how to be a relational christian". Yet we typically stumble along pretending all is ok and that business as usual is what we need to protect. What then. First, foremost, above all else, and never without, I need to ask the question "What does God want me to change (if anything)?" Without God in the drivers seat, I'm lost; up the creek without a paddle, let alone a GPS and a 3G link to ask google for help. Its worth reflecting on how and why churches die. This is a complex question, but I suggest we can identify some of the more common causes.
The church is not designed to be stuck in 17th century architecture with 18th century lyrics and 19th century organs using re-worked 20th century liturgy. God intended the church to be adaptable, to be dynamic - not in its theology - that's orthodox as there is only one God whose nature is unchanging. But dynamic in that the church serves the people, and people come in all shapes, sizes, cultures, habits, needs and world views. The church is made for change, we've clothed it in a straighjacket. Aside from the case of externally forced death, my understanding is that the remaining causes are all rooted in fear. We fear change, we fear reality, we fear who we are, we fear what we've become. Just like Adam and Eve after the apple (however literally or figutarively you take that). The Six things I linked above catpures some of these. We fear the magnitude of the challenge, we fear that we have something we should share, we fear relationship, we fear failure, we fear launching into the unknown, and we fear the mess of non-christians becoming engaged in the church. But we have not been given a Spirit of Fear (2Tim 1:17). Let me ask you, and myself, this question: What's the worst that can happen? Answer: my church will die. So what's the big deal about that? God is certainly bigger than one church stuck outside the mainstream of life. Unless I try, my church will still die. The "try" I need to do is to step over to where God has moved to, to stand there, which might be far away from here in my place of comfort. If my church dies while I try, whose responsibility is that? I would argue that if my "try" is in God's will, and the church dies, its God's problem, not mine; he has his reasons and I trust that he will work all things for good - its called "faith", and faith should not fear secular measures of failure or success. So I might as well take that Spirit-led step into the unknown and trust God for the outcome, because I've got nothing to lose of any lasting value. A quick thought on leadership: one cause of death is the failure of leadership to live 1Cor 9:19-23, in order to serve our calling of Matt 28:19, because we lack 1Cor 9:24-27, out of not having the strength of relationship to live in the greatest commandment of Luke 10:27. Basically, that says we've failed to step into the lives of others having expected them to step into church culture first, so we can't disabuse them of the distorted notions about the real Jesus, because we lack the self-discipline to properly understand and prepare, since we've lost the desire that comes from a deep love of God and sharing his compassion for others. (I'm in "lay"-leadership in my church, so these are hard words for myself to hear.)
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Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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