What Kind of Revolution?
Someone commented to me recently that "George Barna [Christian pollster] has left the institutional church." Wow... be frustrated with the institutional church... I can understand. But leave the institutional church. So I bought his newest book, Revolution. Here's a summary of what I've read so far...
Currently 70 percent of Christians depend on a local church for their spiritual intake and outflow. About five percent use alternative forms of Christian communities, and the rest... well, they don't do much at all.
Barna predicts that in 20 years, only 30 percent will channel their spiritual activity through a local church, and 30-35 percent of Christiansl will look to these alternative communities. In other words, people will give up on the institutional church in droves. The best churches will survive, but many will die.
The most shocking part of the Barna's book is that he seems to endorse this direction. Critical of the programmed and inch-deep spirituality of local churches, and hungry for a deeper, first centry kind of community experience, Barna seems to believe that many will leave the small "c" church and live out a big "C" church experience. So, instead of depending on a few hours a week for spiritual community, these future revolutionaries will begin living it out in 24/7 kinds of ways.
Part of me hopes desparately that Barna is wrong. And another part of me hopes deparately that he's right. Oh how I pray that this will spark the local church to see that we cannot continue to depend on a weekly worship experience alone to bring spiritual transformation to people's lives. The coming generations are hungry for more. They'll get their spiritual "charge" through the internet, music, iPods and who knows what else. They won't need the church for that. But they won't find true, authentic community through digital media. But will they find it through the church?
I personally hunger for a deeper kind of community than I'm experiencing now; hungry for an experience that flows not only through group worship services, but through coffee shop conversations, IM discussions about a daily devotional, a drop in from a friend, and relationships that naturally bring accountability, encouragement, and community to my life.
I realize, most will set Barna aside and think he's lost his sanity. I pray we who believe in the work of the local church will work to prove Barna wrong (or at least change the direction of the coming trend). In my ministry leadership, I will work with much greater vigor to help Christ-followers know a first century house church experience to complement the present corporate church experiences.
Currently 70 percent of Christians depend on a local church for their spiritual intake and outflow. About five percent use alternative forms of Christian communities, and the rest... well, they don't do much at all.
Barna predicts that in 20 years, only 30 percent will channel their spiritual activity through a local church, and 30-35 percent of Christiansl will look to these alternative communities. In other words, people will give up on the institutional church in droves. The best churches will survive, but many will die.
The most shocking part of the Barna's book is that he seems to endorse this direction. Critical of the programmed and inch-deep spirituality of local churches, and hungry for a deeper, first centry kind of community experience, Barna seems to believe that many will leave the small "c" church and live out a big "C" church experience. So, instead of depending on a few hours a week for spiritual community, these future revolutionaries will begin living it out in 24/7 kinds of ways.
Part of me hopes desparately that Barna is wrong. And another part of me hopes deparately that he's right. Oh how I pray that this will spark the local church to see that we cannot continue to depend on a weekly worship experience alone to bring spiritual transformation to people's lives. The coming generations are hungry for more. They'll get their spiritual "charge" through the internet, music, iPods and who knows what else. They won't need the church for that. But they won't find true, authentic community through digital media. But will they find it through the church?
I personally hunger for a deeper kind of community than I'm experiencing now; hungry for an experience that flows not only through group worship services, but through coffee shop conversations, IM discussions about a daily devotional, a drop in from a friend, and relationships that naturally bring accountability, encouragement, and community to my life.
I realize, most will set Barna aside and think he's lost his sanity. I pray we who believe in the work of the local church will work to prove Barna wrong (or at least change the direction of the coming trend). In my ministry leadership, I will work with much greater vigor to help Christ-followers know a first century house church experience to complement the present corporate church experiences.
posted by RevDave at 12:35 AM
5 Comments:
I am with you Dave, it’s a mixed bag. I love what we have traditionally known as church but I also love the intimacy of a small gathering of saints. It is far more engaging to sit in a room with 10 others than a room filled with 500. That is why I love the idea of small cell group Bible study over the traditional Sunday school program. That is where I think part of the answer may lie. Churches that use this model offer the intimacy of a small group and the plenary fellowship of congregational worship. It works. People find the close relationships, exhortation, encouragement and accountability that are missing in large congregational groups.
Another one of the most powerful methods of fostering church cohesion within the small group setting is push-pull discipleship. Push-pull works like this: Brandon is being discipled by David and David is being discipled by Mitchell. David is being pushed by Brandon for more knowledge while at the same time he is being pulled and encouraged by Mitchell. Each person is accountable for the next person’s growth in this discipleship method. The church I currently attend operates like this and I have never seen a body of believers move like they do. They are phenomenal.
Here is a thought to ponder; perhaps this move toward home churches is divinely strategic. The western church is in a downward spiral, falling deeper and deeper into liberalism and away from the fundamental truths of the Bible. While at the same time fundamental atheism is becoming more aggressive and antagonistic. In my opinion, this can not go on much longer. God, I feel, is about to cleanse His Church by throwing her into persecution. So the fact that the institutional churches are dwindling and house churches are growing could be indicative of a move to prepare the Church to go underground. I hear people all the time calling for the Church to be the Church as it was in Acts; we may get it, persecution and all.
Josh
Tacoma, Washington
Hey Josh of my childhood! I agree with you that the church is heading towards an Acts kind of setting, but in a different way. I don't think it will be "underground" as much as it will be outward and more connected. I think you view house churches as a covert way of continuing the church in the face of pursecution (that's how I'm reading you anyway). But I see the house church movement as a revolt from the organized church's high walls and total disconnect from the world. You remember the fundamentalism of our youth. Bro. Clyde used to laugh publically at the invitations from the mayor for our church to participate in community events. Our church was a blue collar safehaven away from the world. We didn't mess with the world and didn't want the world anywhere near us. But it's not just Brook Hollow. Even the most evangelistic churches today spend far more time developing men's ministries and MOPs groups and knitting clubs than they do starting job training centers, tutoring centers, crisis pregancy centers, etc. The cold cup of water Jesus used as a means to offer Living Water is so secondary in our churches. The new churches I'm seeing are infiltrating the community as a church without walls rather than becoming a withdrawn community hiding from the evil people.
I have a Mennonite friend who pastors a small congretation whose priority is to move into the deadliest neighborhoods, root out the criminal element, and seed in new tenents. His objective - raise property values for the neighborhood, draw in new businesses, provide job training... all sponsored by a deep commitment to Jesus Christ. And the neighborhood knows it. This guy is as conservative as they come and never pulls punches on the gospel. he's the "salt" Jesus spoke of - subtle, blended in, but changing the nature things. How bad is salt when it's visible in your food and clumped up in clusters. That's what most churches are in the world.
As one pastor has said, it's time for the church to do more than "love" people. It's time to "like" them too. It's because Jesus liked the woman at the well, Zacheus on the road, the blind man on the Sabbath, etc.... that's what ticked off the Pharisees and got Jesus killed.
Lastly, I agree with Pat Buchanon. We've already lost the culture war. It's over and Christians have little say over culture. And in my opinion, it's not because we haven't preached long and loud enough. Do you think the world doesn't know our stance on sin, judgement, and repentance? Certainly they do. They question whether or not we really care about them personally. And from there perspective, we don't. They know and have heard our gospel message. It's time to spend some time hanging out with a few lost people, having a drink with them, helping them move some heavy furniture, laughing with them, organizing the neighborhood picnic with them.... just showing that we like them a lot. And I bet the gospel will turn from a screaching, AM quality to a High Definition, surround sound, all encompassing, earth shattering reality. That's what I think.
I attended a home group session last week and two young seminary students visited. Both are in their last year at Dallas Baptist Seminary. They were very different from each other. One was an ex-marine who intends to enter the Naval Chaplain Corp after graduation. The other had shoulder length hair with ear rings. One may enter the battlefield of war to pastor young soldiers under difficult circumstances. The other more suited for youth ministry. I saw the passion both had. In side conversation I tested their will a bit. I told them about your (David) trials as a pastor and they should fully expect to be failed by people at times and that sometimes the burdens will be awesome. It can be lonely. That no one bothers to minister to the pastor as they assume you already got that stuff figured out. People will assume that somehow you are near perfect and life is easy for you but the reality is its a difficult road that most will never know. Others will find ways to be critical and make huge issues out of small discrepencies.(I was not sure if seminary had bothered to tell them these things). Anyway, I had them thinking and for a moment felt I had been a bit too dramatic. The ex-marine looked at me and said he was ready for it all with the help of God in that Marinesque sort of way. He must have already contemplated this in terms of a literal battlefield he may actually face. The other seemed a bit depressed and simply said, I will just have to keep on loving people and strive to be Christ-like. It was refreshing. These were very different people who by the way, were the best of friends, who will have totally different audiences. I came away feeling better that they would be a part of our larger church family/leadership. Each of them will face very different realities but all with the same purpose.
I think we agree David about the failings of the Church. Especially, what I like to refer to as cultural fundamentalism. Cultural fundamentalism is what we grew up under, focusing more on separatism from the world than involvement in it. There is almost an air of religious elitism that is tied up in it. Fortunately, most of this movement appears to be fading. Just as a side note; from what I can tell, being much on the outside, Russell has done a fine job in bringing Brook Hollow out of much its past supra-fundamentalist culture.
As far as my view on home churches; my take is as stated in the earlier portion of the post, that home churches offer a far more intimate setting that provides closer relationships, more involvement, greater accountability and far less social pressure. The latter statements were just something to ponder and a convenient platform for me to rant about the liberalism that has run rampant in the Western Church. :)
So what is the answer? Well I guess it depends on one’s ecclesiastic philosophy.
A fundamentalist (John Macarthur, John Piper, D.A. Carson) view is that the church is exclusively for the saints, for the purposes of teaching, edification, exhortation, and Holy Communion. The means by which fundamental evangelicals fill the church is primarily through evangelistic outreach. Gathering in the harvest and pulling in the nets.
The postmodern seeker-sensitive (Rick Warren, Bill Hybels) movement uses the “assembling of the saints” as its evangelistic arm. They are able to do this by mixing pop-culture and the gospel. This apparently makes it more appealing to the “seeker” because it removes the preconceptions of what church is and makes the unregenerate feel more comfortable. Unfortunately, this usually means a vague presentation of salvation. If there were to be a clear presentation of the Gospel then it may cause offense and drive away the congregant. I know how it works; I was deeply involved in such a ministry. We watched a lot of movies and had plenty of spiritual discussions over coffee but never once did I hear a clear Gospel presentation.
The Emergents (Brian Mclaren, Tony Campolo, Rob Bell), to which I know you are fond, are a whole other breed unto themselves. Emergents, while also post-modern and seeker sensitive, do more than just water down the gospel. They pervert it with their universalist heresy, liberation theology, and attacks on Biblical inerrancy.
Some quotes from Emergent Leaders:
Brian Mclaren
"Jesus coming was not primarily about getting people into heaven." And... that if people are "happy being Muslim, or Buddhist or Jewish or atheist," he doesn't think its right to try to "shoe-horn them out of their religion" into Christianity.
Tony Campolo
"Christ lives in all human beings, regardless of whether they are Christians." Campolo asserted that the resurrected Jesus of history `actually is present' in each person. Campolo also said, `Jesus is the only Savior, but not everybody who is being saved by Him is aware that He is the one who is doing the saving,' and `Jesus is God because he is fully human'"
Emergents also tell us that the only doctrine that we can be sure of is the “doctrine of ambiguity”. That is, it is arrogant for one to assume that they can understand the Scripture. So all we are left with are conjecture and inference. Rob Bell is fond of the word mystery. Apparently, the Holy Spirit was not an able custodian and we are to ill-equipped to exegete faithfully. So this one doctrine of ambiguity gives them reason to cast doubt and aspersion on all our creeds. By the way, that includes the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds and the Definition of Chalcedon.
Rob Bell
Speaking of the Bible - “Everybody’s interpretation is essentially his or her own opinion”
Speaking of Classical Hermeneutics and Exegesis - "Now please understand that this way of thinking is prevalent in a lot of Christian churches,… But this view of the Bible is warped and toxic, to say the least. The assumption is that there is a way to read the Bible that is agenda-and perspective-free. As if all these other people have their opinion and biases, but some are able to just read it for what it says."
(This is a very similar argument used by the Jehovah’s Witness to defend their New World Translation)
And…
“Some Christian traditions think a text has a meaning and if you apply the right method, then you can pull out the correct meaning. That's the ultimate in arrogance.”
Yes the Church of Jesus Christ needs to do more. I agree David, we need to drop all the programs, scrap booking classes, mixers and potlucks and get to the business for which we were commissioned. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” Do we need to do more than just knock on doors? Yes, absolutely. We should be feeding the hungry and helping the widow, but if we fail in presenting the blessed Gospel then we fail miserably. We gain nothing by filling a belly. It would be much the same as giving a man a nice haircut whilst he sits on the electric chair.
God Bless bro,
Josh
Tacoma, Washington
"It's time to spend some time hanging out with a few lost people, having a drink with them, helping them move some heavy furniture, laughing with them, organizing the neighborhood picnic with them.... just showing that we like them a lot. And I bet the gospel will turn from a screaching, AM quality to a High Definition, surround sound, all encompassing, earth shattering reality. That's what I think."
This is what I think, the Gospel isnt sufficient enough so we have to reach the world by loving on people and making them feel happy, and entertained and lure them into the church and trick them into becoming Christians. Afterall, thats what the Gospel is all about isnt it? Isnt that how Peter spread the Gospel. I bet he took the cripple begger for a drink and started loving on the dude. Maybe Stephen helped people moved furniture, maybe that was his method of spreading the gospel, or how about Paul, he organized the neighborhood picnic so he could hang out with the lost. He didnt preach the gospel that day, he just wanted to everyone to know he was all about love. Peter, well he just spent time laughing with people, that was his method of reaching the lost. Yes, we are to be the light of the world, a city on a hill, but church is for the fellowship of the saints, its for the sheep. Not the goats. I think Jesus summed it up best when he said in Mathew 10:34, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"
We need to be reach people by preaching the repentence and faith. Did Jesus not say, "Die to yourself, pick up your cross and follow me"? If people are coming to Christ to be have people go out for a drink with them, love on them and help them move their heavy furniture, they are coming to Christ for the wrong reasons and when their happiness and joy fades away, and the temptaion and persececution comes, their roots will be a rocky soil and will not endure. They will fall away even further from the church.
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