Believing in the Future of Church
It's easy to be depressed about church. One study claims that 9 out of 10 Americans claim to be Christian, but only a third of those attend church. Why is it so easy to hate church? Why do so many people claim to like Jesus but can't stand church?
I recall a project we did on the campus of West Virginia University. It's a major, secular campus. Students can get a good education there, but they are often distracted by the "good life" of partying, gaming and goofing off. Church attendance is not high on their priority list. Like at most major universities, less than 5% of the student body attend a traditional worship service on a given weekend.
We constructed a giant stand covered with butcher paper and asked students to write their impressions of church on one side and of Jesus on the other. People overwhelmingly wrote good things about Jesus. Random students filled up several large sheets of paper with glowing comments written in Sharpie.
Their comments about church were equally prosaic. A few spoke of the need for church. Most were not complimentary.
This generation of young people is full of those who do not like church. Granted, some of this is their fault. They have so bought into the materialism, self-gratification and (ultimately) nihilism of our age that they can't see the benefit of belonging to a church. They don't know the blessing of commitment to the family of faith.
But a big part of the blame lies with us in the church. We have sold out to our surrounding culture. On the surface it can appear that we offer nothing different from what Hollywood, the sports arena or Facebook can offer. We are good at producing spirituality light, a blend of Christianity that aims for people's feelings yet demands nothing of them. We have watered down the faith, and they can sense it.
The great irony is this: We have compromised in order to reach them, but we ended up with a church that seems to stand for nothing other than a fuzzy, personal faith in a Jesus who is no more demanding than a bobble-head figure.
Strangely, this is not the faith I grew up with. We all know that church used to stand for something. Commitment to Jesus meant commitment to being His people. Although we had missed the boat on some key things and needed to change, we had some key things right. Yes, we were sectarian and we needed to change our mentality and attitude. BUT we were right on a big part of the commitment involved in being the people of God.
David Bosch, the late theologian and missiologist, believed in the future. He proposed five ingredients of church that can help us reconnect with our world and make our witness credible once again. I'll discuss these in a future post.
I recall a project we did on the campus of West Virginia University. It's a major, secular campus. Students can get a good education there, but they are often distracted by the "good life" of partying, gaming and goofing off. Church attendance is not high on their priority list. Like at most major universities, less than 5% of the student body attend a traditional worship service on a given weekend.
We constructed a giant stand covered with butcher paper and asked students to write their impressions of church on one side and of Jesus on the other. People overwhelmingly wrote good things about Jesus. Random students filled up several large sheets of paper with glowing comments written in Sharpie.
Their comments about church were equally prosaic. A few spoke of the need for church. Most were not complimentary.
This generation of young people is full of those who do not like church. Granted, some of this is their fault. They have so bought into the materialism, self-gratification and (ultimately) nihilism of our age that they can't see the benefit of belonging to a church. They don't know the blessing of commitment to the family of faith.
But a big part of the blame lies with us in the church. We have sold out to our surrounding culture. On the surface it can appear that we offer nothing different from what Hollywood, the sports arena or Facebook can offer. We are good at producing spirituality light, a blend of Christianity that aims for people's feelings yet demands nothing of them. We have watered down the faith, and they can sense it.
The great irony is this: We have compromised in order to reach them, but we ended up with a church that seems to stand for nothing other than a fuzzy, personal faith in a Jesus who is no more demanding than a bobble-head figure.
Strangely, this is not the faith I grew up with. We all know that church used to stand for something. Commitment to Jesus meant commitment to being His people. Although we had missed the boat on some key things and needed to change, we had some key things right. Yes, we were sectarian and we needed to change our mentality and attitude. BUT we were right on a big part of the commitment involved in being the people of God.
David Bosch, the late theologian and missiologist, believed in the future. He proposed five ingredients of church that can help us reconnect with our world and make our witness credible once again. I'll discuss these in a future post.
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