Tuesday
Oct182005
Why I started dying church
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 at 6:07PM This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
Starting this site was a bit of a milestone for me. I was at a conference and something snapped. I'm not sure why, but I had a kairos moment. Instead of trying to make church better, maybe churches had to do the opposite - to get out of the way to let God move. I wasn't sure what this meant, but I'm not alone. I'm pretty sure that God is behind a divine discontent that is sweeping across western Christianity today. Reggie McNeal talks about people quitting the church not because they are giving up on their faith, but to preserve their faith. D.A. Carson writes:...which of us can safely deny that a fair proportion of what goes on in many traditional evangelical churches - whether corporate worship, small-group Bible studies, and even prayer times - feels disturbingly inauthentic at times? ...We may go through meeting after meeting, and all of it is reassuringly familiar, but we do not come out saying, in effect, "Surely we have met with the living God!"...There is little intensity in confession, little joy in absolution, little delight in gospel, little urgency in evangelism, little sense of privilege and gratitude in witness, little passion for the truth, little compassion for others, little humility in our evaluations, little love in our dealings with others.In Barna's new book Revolution, Barna reports on the state of churched Christians and concludes:
The point here is simply to recognize if we place all our hope in the local church, it is a misplaced hope. Many well-intentioned pastors promote this perspective by proclaiming, "The local church is the hope of the world." Like most advertising slogans, this notion is emotionally appealing. The trouble is, the sentiment is not biblical. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the hope of the world. The local church is one mechanism that can be instrumental in bringing us closer to Him and helping us to be more like Him. But, as the research data clearly show, churches are not doing the job. If the local church is the hope of the world, then the world has no hope. [emphasis mine]So this is where it began. Instead of seeing church as the hope, I began to wonder if the church, in some sense, had to die.
Reader Comments (5)
Why I started dying churchStarting this site was a bit of a milestone for me. I was at a conference and something snapped. I'm...
Well, I am "there" - been there a while... I have worked in the local church for nearly 30 years in various ministry "jobs" and have known for some time that "the church" is not the answer, regardless of how "good" a particular church may be. My favorite passage is Acts 2:42-47... if you read this carefully, you discover that the "draw" for seekers is NOT great music, wonderful preaching or delicious potlucks, as important as those are to the worship service. The DRAW is JESUS CHRIST and HIM ONLY - as George Barna states. The problem is, a lot of churches actually do state that this is their belief - but they don't REALLY put it into practice... If churches want to reach people for the Kingdom they have to do something very difficult for most of us (if we are honest) to do... and what is that?? LIVE IT!
Darryl, I think there are churches and then there are churches. I've been in a few now and am curently atending one that is having a great impact for the Kingdom and we are just beginning. God is at work in our church and people are getting fired up as they see what is going on and want to do their part to help out. One thing I am being more and more convinced of is how so much of it has to do with leadership. Church leaders that are growing in their own walk with God bring that to the pulpit. God shows them stuff and they share that with their people and the people get enthused and are encouraged to continue to develop their own walk with God. Preachers that stand on the Word of God and will not compromise on truth. That's what I'm seeing in our church and in our small groups and its such a great thing to be a part of. To see people grow and then reach out to the lost and bring them in and people getting saved, that's what its all about right?
I just taught my class this morning about kairos. Good thoughts, Darryl.
Dying ChurchI quote: Starting this site was a bit of a milestone for me. I was at a conference and something snapped. I’m not sure why, but I had a kairos moment. Instead of trying to make church better, maybe churches had to do the opposite - to get out o...