IF I STARTED A CHURCH

I look at churches in my area. I think of the church of which I am a member. I am an observer and advocate for church planters. I wonder if I were involved in a church plant, what kind of church would I seek to build.  Based upon my observations and my personal preferences it would predictably be something dissimilar to what is. I would want to rediscover the New Testament church. But that may be a crazy aspiration, hazardous to my health. The first two AD centuries were not superlative times for planting Christian communities. There was an ISIS-like disposition in Palestine, Asia Minor, and Rome. And I have become a chicken, a tired one at that.

Am I dissatisfied with my church, or other churches that I watch? No, that's not it. And anyway, I am past my three score and ten so why should I be concerned and why should anyone pay attention to me?  Understand that I pastored churches and gave executive leadership within a denomination of churches for over 40 years. I'm not a novice. I am not a complainant. I am an enthusiast for what Jesus began. I love Christ's Church.

If I was still pastoring, I wouldn't be able to change much, and I wouldn't dare to make the statements I am now making. In fact, I have found a stunning metaphor in foods, nutrition and eating habits. Warning: the following information may be dangerous to your peace of mind and your impression of me.

We raise foods differently and we eat very differently than we did 100 years ago. We also do church differently and make Christians differently than we did in century one.  The nutrient density of food has declined 40-60% over the past 100 years. Our food today typically has 50% fewer nutrients compared to the food that our grandparents ate.  I cannot make a comparative parallel with any accuracy. I can only ask myself the questions. What is the spiritual nutritional density of the musical, lyrical and educational components within typical church today? I am dissatisfied with results of my own assessment. If I were involved in starting a church I would want to concentrate on that answer. There’s more, maybe tomorrow ...

GOING BACK, FAR BACK, FOR THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH

I believe that Christians need to be provoked to re-examine our practice of faith in the context of church as we have either invented it, inherited it or as we perpetuate it.

When I was a boy and throughout the early years of my own pastoral ministry career, Sunday church consisted of Sunday School classes for all ages, followed by a one hour conventional church worship service containing three hymns, beginning, middle and end, a prayer, an offering, a sermon. The sermon and the spoken Word were paramount in evangelical churches. That was it. Within evangelicalism, this model was a departure from liturgical ceremonial worship in mainline churches. Why did we do it that way?

Twenty-five years ago a contemporary worship wave began in charismatic circles and swept most evangelical churches. A team of worship leaders with guitars and drums occupied platforms and led standing congregations of worshippers in singing praise choruses for 20-30 minutes. This gave the congregation greater expressive involvement modelled by music forms they listened to every day. Why do we do it that way, still?

Some believers ask this question because for them, personally, some aspect of worship is absent, reverence, solemnity, awe, or earnestness. They must name it. Their souls long for something perhaps approximate and unmet. Finally they leave church.

They begin to think that maybe they should go back to the future.

Going back far enough takes us into the presence of Christ sitting with his disciples. He spoke about church to them. Examination reveals that church as he envisioned it was enormous and in practice it was modest, simple. Church would be an applicable term to embrace countless disciples throughout the world in every generation until the end of time. Church would meet in homes, caves, forests, prisons, refugee camps, schools, and buildings constructed by Christians specifically for their gatherings. Wherever they met they invoked the presence of God, were filled with the Spirit of God, praised the Lord Jesus Christ with muted or exuberant voices depending on circumstances, and then went forth to live by faith and to give a reason for their belief to everyone who asked them.

Maybe we should go back to the future. The trip back could become our future. Maybe it should be the future that we seek. Maybe the Church needs nothing more than to be filled with the Spirit and satisfied with Christ.

SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE SOUNDS LIBERATING

Here is a person who has conscientiously chosen to disassociate with a local congregation of Christians and prescribed, institutional, organized church. The choice is made with a desire and determination to find and to follow a personal path to Christian spirituality. This requires courage. One hopes it will contain joy.

I wonder whether 'spiritually independent' is an apropos designation for this person. Yet the term 'independent' requires some containment because a fulfilling and complete Christian spirituality requires other people. This person must then find his or her own support and companionship for the continuation of a spiritual journey. Can this person find other 'independents' out there who are passionate about God, communicating with him consistently, hearing his voice, obedient to his commissions? Certainly, this person can find injured, religious rebels, and doctrinally muddled people who have given up on church.

I'm not happy with the term 'spiritually independent' as liberating as it sounds. The term derives for me from reading web and blog sites by a former Canadian Presbyterian pastor who now is ambitious to undress religion and who calls himself the Naked Pastor. He is David Hayward. David Hayward's bio and timeline. He is an author, blogger, cartoonist.

He has pastored churches and experienced peaks and valleys and walked away from the church. Hayward is passionate about people who like himself have divested themselves of institutional church to find their own way, and he now provides resources, networking and community via his postings and podcasts and give and take forums online at The Lasting Supper. Online community is one way of finding affinity with people who listen and learn and share.  After looking at his material I know that he cannot assist the individuals I know who have stepped away from church or are still considering doing so. He may have already gone too far away. 

One of his cartoons describes the outcome that concerns me about a withdrawal from church and Christian fellowship and spiritual independence. Surely the person who quits church, needs a game plan to make forward spiritual progress. Spiritually independence sounds liberating but is it healthy?

MAYBE THE TERM 'DE-CHURCHED' IS UNSUITABLE

Today, I have repackaged several insightful points written by respondents to my earlier post. Those points infer that the terms 'de-churched' or 'no longer churched' are unsuitable expressions to apply to a person who has made a difficult decision to no longer attend church. I am unsure what term fits the Christian who no longer attends church, yet loves God, reads the Bible, shares faith with others, hangs our with other believers at occasional events or studies or house parties, displays the fruit of the Spirit and serves other people. Perhaps there is no need for a term, since that Christian is doing everything that God expects of a follower of Christ who is a member of the Church.

Okay, she was a founding member of the church when it met in a school, gave her money, energy and time to help build the church with seating for 300 people, but she became disillusioned by prevailing models of church, and left her church, choosing not to attend a church any more, but she is still an integral member of the Church.

We use the same term 'church' to denote several dissimilar concepts, the local congregation, the people of God worldwide, the institutional church, and the church building. That may lead to unfortunate assumptions about people. Leaving a local congregation is not synonymous with leaving the Church. No longer attending the 10 am Sunday worship service is not synonymous with leaving the Church. Available programs and meetings at specific times on specific days do not define 'Church.’

Church life as we experience it institutionally today has been shaped by paradigms developed since the apostles obeyed Jesus to carry the good news into the world. Church has taken on organization and constitution, bylaws, governance, ritual, schedules, property, programs, departments, technology, specialists and debt. It is possible that those of us who are most heavily invested in and committed to Christian gospel, and service and church, innocently, unknowingly accept what is and continue to interpret church primarily in terms of the building. "Come to church this Sunday," the sign says. "We missed you at church last week," friends say. "The church construction costs will be $18 million dollars," That is the largest church in the city.

I am pleased that my pastors deliberately remind us each Sunday, "good morning church." There is a consciousness that the church has gathered and when we have worshipped God and enjoyed one another, the church leaves the building. Then back to the diligent believer who decides no longer to attend church. Our opinion must be that a member of the Church has left a specific building but continues as a member of the Church, God's Church.

I am still bothered by a couple of things. I appeal for understanding for the person who is done with church. Yet it is clear that church implies community/fellowship, and that is one thing this person is leaving behind. What will this person do for community? The person may claim that 10am on Sunday with 300 people hardly felt like community or family in an intimate sense. Being associated with the church's small group ministry offers a more predictable community experience. One would think that for the values and benefits of the Christian family of God need to occur somehow for the person leaves church. Another matter that bothers me, is the need for a personal plan of how spiritual strength and health and growth is to be nurtured if it is outside the context of the organized church. That must surely have to be considered, otherwise the departure seems selfish and futile.

VALUABLE MEMBERS ARE LEAVING CHURCH

Out of every sound congregation there is a trickle of members who leave, not to switch churches, or because of any disagreement or altercation or any discomfort. These are people who have been faithful attendees, active participants, heavily invested. Then they stop. They drop away. And it's the outcome of a great deal of personal thought and wrestling. They find themselves done with church. But, they have not discarded faith in the LORD. These are not fickle, critical, troublesome, glad to see them gone people. These are people who have always been regarded as keepers, stalwarts, contributors.

Their absence is noticed, questioned and it is felt, at least for a little while. Then life carries on. However, not in all churches is the hole they have left filled easily and quickly. They themselves considered this and it troubled them, yet they finally needed to opt for inner peace. These are the de-churched. 

SERENITY & GRIPPED BY GOD

Today I will continue yesterday's refrain.

It pleases me when anyone says, "I just love my church. There's so much happening. I get so much from pastor's messages. Lives are really being changed. I love the worship music, it's so uplifting, enthusiastic, and all genders and generations are active and helping out. We have weeknight small groups and ours is closely knit and loving, like a family. "

That speaks of an environment that is conducive to adoration, teaching and learning and service. Who could want anything more than that? How can you improve on that? And yet, some people have sensibilities or needs that are not met there.

DO BELIEVERS OUTGROW THEIR NEED FOR CHURCH?

Maybe there are times or intervals at which churches are no longer able to nourish some peoples' faith.

Why say something like that?

We know that people leave church for assorted reasons. Some leave church A to go to church B. That's not the theme of this piece. I know people who have stopped going to a church in a building, anywhere. They are people who have been in church for years and for whom the traditions have been important. Yes we can talk about solidarity and church being a family and small groups being where the growth truly happens. The people I refer to must not be faulted, because their reasons for departure are not chiefly because the preaching or the music or the programs have changed or because of church politics or petty squabbles as well as escalated rows. Those factors may have influenced their choices, but primarily they have a deep longing for more of God or more with God.

Do you think that some believers outgrow their need for church?