This blog comes from the confluence of the following three moments:
Moment #1: The other day at work my coworker brought in a book that she is reading for a college class. The book is titled, The Way We Never Were, and it seems [through a quick look at the table of contents] to be about how we often romanticize the past through our incorrect reminisces of the past.
Moment #2: This afternoon on the car ride home from church, Mary was telling me how several people asked her about Henry's shoes, or lack thereof. She mentioned how they all expect him to wear shoes since he is now walking some. We talked about how the current understanding is that babies learn to walk better if they do not wear shoes in the beginning. We continued to talk about progress and how some people don't realize that there has been any [progress] since, for instance, they raised children.
Moment #3: Later in the car ride [it is 2+ hours] Mary read me an entry from a blog that someone she follows on twitter had re-posted. The post was about a particular church that the author and his two sons were visiting. It was a centennial anniversary Sunday, but the church only seemed to be focusing on where they had been with no obvious look as to where they might be headed.
These three moments built upon each other, one after another, until my head was awash in the past and how we sometimes get stuck there in the moment. The thoughts swirled around a little more and I started thinking about those people who do not realize that progress is happening right around them. They fail to have the peripheral vision to see what is going on right around the corner. After a few seconds my brain then moved to that church who had a past but no semblance of a future. I started to wonder if the problem of the church in today's American context is that we are stuck in the past, not realizing the progress that is happening all around us.
I don't know if you've ever thought about it before, but to a large extent, the American church is decades behind the culture in many aspects. For instance, in another moment in the car ride, my wife and I were talking about certain people's expectations of what a woman should wear when they are preaching to the church. We were talking about national leaders and how they have an antiquated view of women, believing that they should never wear pants when preaching while others are indignant about the casualness of some leaders in the church. Another moment we were discussing the way that even our church conferences tend to be traditional..
[If we are really honest we would understand that the "cutting edge" church is still only bordering on relevant in the society. After all has the church ever touched someone the way that Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Macklemore, Usher, or even Madonna or U2 has?]
In another moment, my wife and I were discussing the relevance of this past summer's Global Gathering in light of a local Anderson resident who asked Mary "What was up with that gathering thing they had this summer? That was kinda weird, a gathering." And we have been patting ourselves on the back for the great things that happened there.
The things we think are 'right' are antiquated.
The things we think are 'progressive' are still miles behind the current social landscape.
The things we think sound 'cool' are questionable in the the minds of non-church goers.
The words we use make no sense to anyone not indoctrinated in the same dictionary.
Is it any wonder that when most people think about the "Church" they think of hypocritical, gay bashing, hate mongers?
Is it any wonder that people leave the church in droves and come back in a trickle?
Based on the earlier three moments I believe I have three action steps for the church as a whole, steps for us to reenter the conversations that we have been excluded from, steps for us to become relevant again, steps for us to save ourselves, because unbelievers may be 'lost' but the church is 'dying.'
Step One: We need to begin to examine where our nostalgia takes us. We need to look at our past with 20/20 vision not the rose colored glasses that we tend to wear. Except for the first two weeks or so the early church is not something that we should be attempting to be like. If we are honest, it had at least as many issues as we have today. In my particular Christian 'movement' we need to let go of the idea that D.S. Warner, D.Otis Teasley, F.G. Smith and every other initial from our past did not have the ultimate knowledge of anything. They had some brilliant thoughts for their time, but their time is not our time, let us come up with our own brilliant thoughts for this time.
This is not to say that there is nothing we can learn from the past, but we must remember one important thing, it is the past, not the present, and most definitely not the future.
Step Two: We need to begin to examine the successes of our culture and build upon them. Too often within the church we have done the first part, examined the successes of the culture, and then we just mimicked them in our subculture. This lead us to automatically be behind the culture. Instead we need to build upon the successes that we find, becoming more than they are, not just equals. Perhaps we just haven't trusted God to help us go farther, but my Bible has something about us being able to do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
If God is on our side then we can build upon those successes and we will be in front of the culture. We have a message that no non-religious entity has, a message of love, acceptance, grace, forgiveness, hope, strength, and peace.
Step Three: Once we examine honestly where we've been and where we need to go we then need to actually attempt to go there. Examining our past honestly will do no good if we then don't use our knowledge to move forward. Knowing what the successes of the culture are will mean nothing if we do not attempt to expand them. As I already said we as a church have been living in the past, and we have been doing it for too long. We have linked ourselves to ideologies that have been more political than religious. We have linked ourselves to thoughts time and time again that are proven to be unwelcome in the society. How in the name of all that's holy has the culture time and time again been more moral than the church? The church should be leading the fight for the rights of people, not fighting them. The church should be leading on issues of human dignity, homelessness, hunger, war and genocide, nuclear and chemical weapons. The church that was founded on the principles and life of Jesus should be ahead of the culture not lagging behind.
Whether you love or hate what I have just said I hope you leave with at least this thought bouncing around in your head: "Will the church be at all relevant in 50 years?" I believe we can be, not only that, I believe the church can be stronger in 50 years than we are today. It will not be easy. In fact, it will be hard, as hard as taking up our crosses and following Jesus.
It is my prayer that we will have the strength of mind, strength of heart, strength of soul, and strength of faith to do the things we need to do in order to be the church [the hands and feet of Christ] this world needs us to be.
Peace and Love,
Pastor K
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