LifeLines: Church in the 21st Century

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:05:20 GMT

There are, no doubt, any number of things that might be proposed as needing to change in order to “be the church” rather than “do church.” But which ones are most critical? As we begin to write down our own personal experiences, observations, thinking and approaches, we welcome your contributions and suggestions to our work. We are already being influenced by the experience of others[1] [2], available research[3] & other recent works[4] as we strive to make a real and lasting difference.

PROPOSED OUTLINE SECTION I: The Church TodayWhat has become of the Church?What needs to change? SECTION II: Being The Church TodayRegular GatheringsPods, Cells and ClansIn The GapLeadership SECTION I: The Church Today: What has become of the Church?

A recent study5 summarized the following critical discoveries about the church today:

a relative indifference of most churched Christians to un-churched people;
an overt emphasis upon a personal rather than communal faith journey;
the tendency of congregations to perform rituals and exercise talents rather than invite and experience the presence of God;
an absence of a compelling call to action given to those who attend;
the failure to listen to dissident voices and spiritual guidance to dig deeper in one's faith.

At the root of all of these issues appears to be a common theme: the lack of true koinonia. The essential meaning of the koinonia is one that embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. There also seems to always be an implication of action included in its meaning[6].

There are 2 main types of koinonia described in scripture:

* Face to face: such as in Acts 2:42, where they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship (i.e. their shared needs, shared learning and shared experiences), to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

It is about relationship. If we consider Genesis 2:18 - The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." God in His infinite wisdom after creating everything, light/dark, water and land, animals, seasons, etc and said it was all good, is saying here that one of His creations was not good...it was incomplete. This is a powerful statement on what God believes to be most important – relationship.

The other type of koinonia is defined as:

Shoulder-to-shoulder: such as described in Philippians 1:3-6. “ I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership (action-based accomplishment) in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

CS Lewis said that a relationship is not truly authentic until you stop talking about who you are and how you are both doing and go and accomplish something together in the world.The word koinonia actually came out of the New Testament marketplace – so its primary meaning seems to be more likely “shoulder to shoulder” or “what difference are we going to make, together, in this world?”

With this as a backdrop, let’s look at each of the critical discoveries from Barna’s research.

What needs to change?

Our relative indifference of most churched Christians to un-churched people

As we develop and experience true relationship or koinonia, there is an intimacy between people regardless of background, race or creed. Walls are broken down and a true concern for others directly translates into a deep passion for all people. There is really no distinction between churched and the un-churched people.

As meaningful dialogue takes place with other people, we want to know more about them. As we learn more and more, we begin to realize and appreciate the uniqueness that God has placed in each person. In a very real way, we experience God’s love and perspective as we get to know people. By developing authentic relationships in our own lives with the people all around us, we gain a stronger desire to know Christ better. As we continue to know Christ better, new life forms in us and spurs us on to talk about the One that gives us life.

If you had the cure for cancer, what would you do? Of course, the answer is “Tell everyone to spread this around the world as quickly as possible.” We believe that this same “love-in-action” is a natural outflow as a true sense of community develops. Our overt emphasis upon a personal rather than communal faith journey

Over the last 20 - 30 years, the concentration on each individual having their own personal faith journey has had the exact opposite effect than perhaps was intended. We have been taught that if we “read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll “grow, grow, grow” – and hopefully get to know God better. While this may make sense in a child’s song, it has resulted in an emphasis on the activity rather than the reason behind the activity. The purpose behind studying Bible is to understand God and His way better so that we can experience all He has for us. However, all too often, we only look internally to discover God’s teaching for us, and we can only learn so much as an island. We have forgotten that true learning happens in community and not in isolation.

Home groups (or small groups, whichever you prefer) are often the proposed solution. However, in most cases, these gatherings are programmatic in nature – studying a certain passage of scripture or a sermon series or a book, depending on the direction given by church leadership or the interest of the group leader. Rarely do they connect the deeper meaning of the text to daily living, discovering how and where God is at work in our lives and helping each person understand and clarify what is going on in their own journey and relationship with God. The home group becomes yet another expected church obligation that rarely encourages believers, let alone inviting any who are still trying to find God into the conversation. Our experience is that the program-driven group is the norm, although we do recognize that there may well be some groups that have the right focus, and are being very successful at it. We wonder what would it be like to build an entire church around developing the community around personal spiritual growth. What would it feel like to see the community grow as we grow? Would more of us feel a part of the life of the church? That is what we are working to accomplish.

Our tendency to perform rituals and exercise talents rather than invite and experience the presence of God

It seems that church has become “something that we do” rather than a natural outflow of our love for Christ. Our experience tells us that more and more regular church-goers, including pastors, are less and less engaged and frankly bored with what is happening. This is why we believe more and more pastors are leaving the ministry after several years, and why more and more Christians are disengaging from organized church. A recent review of Census Canada religious beliefs data shows a growing and significant number of people identifying themselves as “other Christians” versus Protestant or Catholic or being affiliated with any particular denomination.

Our work with churches over the last 20 years has generally been in the best situations where there is a sincere desire to make progress, reach people for Christ and then ride the momentum and expand to further reach more people. In these situations, and in contrast to boredom and disengagement, we commonly hear the following quotes from pastors and other leaders in the church:

We can’t wait to get to church to see what God is going to do
I don’t know why things are going so well, but I love being here
There is such a feeling of family here
I can’t believe the love that people have for each other

When was the last time you had this experience? Rather than waiting on God, we are totally convinced that God is waiting on us, and shows us what we need to be doing when we truly embrace Him, rather than focusing on the maintenance of church programs. Yet, we continue to tell ourselves that our programs are ministry in action when, in fact, very little ministry is happening. Our actions actually guilt people into serving to express their “love” for God, and in so serving, gain His approval and acceptance. Rather, we believe that He simply wants us to stop the madness and see Him in and through each other.

The bottom line is that we begin to hear the above comments when the greater church community sees beyond their own gifts and abilities, beyond the “programmatic” part of church, and looks to invest their lives into the lives of people – together.We need to strive to create the situation where we engage people wherever they are in life and bring them closer to all of what God has for them. It’s not about doing programs. The means is not the end.

Our lack of presenting a compelling call to action to those who attend

As we work together to create a vision for the church, we recognize that we need to harness the shoulder-to-shoulder kind of koinonia to truly impact and change our communities.

There is a huge world out there that needs to be transformed. Christ modelled the behaviour we wish to embrace in that, yes, He took time to pray and get guidance and assistance from His Father, but He spent far more time helping those around Him. We believe that this is what we must do. Our failure to listen to dissident voices and spiritual guidance to dig deeper in our faith

We need to realize that when people sense something is wrong, it usually is. A community that digs deeper, together, and that helps provide spiritual guidance, is a community that is strong and will grow.

Dissident voices represent opportunities to learn and grow in our relationship to Christ not to “circle the wagons” and force those voices out of the community. We recognize that there are some that feel it is their responsibility to be a dissident voice, but when presented with the power and love of Christ and the challenge of looking to God’s word together without condemnation or an attempt to control, we believe that it can only help strengthen our walk with God.

If we are not challenged, we will never live up to our potential. We have found that we actually grow more spiritually when God has allowed us to go through difficult things. It’s in those times that we will rely on Him more. When we take away a critical element like dissidence or challenge, we take away the only true motivator that pushes us to get closer to Christ. As humans, we seem to blossom when given these things: water, food, sleep, challenges. When any of these things are absent, we will not grow, learn and be more than we are today. We believe that there is one other thing that needs to change in order to be the church in the 21sts century. It does not come from any specific research, is controversial in some circles, but resonates with a rapidly growing number of people – and that is:

Our habitual, pre-occupation and deeply held belief that the church can only be led by seminary-trained, paid clergy

Based on our experience, we believe the Ephesians 4:11-13 model is more about engaging everyone in shared leadership depending on their gifting and is the opposite of what has been taught, and is currently still being taught, in seminaries, bible colleges and many conferences on the ministry.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

In North America, we have this fascination with “being the leader”, the “white knight” who comes to rescue the day, the “great visionary” and even “oracle” from God. In contrast to the culture, we do not believe there can be ONE leader, setting the tone for the rest of the body – especially in the church. Consider what we’ve done to “ONE” leaders in the past: we hold them up higher than the rest so they become an easy target. They inevitably get “picked off” which then affects the entire body. If there is a group of people where there is no one leader the organization is healthy because even if one does get taken out, there are many to assist to continue to move the cause forward.Ephesians 4:12-13 talks about preparing God’s people for works of service, building up the body of Christ to mature and know the fullness of Christ. In this model, we believe that all leaders, whether they demonstrate the characteristics of an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor or a teacher have a role to play in completing God’s work in us. (Note: we are talking about these gifts in a positional sense).

Also, we are not saying that there will never be paid staff or never a paid pastor; however, we do believe that the church needs to better define what roles are required to build up the body versus the automatic assumption being a paid pastor or an administrative assistant for them or someone to lead the church.

These are the principles that we see as integral for building the church in the 21st century.

What do you think?

Duane Whittey : Weblog

LifeLines: Church in the 21st Century