I think there is a great reason evangelical, protestant, and non denominational churches are shrinking. We’re not a group of rag-tag disciples of Jesus. We’re not a movement. We’re not a force. We’re not a kingdom. We’re really not even an institution or an establishment.
We’re a club.
More specifically, we’re “The Not Going To Hell Club.”
And that, my friends, is the rub.
How many times have you heard things boiled down to eternal placement? “That isn’t a heaven or hell issue” or “That’s not a matter of salvation” or “Are you saying I’ll go to hell if _________?!!!”
It’s all about eternity and making sure to avoid “the bad place.”
It’s not about following Jesus, pleasing God, or being a disciple. It’s about avoiding punishment. It’s not about having “life to the full” or abiding in Jesus. It’s really not even about going to heaven. It’s about avoiding an eternity with the devil.
And we function like a club. We have expectations for our members. We have meetings. We have events. We have rituals for inclusion. We get together and discuss ways to stay in the club (by not sinning, which sends you to hell) and talk about the importance of getting other people to join our club. We point out how we’re glad to not be in other clubs. We educate all our members on our club rules and tell them to read their manual.
If there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? If you had to lay down your life to spend eternity with him, or simply spend eternity in an okay place like this world, would you do it? Does Jesus offer us more than escape from the fire?
I think he does. Not that we shouldn’t fear hell. Not that punishment isn’t a legitimate threat. It most certainly is. And we can’t help but have that influence and motivate us. But, as a people, after years of growing in wisdom and knowledge, in families “dedicated to God,” are we still only left with overwhelming fear?
I wonder what it would be like if I asked my wife how to avoid divorce. The bottom line. How many hugs a day? Doing the dishes how often? Fix how many things a month? Give what kinds of gifts? Remember which days? Go on dates how often? Just the bottom line to avoiding divorce. Anything else would be “extra.”
What if I joined a group of men who also just wanted to do just enough to not have wives leave them?
I’m sure that wouldn’t go over well. Because Kate doesn’t want someone who is just avoiding divorce. She wants someone who loves her. And I am a better person when I love and serve her. I’m never fulfilled just getting by. I’m only happy when I’m putting my heart in it.
God wants the same thing. He wants us to follow Him because we love Him. In exchange, He offers us hope in a dark world, transformation from a broken and empty life, and a special place in His kingdom bringing hope and justice to others in darkness.
To follow Jesus, we have to ask what he wants, which leads us to hard questions with harder answers. How do I love my enemies? How do I care for the poor and oppressed? How do I become more charitable? How can I become more pure? What ways has Jesus set me up to help others and tell them about him? What does Jesus want me to do in this life RIGHT NOW?
I know it’s a problem, because when I ask those questions of church members, I get confused looks. Those are hard questions, I know. But they shouldn’t be new. They are almost always met with, “So, you’re saying I’ll go to hell if…”, assuming I am making eternal implications, because if they don’t have eternal implications, they don’t matter.
But the club keeps it simple. Just the basics. Nothing too deep.
However, deep inside, we want to love. We want to be instruments of change and peace and strength and courage and hope. I believe we’re shrinking because we don’t want to simply avoid hell but embrace a real life with real meaning. We want to matter. And we want to help others matter.
We can’t help but have moments of seeing it come together. “Mountaintop experiences.” Seeing the Spirit move. FEELING Him move. Seeing prayers answered. Making a difference. And those experiences have us begging for something more. Not just avoiding something bad.
Not all people are happy in the club. Not all churches are just clubs. But American Christianity has settled for it. And it’s changing. Not everyone is up to the challenge or the difficulty (because, let’s face it, it’s hard). But what needs to emerge is something more vibrant and sincere.
And deep down, we all know it.
Newsweek published a cover story on “The End of Christian America” this past week. Before we get started discussing it’s implications, it’s another I think we should read.
You can find it here: “The End of Christian America“
It’s likely you’ve seen this article. It has been posted in places I frequent and emailed to me by fellow ministers. It caught the attention of many of us.
The Coming Evangelical Collapse
I don’t consider myself a pessimist, or an extremist, or an over-reaction-ist. However, it did set my mind in motion.
My background is not typically categorized as “Evangelical,” which often refers to more officially organized Christian groups. However, I do think Restoration Movement Churches (like the Church of Christ I was raised in and am now a minister in) has more in common with Evangelical churches than not. At the very least, much of the challenges that face them in the future will face us as well.
One of the reasons this article stuck out to me is that it points out the despite all the money and emphasis we have placed on our young people, they are growing up with shallow faith, of which they know little about, “except how they feel about it.” As a minister to and with youth, this troubles me.
And yet, I think the article is right. The Christian Community as we know it is headed for a collapse.
No, I don’t believe the kingdom is about to be wiped from the Earth. What Christ established is far to powerful for that. But, what we know to be contemporary Christian culture is about to be forever changed.
I have some ideas as to why. I also have some ideas on how we can ride the winds of change that make us better. And some to help us stand firm against the crashing waves that will further destroy us.
Several years ago, I discovered blogging. Regular people, just like me, could have their thoughts and ideas spread across the world in a few keystrokes. I’m not sure If it was narcissism, naiveté, or ignorance, but I saw it as a chance to make my voice heard.
It would have been better if I had something worthwhile to say.
Or better yet, something I should say.
I quickly found myself in an ever-growing community of fellow writers who felt they had ideas the world needed to hear. They read and comment on my blog, I read and commented on theirs. We shared thoughts, ideas, impressions, and jokes.
It was here that I began seeing the “blogosphere” as a place to be transparent, real, and work through my beliefs on a variety of issues. As a minister to youth, I thought it would be great place to share who I am with teens, a cross section of my interests, struggles, loves, and experiences. I hoped to somehow shed a clergy mentality and reveal myself as a fellow traveler, learning day by day what it means to follow Christ’s footsteps.
I began to view the blogosphere as an online coffee house. We would all sit, begin our conversations, and watch them flow a stream of consciousness that would flow from faith to family to culture to movies to humor to struggles to theology to technology and back to faith again. As a community, we all flowed together.
And that’s where it went bad.
Don’t get me wrong, I long for authenticity and transparency in life and relationships. I don’t think any of us should have to fracture out our love for Jesus, our family, burritos, and fantasy football. Those rank in different orders of importance, but all play in to who we are. However, no matter how much we wanted a coffee shop, it wasn’t one.
I felt pressure to write consistently because people were reading. It didn’t have to be much, but I needed to post. Others felt the same pressure, I’m sure. As I began reading other blogs, particularly in times where I wanted to find information or educated ideas, I found very little. Much was being written, but little I found of value. It was as if the whole coffee shop demanded that everyone stand up and shout something into a bullhorn at the same time, whether it meant something or not. It was once beautiful that anyone could write about anything. Now it was annoying that anyone could write about anything. I even remember a book review by someone who had not read the book. It wasn’t a coffee house. It was like reading a stack of essays in a high school English class.
And I was part of the problem.
I wasn’t writing anything better. My life updates and cultural commentaries were adding nothing to the global knowledge. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything on my mind or anything of value to say, I just had learned that it is not wise to put everything on the internet where anyone can read it. Coffee house conversations are intended to be shared by a few individuals, not everyone who can type letters into a search bar. Unawareness to that fact caused me frustration. Awareness of that fact limited what I wrote about.
You see, the things most often on my mind are not things that I should post about. Issues and discussions among the church staff and elders are not things I should casually write about. Challenges and frustrations with other people and how to handle them shouldn’t be posted for the world. Those things were taking brain power; things that I would want to discuss with appropriate people over a cup of coffee, but were not appropriate for this format.
So, I stopped. Completely. No name change or redirection. I just stopped. I realized I need a clear direction and something to say with the voice I had spent so much time establishing.
I don’t think all blogging is bad. In fact, I think there are some great bloggers out there. But, they have a vision. It can be personal, professional, or just plain silly. However, it fits within their established vision and they concentrate on doing that well.
I intend to come back, because there’s a particular area I want to explore on paper. It’s an area I think I can bring something positive to. But, I plan to leave out the extra noise.
Because, the coffee house is noisy enough already.
