Where are we going?

I have been thinking an awful lot lately about the challenges of moving a community of Jesus followers into a different era.  Because the way I see it, as a pastor in 2019, that is the most important thing I can possibly do.

There are people who want to continue to do ministry the way it was done in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s.  These decades were without a doubt the most prosperous and abundant 30 years or so in western history.  The economy was strong, consumer spending went through the roof, the Christian church won political influence and dominated the political landscape through the Reagan and Bush years.  There seemed to be evidence that word of faith and prosperity gospel promises might be paying off.

Christians did not feel a need to be discipled through these years.  American Christians were at heart consumers.  They were able to purchase whatever they wanted.  Marketing costs shot up as the appetites of Americans were stoked and sated in a repeating cycle.  American Christians liked this.  And churches, in a frenzy to compete with the culture also ramped up their marketing.  We made promises to consumers that if they purchased our products they would benefit from the rewards.  So for a few years, as we marketed our services really well, and won at the voting booths, church attendance went up.

But somewhere in the mid to late 90’s something started to happen.  Children raised in a consumer church stopped attending.  Others, trained by the liturgies of self satisfaction, fled their existing churches to new and flashier ones that promised to deliver something, well… new and flashier.  And Christian discipleship again took a back seat.

Church goers throughout America put the pressure on the pastor to meet the growing needs of consumers of spiritual fare, but fewer and fewer of those consumers were becoming producers.  There were less people who of instead consuming the American dream choose to follow Jesus in “laying down their lives.”

And now, some are saying that the church is dying.  My dad always told me that numbers don’t lie, but you can lie with numbers.

I’m pretty sure the church is actually thriving.  

One time Jesus talked about how you prune back a vine to make it healthier.  Yes, it is true that by many counts the percentage of the population that attends church might be shrinking.  But let me tell you what else is true.

The percentage of people attending Churches that focus on life transformation is rising.  The number of churches that put an emphasis on discipleship is rising.  The commitment of millenials who are raising their kids to understand the gospel of grace seems to be higher than my own generation’s.  And the consumers are leaving.  Those committed to having their needs met in the church are leaving churches and fleeing to churches committed to having their needs met.  And those churches will have to make some changes if they want to be thriving in 30 years.  Because the church exists to meet the needs of the world, not church members.

Now, I know change is difficult.  I read a lot of sciency stuff about that today.  Did you know that your brain sets off fight or flight responses when you sense change?  If Apple were to release a round phone tomorrow they would lose a chunk of their devoted followers because people are afraid of change.  But if Apple were convinced that in 30 years the only phones on the market would be round, then it might not a bad decision.

In 30 years, the only churches around will be those churches that are regularly calling people to life transformation.  Life transformation means a lot more than waking up early on a Sunday morning.  It means becoming a person who sacrifices instead of consumes. It means being a person who reads their Bible and asks the question “What is God calling me give up” instead of “How does God want me to be happy today?”

That might sound like hyperbole, but turn on any popular Christian televangelist.  Pick up the latest Christian best seller.  It won’t take you too long to discover that what is in demand is easy consumerism.  Your best life nowism.  And pithy inspirational one liners.

I know that to some, some of what I have said today may seem harsh, overly critical, and possibly even judgemental.

Understand one thing. 

I am deeply and passionately committed to the many children that I have baptized over the past several years.  I stood last night in our children’s ministry and looked at the faces of those kids in awe.  I have had a hand in their spiritual beginning, and I am doing everything I can to have a hand in their continuing in the faith over the next 50, 60, and 70 years.  They are the fruit of the ministry I hope to have. I will be long gone by the time that their children graduate from High school or college. But the work I do is for them and their children.

I want to see Christ’s church thrive and grow.  Not because I am great, because I know I am not.  But because He is.

Not because it depends upon me, because it doesn’t.  It depends on you, dear one.  The Christian reading this who sometimes attends church, but rarely reads the Bible.  The one who comes because it feels good, but is terrified of change.  The one who wants to come and consume, but does not want to contribute to the work of the church through leadership, giving, personal discipleship, evangelism, and investment in community.  The future of the church is not on my shoulders, it is on yours.

I am pleading with you with everything I have in me.  Understand that the way of the cross, the path of suffering and death, the call to repentance and life transformation is the only way to strengthen your own spiritual journey and the life of the people of God.

The church is without a doubt growing in parts of the world where it is hard to be a Christian.  The Middle East, sub saharan Africa and Asia all have indisputably growing churches.  The only place the church seems by some accounts to be stagnating is the western world where Christianity is treated as just one more consumer product.

Please, tear yourself away from the notion that the church exists to serve you, and come back to the call of Christ where we lay down our lives for others.