Post 14, Part 1-Relevant, or Business As Usual-The Church Today

 

            Unfortunately the American, corporate, organized, denominationalized Church, has, in my opinion, all but outlived its usefulness (relevance) in today’s world.  And I’m not picking on one particular denomination, I include them all. Dana Acker 

            But that raises another dilemma. If much of what Viola and Barna write is the truth, what should I do?  I don’t know. Because, Church as I know it is all that I know. But I do know that I can’t stand business as usual.  I believe as Steve Boyer said in his message about the church being Scandalously Better that God can’t stand business as usual either. John Calsin

             Some years ago, I saw a documentary on church. One of the cuts was from a then well known church leader referring to his drug usage days. God was calling him out of the drug culture and he went to a church. His comment about that experience was, “I gave up drugs for this.?!” (About an unknown church leader)

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10/16/2016, 9:27 PM

Hey Dana

            I found what follows in the file dated August 2010. I’m editing it from the original and am addressing it to you. I initially wrote it to someone else but the word        r e l e v a n c e   seems to keep popping up. Do you ever wonder if the Church is relevant for today?  Not God. Not His word. But the Church. For example, how about that article I just sent you on why young people leave the church? http://www.churchleaders.com/children/childrens-ministry-articles/166129-marc-solas-10-surprising-reasons-our-kids-leave-church.html

             I am reading Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of our Church Practices, by Frank Viola and George Barna, and published by Tyndale. This book has a Publisher’s Preface (or “black box warning”) about it being a challenge to cherished church traditions.  

http://www.paganchristianity.org/ (especially look at the Answers to Objections tab)

It took me over 7 months to begin this book due to the title. When I try to talk to people about it, as soon as I mention the title they usually get turned off,  but I don’t know of a more appropriate title. If you read this book, you’ll find it does not undercut or negate a single Biblical doctrine of the church. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed aren’t touched. It just challenges the reader to revisit his/her traditions. There is nothing “new” in this book as far as extra Biblical revelation. There are no Jim Joneses or Harold Campings hiding behind any of the pages. 

Did I ever tell you that I grew up in the liturgical church? I was an Episcopalian until I got saved at the age of 30 in an Assembly of God church. (Yes, it can be legitimately argued that even they have their own traditions and a form of liturgy J Just don’t tell them.)  And while I am not against liturgy (Carol and I used to go to the Christmas Eve service at the Episcopal Church in Paoli, PA and one of the most stirring services I ever attended was in the Washington National Cathedral when the Lutherans took over to celebrate the 460^th anniversary of their denomination. Talk about pomp. It was dynamic.) as the book Pagan Christianity? so convincingly points out, liturgy and tradition can take the Christian away from how God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit would have the Church worship and interact. 

            Another reason this is a good book is because, I believe, it constantly challenges me to look at and many times question what I know as the Church, both liturgical and Spirit led. Tyndale confronts the reader to “thoughtfully consider the source of our churches’ traditions and then ask how these practices square with Scripture and the practices of the first-century church.” That is what I am constantly being driven to do.  Tyndale goes on, “Many in the church hold to tradition, even if it is not grounded in Scripture, and these same people wonder why the church (today) seems to be losing its relevance and impact in the contemporary world.” 

I wonder if that is what the Holy Spirit was trying to say through Steve Boyer in his August 1^st (2010) sermon “Scandalously Better” from Acts 11:1-18. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+11%3A1-18&version=NKJV   At some point in your past, you may have even preached against church as usual or wrestled with God, asking Him why the Church is losing its power or place (relevance) in our lives.  Or perhaps you’ve asked yourself why the church seems to have no real impact on our contemporary world and why, statistically, so many young people leave the Church when they graduate from high school or after they’ve attended college a few years.  

While some might argue, in time (Pro 22:6) those disillusioned, or perhaps even cynical, children, long departed the church, may come back after a life wasted to the service of God is better than nothing, I argue,  the world and God can ill afford this squander of labors for the harvest field.

In spite of being a Pentecostal, where I have seen freedom of the Holy Spirit not found in many other churches, even I am challenged to look at what I know as the Church, and question what I am familiar with. But that raises another dilemma. If much of what Viola and Barna write is the truth, what should I do?  I don’t know. Because, Church as I know it is all that I know. But I do know that I can’t stand business as usual.  I believe as Steve Boyer spoke about the church being Scandalously Better that God wants that too. (This link is to Boyer's sermon http://www.cefcelverson.org/audio-sermons/244?rq=boyer ) And some of that may come from the challenges Viola and Barna raise in Pagan Christianity? 

            I often ask myself, “How is this relevant?” How will this help me today with the problems and needs of my life, or others? When I teach Sunday School, I do something that often upsets more than one person in the class. It is not unusual for me to take the Bible I’ll be holding in my hands and literally toss it across the room. For some who think that the physical book is holy, they’ve been known to get up and walk out and not come back. But then, with the class in a kind of shock, I ask the question, “If that book isn’t also good for Monday or Tuesday or Thursday or Saturday, what good is it?” 

Therein lies what I believe is one of the main challenges that Viola and Barna put before the reader. Is what the Church doing really Biblical, or is it traditional, or worse?  While even I would admit that not all tradition is bad/wrong and I would acknowledge there are times when I desire to attend an Episcopal Church for its liturgy, do I want church as usual, or do I want to see God move in a “Scandalously Better” way? 

May He help you to see His Word with new eyes and an open heart as you read it in the future. And may He help you to take His Word of hope and salvation to the lost anywhere, everywhere.  Amen

Yours for the Harvest

 John

PS Any positive word on Trish yet? How are you coming with the harvest? Once you get the grapes in, then what? 

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Dana’s Reply

 

10/20/2016, 2:45 PM

Hi John,

     Thank you for the letter and article link (on young people leaving the church).  There is much food for thought there.  In replying, I know I’ll probably, no, strike that, definitely ruffle some feathers.  As I contemplate my response, visions of the old black and white, Boris Karloff “Frankenstein” movie fill my head with images of people coming with pitchforks and torches and no good intentions towards my wellbeing.  The problem is that the people who would be coming for me would be “good church people” believing that they are doing the Lord’s work by skewering me and roasting me on a spit in preparation for my well-deserved eternal destiny.

      My intention is not to offend, but hopefully to wake some up and alert them to the dangers that the Church, at least in this country faces.  As for me, I want to love the Church, and if you hold that the Church is a group of redeemed sinners who know and love Jesus, want to serve Him, and grow in grace and truth, then I do love the Church. Whole heartedly…madly even.

     

      But unfortunately the American, corporate, organized, denominational Church, has, in my opinion, all but outlived its usefulness (relevance) in today’s world.  And I’m not picking on one particular denomination, I include them all. 

      

       Our society is in the mess that it is in because the organized church has allowed it to be so.  While trying to grow in numbers our focus turned inward, and we asked, “What can we offer in our church that the world offers in order to bring in more and more people?” Coffee shops? Gymnasiums? How about a Christian saloon? (see http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/christian-trends/why-more-churches-should-think-about-serving-alcohol.html )  

     We saw the rise of the mega-churches, and churches that boasted thousands on their rolls.  In Bible College, I was quite emphatically told that “…it would be better to have a church of 1000 members with 100 of them saved, than to have a church of 100 members and have only 10 saved.”  Numbers again. 

     The emphasis of the organized church seemed set on being the biggest and best, as if that somehow was a measure of spirituality…because if your church is huge, then it must mean that God is in it.  Right?

     Well, the church (many of them) got big, but so did the pornography industry.  Drug addiction, prostitution, wanton political corruption, child abuse, teen pregnancy, and divorce grew as well.  Found anything particularly wholesome on network television these days?  In my youth, I remember old black and white TV shows where the husbands and wives slept in separate beds, so as to not put on the “appearance of evil.”  Not anymore.  Evil is alive and well and on the march.  Where was the church when all this was happening?  Well-meaning church programs may have added numbers to the roll books and dollars to the offering plates, but on an influential level, societally and culturally speaking, were abject failures.

     OK, but what about the smaller churches that didn’t get to a million members and take in millions of dollars?  What about them?  Well, I’m not accusing every church meeting in the USA of dropping the ball, (I know for a fact that there are some good ones out there,) but still the influence has just not been all that influential.

     We wonder why the church is so much on the wane.  We wonder why it doesn’t attract new people or keep the ones it already has.  We wonder why the kids leave and do not come back.  Then we wring our hands and worry about it for a minute or two, then it’s time for our favorite program, or there’s someone we have to get back to on Facebook. Perhaps that is why we are so weak and ineffectual.   Where’s General Booth when you need him? 

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John Comments

               http://www.azquotes.com/author/1671-William_Booth  If today’s church leaders would speak as Booth, and C. T. Studd, did and mean it—see the quotes in the link—I wouldn’t be surprised that most in their congregations wouldn’t believe their ears. For example, Booth said, “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” or “Most Christians would like to send their recruits to Bible college for five years. I would like to send them to hell for five minutes. That would do more than anything else to prepare them for a lifetime of compassionate ministry.” Or as C.T. Studd said, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop, within a yard of hell.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Studd )

 

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Dana Continues

    In no way am I a church historian, but I’ve lived long enough to have seen a few things, ecclesiastically speaking.  Mainstream denominational Christianity seemed to have suffered a lull in the late 1950’s and 1960’s as a whole.  Once I heard someone call mainstream churches of the period, “…mausoleums where the dead in Christ gather every Sunday.”  As one of America’s troubled youth back in the 60’s, I remember the pastor of the church my parents ( and therefore I) attended, coming through our youth group meeting, and being asked by one of the kids, “What is the Holy Spirit?” 

     The minister stopped and thought for a minute, and then said, “Well the Holy Spirit is sort of this…uh, emanation from God.” Then he turned and exited hastily.  Woohoo! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Armed with this knowledge at 13 years of age, I was ready to become a missionary to Borneo. Sadly outside of the Lord’s prayer, the 23^rd Psalm, and this new revelation about the Holy Spirit, I was as Biblically illiterate as some heathen in the Amazon Jungle.

     Then came the Charismatic Renewal!  Granted, a lot of craziness ensued, but the main take-away message was that Jesus was alive, and that one could have a real relationship with Him.  People were being miraculously healed, and reports of signs and wonders were far from uncommon. People were not only carrying, but actually reading their Bibles. Pipe organs were being replaced by guitars and tambourines.  Guys like Chuck Smith reached across the boundary lines and brought in all those dirty, drug addled hippies, and told them that Jesus loved them regardless of the fact that they wore beads and sandals to church.  All of a sudden the church was something more than just three hymns, a sermon, an offering, and a “See you next week.” To quote Joseph Conrad, “The horror.  The horror.”

     Oh yes, there was a lot of blow back from the denominational churches.  Heaven forbid that Catholics were finding Jesus too, and becoming charismatics.  And I mentioned hippies, didn’t I?  I mean didn’t Jesus have more class than that?  Kind of reminds me of the feeling I often get when reading the Gospels.  Jesus actually ate with sinners and tax collectors, and the “good church people” of the day, the Pharisees and Sadducees, stood aghast!  My spiritual gift is cynicism if you cannot already tell.

     Once I heard Alistair Begg describe two types of churches. In both types the members lock arms, and stand shoulder to shoulder in a big circle.  In one group the members in the circle are facing in towards the center. In the other circle, they were facing out.  Many of our churches have been facing in for far too long.  They will welcome you into their ranks as long as you are exactly like them.

     For all its sometimes zaniness and faulty orthodoxy, the Charismatic Renewal, was an honest cry on behalf of spiritually bored, spiritually malnourished Christians, and searching, disillusioned youth, to the Holy Spirit to make Jesus real to them. Before my Mom and Dad got into the whole charismatic thing, I remember my Dad telling me that one day as he was driving, pondering some troubling aspects of church life as he experienced it, he  prayed, “Lord, there has to be more to Christianity than this.” And you know what? God sent the Holy Spirit in a mighty way to my Mom and him, and to spiritually hungry people all over this land was the resounding answer.   

     Now being a dry, old, Reformed, doctrinal guy, I’m not advocating the classic Charismatic or Pentecostal experience for everyone, in that that experience is the only way to experience Christ, or have a vibrant Christian life.  I’m not opposing it either.  I do not think it’s the “experience” we should be seeking, and unfortunately it often times is.  No, we have to want Jesus more than we want to breathe, or to eat…or to text or tweet….  There goes my spiritual gift exercising itself again. 

     Think of it, if we lovingly and passionately (recklessly even?) sought Christ to that extent, then however the Holy Spirit wanted to manifest the living Christ to His people would be the absolute right way.  We just have to get out of the way and stop trying to put limits on just how He is supposed to go about it.  Many of us want revival, but in the way we want it.  And if God doesn’t want to do it our way, and according to our dictates or traditions, well, who needs that?  We’re so busy lamenting the fact that no one sings, “Give Me That Old Time Religion” anymore, that we’re oblivious to the idea that maybe God wants to do something new.

      (Continued next week)