September 29, 2005
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COME TO CHURCH TO LEAVE
Thank you Ginny (SimplyBridges) for some stimulating thought. I would like to share an experience I had, first, let me repeat the question and my thoughts for those here. Please, go to Ginny’s site and read further.
The Question: “A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith.” any thoughts?
Allot to think about here. Essentially, I agree, sadly, I see. I often think that much of this comes from the basic “attitude” of the church as an organization. There is a shift from consumer oriented “church”, (What can this organization do for me and my family?) to “I love you Jesus and I want to follow and serve You!”. Our society (especially in America) is based on consumerism. However, as we become followers of Christ, we are called to give, we are called to love, we are called to be selfless and humble in thought and deed.
I believe our “attitude” should be more, “we are gathering to immerse ourselves in the ways of God, to worship and love the Most Holy, to pray, to celebrate what Jesus is doing in our lives and our world so that we can leave…yes…I believe that we come to church so that we can LEAVE……so that we can GO OUT and meet people where they are, so that we can GO OUT and share our lives with others, thereby sharing what we hold most dear, our relationship with Christ, with others.
I believe that as we she a shift from “consumer church” to “mission oriented life” that we will see people gathering together for something much greater that ourselves.
What I find most refreshing and moving in God like ways, is that as we change our attitude….we actually attain what we sought in the beginning. What I mean is, when we decide not to come to the church gathering “to be filled”, but to come to “fill” then we find that we are filled. I hope that makes sense.
Maybe as this shift in attitude occurs, people will flock to gather together to strengthen their faith rather than want to leave to strengthen their faith.
An experience I had: Earlier this year our Worship team held a retreat called 12one (Romans 12:1) in Daytona Beach at a “Christian Hotel” (read= a hotel that caters to Christian groups). This is actually my very first blog entry on Xanga:
Thoughts from a recent morning in April……..
What a morning…what a beach. there I was, in many ways my life coming full circle. It was in Daytona Beach in 1982 that I turned my life around. It was here that I hit my lowest low and cried out to God to deliver me from a life of drugs and shallow relationships. I used to work at the Mayan Inn down by the boardwalk in the Aztec Lounge. I know Daytona, the parties the drugs, the alcohol, the broken spirits of those who live and work there and the temporary insanity of those who visit to party.
I ran a mile or so down the beach in the slow drizzle, the dark layers of clouds were slowly drifting out to sea. As I looked up and down the wide expanse of beach before me I could see only an endless stretch of hotels in either direction. The hotel that we were staying at, the El Caribe, is known as a Christian hotel as it host many Christian groups and events. As I looked back I saw a break in the clouds and a patch of shining blue sky allowing sunlight to shine through right over the El Caribe. I instantly was moved, felt emotions welling inside my heart and recognized that God wanted me to see the great number of lost souls that He yearned to have come to Him. Here was a lone hotel hosting groups of people in love with the living God amidst a seemingly endless stretch of people lost to God.
I realized that as God’s children, we were to gather together in love and fellowship, but ultimately we are called to disperse and to reach out in love to all those on that endless expanse of beach. We are called to go out into the world and share the love that we have so graciously received through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What do you think?
Comments (10)
Jan- Thanks so much for an awesome post. I would say that is an interesting quetion posed in this day and age. I would say that I realize (through the Lord’s teaching) that people certainly are falling away from the Church. Though the Word tells us that this will happen, I see another reason as well. One that I have spent alot of time praying over. You are so true in saying we have become the “consumer church”. Because of that we have lost the true meaning of what the Church was for. As Steve teaches on Acts 2, it is so important for us to study this deeper. The “Church” was the body of believers coming together at a certain time (away from the world) to fellowship together, break bread, to spend time in prayer, and to be taught. That is where we have failed. We are so focused on numbers and as I saw back home saying we had so many “saved” that we lost the focus of the church. It is to equip the saints to GO OUT into the world, so they can make disciples. We spend so much time trying to make the Church attractive to the unbeleiver (and as the Lord has shown me, as I pray He will others), this is not pleasing. We can not expect people to grow and become equiped to serve IN or OUT of the Church if we are not devoted to the teaching of the Word and prayer. As the Church begins to refocus on where we have fallen, and when we turn back to Him and as Steve is teaching what the real purpose of the Church is, I believe we will see Christ moving among us, like we have yet to see. But that just depends on us and how we respond. Thanks also for sharing your incrediable story. I so LOVE to see how Christ draws us near to Him and opens our blind eyes to what we really need, HIM!! God bless you and all you do for His kingdom.
Jan, this is good.
I think for me I saw the church become a business. It was no different than what I saw working here at Disney. Marketing this and trying to sell that. Trying to be something it was not intended to be. I have even made the statement that the church is nothing more than a business a corporation trying to market themselves to gain numbers, be the hippest thing on the block…
I agree with what you said.. ask not what the church can do for you but what can you do to further the kingdom of God…
It does make a difference in how you view the church.
thanks!
jan, lots of good stuff here. (i also posted this on my blog)
one thing that struck me is that with a change in attitude comes a culture shift within the church. while i’ve seen cultural shifts starting from ‘grass roots efforts’ (the laity within the church) if the key leaders don’t catch, communicate and actively pursue the vision for the attitude change, the potential for a cultural shift from ‘consumers’ to ‘missionaries’ probably won’t be realized. this reminds me of my ever-present question, “how do we change from a ‘this is the way we’ve always done it’ to ‘let’s break the rules (of instiutionalism)?’ if the leadership doesn’t want to accept the challenge to explore a change in attitude, unfortunately as you also said, many will probably relocate…but where will they go?
Thanks Jan, you just made me realize something.
I think that the reason many are leaving the church is because they have lost faith in God. Sadly this comes from the wrongs of humanity. A bad preacher, a overbearing member in the congregation, a personal trajedy all result in the individual losing faith.
Antoher reason is that some, not all but some, churches have become white washed tombs. They are more focused on power and petty problems then Jesus and Love.
As far as a actual place to meet and worship…I have had quite a few. My girlfriends church is nice and I go there occasionally but I guess the best place I have on Earth as far as a building is in Zanesville at a small Out Reach center called Church 907 (907 is its address) one of the ministers there is a man that I consider to be my pastor, they help the poor and have a regular following of about 10, 11 counting me. I don’t come every Wed. but it is through this Minister that God helped to bring me back into his love. In a way I am an Apostle to this place. Thank you for helping me to realize this. Peace.
-Pilgrim of Truth
i identify severely with tony’s post…i’ve been “involved” behind the scenes in organized church since about 7th grade. i’ve seen “behind the curtain” at the wizard. while i understand people’s bent to leave the organized church, i really think it behooves us as leaders to take steps to change what church is about… to pare it down to its bare essentials–loving each other and showing Christ’s love to others. If we can make this the focus of the body and quit the “marketing”, maybe we can be about what’s important to God: showing more than telling people he loves them and wants to redeem them to him. i think there’s a lot of new thought out there that is trying to separate christian religion from Christ-likeness. i also strongly identify with what “bridges” says about the change in attitude being born at the grass roots level…. i’ve seen the workings of “church as business” for so long i know the lingo, the trends and can watch a service and know exactly what’s going on to make it happen. (i know phil actually only works 3-5 hours a week picking songs….hahahaha)
BUT
is breaking away what God want’s for believers?
I dunno. it seems that every group that comes up with a “new” take on how to do organized church eventually doctrinalizes its differences and others want to be different in the same way and soon you have a whole goup doing something different together….hmmmm that’s why we have so many diff. denominations….because it’s about being different in our own way. we see those that don’t want to put up with or differences as close minded, but then we don’t want to allow them to be different in their own way…our way of being different is better than their way…and it degenerates into a popularity contest…the big look down on the little as ineffective (“they’d grow if they were doing it right”) and the little downplay the effectiveness of the mega (“there’s no way they can be in touch with their people–all 12 thousand of them….”) but there is only one “right” way…to love or neighbor…to judge not…to follow the teachings of Christ…
professional religious people migrate toward methodology that works normally because they want to do what God has called them to do in the most effective manner possible—-is that wrong? i don’t see how…
it’s sort of a chicken and the egg thing…which came first….church leadership who wanted to reach the largest number of people possible thereby being effective in what God called them to do or we as a society who responded to consumerism and being marketed too?
seems like sort of a vicious circle…
it’s a difficult topic to parse because i’m not sure there’s a cut and dried “right” answer…
i think it’s up to every Christ follower to love their neighbor in their own unique way and go from there… we show God’s love by meeting the needs of the body and the needs of others…i don’t think it’s up to us to identify whether or not we think those needs are worthy…
maybe society today needs house churches as much as it needs mega churches with food courts and daycare centers.
God calls us to meet needs, not judge them.
sorry for the rant…i hope it’s understandable.
J-frog out.
just wanna say hay
Great post Jan! I could not agree more with all of you! And lostfrog…I feel what you’re saying! I’ve always thought that’s there’s some who need the ”mega” church and others that need the ”house” church. I’m a house church kinda girl. I would never presume to say that one way is wrong and another is right…who am I? but I do know that I’ve been apart of both types of churches -especially growing up with both parents in the ministry- and I’ve seen beauty and ugliness in both types. I think no matter what the church looks like on the outside, it has to have people who are dedicated to REALLY loving God and others…the kind of people that don’t just “take attendance” or “count the offering,” but rather invest in loving relationships with people. We are a “family” of believers…I guess some families are more disfunctional than others. I think it takes openness, communication, time, and a lot of love and laughter to make those kind of relationships grow, but ultimately, we have to be open to what God wants for us. If He wants our family to be a house church, then we have to be open to that…if He wants our family to be a mega church, then we have to be open to that, too. As long as families focus on loving God and loving others, He will grow the Church.
Lifepoint…you are my family!
Laura, James, Brian, Pilgrim, Ginny, Tony, Stephanie, it’s great to be in the same family
Thank you.
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Thanks!