Overcoming our Inward Community Tendencies

Last night I began a summer lecture series entitled, "How to Reach Out without Losing Your Mind or Your Faith."  One of my professors is famous for a quote, "A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew."  Well, I hate it when I am not clear.  It results in a very foggy lecture.  This was my experience last night.

That being said, I think the problem is that myself and my hearers had a different framework for approaching the question of outreach.  In other words, we defined outreach different, we were not speaking the same language concerning methods, and the conversation went in directions I did not intend.

The result?  Interesting discussion, but a lack of clarity about what we were talking about!  I do apologize for this!  Still, it helped prompt me to clarity of my own thought.  Thankfully, I get next week to try again.  

One issue I was attempting to raise last night (not well I confess) is found in the following quotation by Richard Lovelace.  As he states,

"It is possible for both individuals and churches to become devoted mainly to personal spiritual culture and forget outreach, especially if the process of reaching out involves touching those who may contaminate us. Thus many Protestant churches have in effect become closed systems for the nurture and servicing of the inheritors of a denominational tradition." 

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life.

The context of this quotation is Lovelace's discussion of the Mission of the Church.  He lists an emphasis on mission as a mark of authentic spirituality.  In this short paragraph, he also discusses an issue that directly impacts the direction of an individual, a church or a denomination.  

In the past several years, I have had many discussions with individuals and denominational officials about how their church is dying and losing members.  This is the general tenor of the comments.  "This younger generation just does not care about church.  Our church community is growing older and there are few children.  We were once such a vibrant church, but now there are so few of us.  Our culture is destroying the church.  There is nothing we can do."  I believe Lovelace's comments address all of these laments.

How?

Well first, our cultural embrace of personal piety and religion as the essence of religion is very destructive to the mission of God.  It comes from an assumed plank of Enlightenment thought that all religion is personal and private.  It has been argued for over 200 years that religion is something that helps the individual to cope, but it is not true truth that can be rationally debated and discussed.  When we do not combat this incorrect assumption, we have already lost the battle for the souls of those who are not yet believers.  

If Jesus is the Son of God, this truth is much more important, lasting, and transformative than my personal thoughts, or even worse feelings, about who Jesus is.  It is an historical fact that changes everything.

Like what?  It means that there is a personal and caring God in this universe.  It means that sin is real and universal.  It means that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are building their Kingdom by dealing with sin and its effects.  People need to hear this great news!  Mission means taking this message of redemption into every area of life and to every corner of the world.  It is beyond being merely personal.  It makes the difference for the entire world and how we relate with the world.

Second, when we think of those in our culture as "contaminating us" we misunderstand the nature of Jesus and His ministry.  Jesus associated with all types of people, and we are a continuation of Jesus' ministry as we minister in His name (Acts 2:33 and 26:23).  He met with a woman of ill-repute (John 4), tax-collectors (Mark 2), and other sinners (Luke 7).  In summarizing his ministry by saying, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)  

In fact, the only people Jesus appeared to have problems with were the religious folks!  He warned people about "the yeast" of religious folks working through the entire batch causing its demise (Matt. 16).  In other words, Jesus warned that religious folks could corrupt one so they do not trust God.  The Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious folks in Jesus' day, promoted their traditions and purity as promoting and illustrating God's favor.  They refused to follow the example of Jesus' ministry, and they actually sneered and looked down upon sinners as beneath them.  Is this not exactly what Lovelace was talking about when he discussed those who "forget outreach, especially if the process of reaching our involves touching those who may contaminate us?"

Where does this rejection of Jesus' ministry style leave us?  As Lovelace states, "Many Protestant churches have in effect become closed systems for the nurture and servicing of the inheritors of a denominational tradition."  The result is a slow, prolonged death.  

The death of a church or denomination begins by claiming a desire to reach out to the lost, but the actions of its leadership and members declare to all visitors, "You are not welcome unless you are just like us."  This ministry style then gets institutionalized by allocation of funds and ministry focus on church members.  Now the ministries of the church promote the message, "You must be like us to be welcome here."  

As time goes on, most of the young people leave such an inward focused church.  They are raised in this church, but they leave to go somewhere else or drop out all together because they are looking for authentic community or a place with less hypocrites.  After years of this process, the church is a beautiful building without many people.

Have you seen this progression?  Have you experienced the seductive but deadly allure of an inward focused church?  Thankfully there is hope.  It is found in the gospel being believed and lived out.  I will start next week with a post that presents what a gospel- and grace-centered community looks like.