Leighton Tebay keeps us humble with this post:
Let us be honest, we don’t know how to fix the church
All over western society we see the church in decline in numbers and in influence. There are a lot of answers but not a lot of progress. The Willow/Back churches can point to numbers, buildings and dollars as a sign of their success. Even though Warren and Hybels have had a tremendous influence on the church George Barna tell us that the church is losing its influence on society year after year. The “Emerging Churches” I’ve experienced have detoxed church but the reconstruction hasn’t resulted in much change. A cursory glance at the discussion will reveal that so many of us want church without the stuff we don’t like. What seems to matter is what we want out of church, not what Jesus wants out of His church.
Maybe it will take another 10 or 20 years of decline before we become humble enough to actually admit we don’t know. Many of us have reached the point where we admit things aren’t as they should be. When we begin to think of why we only dig down a level or two and we never get to questioning our foundational assumptions. I think we have to be brave enough to do that.
Comments
11 responses to “We Don’t Know How To Fix the Church”
I have asked this same question for a long time now. But I have recently come to believe that it is the wrong question to ask. To oversimplify in order to be brief, it is really not our job.
“I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work.” Solomon was onto something there. i simply pray that as we deconstruct the church, in hopes of Christ rebuilding His Church as He sees fit, that God sees our motives and our actions as righteous.
As I’ve “left” the institutional church and watched the emerging church, I haven’t been too impressed by either.
I fall back on a conversation I had a while ago around the story of the Tower of Babel. How the people wanted to build the tower and they began with bricks and tar rather than stone and mortar (Gen 11:3b). Too often we rush into ‘building’ rather than letting God build us.
My soul is thirsting for His Church but I have to resist the urge to slake my thirst by my own means.
I think that this is soooo true. I long for the beautiful bride of Christ. Maybe we won’t get to see it this side of heaven but at least we get to look foreward to it then.
We don’t know how to fix the church???
I too agree, that the question is probably over-simplified
Lets not let our “humility” cause us to be like the man who was given talents and buried them.
“Lord, we don’t know what we are doing, so we did nothing”.
Remember that it is as a man thinks in his heart, so will he be….
I we believe that that church is a non- victorious entity awaiting escape, then thats who will be.
I believe that God is stirring up those who have an ear to listen, and things are changing… how rapidly? I dont know, i guess it depends on our response to what God is showing us.
Not because the church is broken, but because the church is growing in maturity.
Come to think of it… the church in comparison with the eternal purpose of God is only 2000 years old…. not a big number compared to eternity
by the way, I am definitely in agreement when it was said that it is time to be brave enough to examine our foundational assumptions. I think maybe we should start now…
What is it we believe about our identity, and how is what we believe effecting our ability to be the living presence of God in the earth?
I believe we can look to the Book of Acts to see what Jesus wants out of His church and to the letters in Revelation to see what He doesn’t want. I so agree with Soulwinger that what we believe about our identity (in Christ)so affects our ability to “be that living presence.”
Your question also lurks in South Africa. After apartheid the mainline and other churches are losing their credibility. How can you trust a church that approved racism in the form of apartheid and now turns to approve racism in the form of affrimative action. Being trained as a pastor (white, 40+ and ready for ministry) I don’t I want to be part of that and I am looking at different ways to reach the lost in my region.
It seems that if we pray to have things happen on earth as they are in heaven, then admitting there should be one unified Church becomes a little easier. Essentials for Christian unity then come into play. Is Church polity an essential consideration in having a unified Church? Yes. This means ecumenical merger in the name of Christ. Those with the authority in His name to stop the apostasies, heresies and schisms need to step up. Ecumenical merger should be begin with understanding the works of the several bishops in a jurisdiction and come into communion with one.
We have an obsession for form. We find some new truth and we quickly create a form. In the past 41 years I have experienced every form possible, all of which is designed to replace the life and power of God.
Today it is the house church form. Everyone is seeking some aspect of the New Testament to restore the church.
The Charismatic movement sought to restore the power. The discipleship movement sought to restore accountability to one another. The restoration movement sought to restore the 5 fold ministry. The Jesus movement sought to restore community and people living together and having all things common. Though all of these have there place in the NT, they do not come from life. All of these are from the knowledge of right and wrong (good and evil), correct and incorrect theology. We are stuck in the higher information mode and losing the life mode.
If there is a method in the NT church, it would be one based on life: humility, brokenness, love and faith.
Paul didn’t build house churches; he built the church in the city. He built a Jesus movement. He built unity. He built leadership and fellowship.
All of what I see today is only the American form of religion using different forms and arrogantly believing they are on the NT cutting edge.
Go to a house church convention, it is no different than the institutional conventions. They have their big names, their book sellers, their graduates, their icons. Do you think they would let you through in your 2 cents? Do they recognize other leaders besides their little click of convention speakers? Every movement I have participated in the past 41 years and 30 years of that as a pastor and 6 years as a house church elder, has only shown me the same pattern. Clergy on one side and laity on the other.
We need unity (church in the city), we need leadership coming together (not conventions), we need the recognition of one another and we need to drop our names so we can meet in His name. We have named our organizations, and that is all they are… our organizations. Then we ask God to bless our 501c3, corporation.
Wake up Laodicea, shake your grave clothes and meet in humility calling on God to make us one. Let’s stop looking at what we are doing and let’s come together and hear what the “Unknowns” are saying; those who are not writhing books and are not a part of the spiritual elite.
I really appreciated what Andrew had to say on this subject. Every outward form or truth we see in God’s word was a pure act of God that flowed from the inner man as our Lord worked His death and life in those that believed. We are destined to be humbled and fail time and time again if we are outwardly and doctrine focused. The life of God is an inward work, putting to death all that is evil in us, Church life then is just a product of His fruit being poured out to mankind. For God is love beiing poured out as we sacrificially offer ourselves, our evil desires, our natural man and the abhorrent nature of our souls to be consumed in the Holy Fire of God. He replaces that with His Santifying life, that loves through us, producing in us His meekness and humility to have one purpose, and that is being resigned to God’s will and nothing more while here on earth.Anything pure we see in God’s word, any truth, anything precious like the purity we see in the church life our brothers and sisters lived in Acts, stems from this inward work of God’s love consuming all that is of man, and filling man with all that is of Him. As precious as these truths are, if we try to take them in an outward sense and thus go “do” them, the Lord in His mercy will show us we have no capacity to “do” anything. Where ever we go and whatever works we do, must pass through the cross and be born of Him who is the only one that can do any fruitful work.
And let me say before all my brothes and sisters who may read this, I am the worst of any of you. I have come to see me for what I am. All the evil I so arrogantly hate in others resides moreso in me than anyone. I began to see even after some years of being a Christian how deceived in my outward desires and flesh I really was. We take what we want in the outward flesh and become deceived to believe that we hear from God. But by God’s mercy through the torment and anguish of our souls, He will show us how we are enslaved by our natural man, imprisoned in darkness and He by His mercy is showing me the inward way. Every passion, desire and selfish thought wrapped in this visible world must be put to death. Then and only then can we know the will of God.
The simple answer to the questions and the evil we see in today’s church is each of us must come to a death in our carnal life, thus breaking our outer man so resurrection life may pour out of us.The answer is easy, but the flesh is unwilling, and very deceived. It’s a hard answer but I feel it’s the only truth and answer I have.