Has the Crimson Tide under performed?

This coming Wednesday is national signing day for high school football players to sign letters of intent for college scholarship.  There is an entire industry that has grown up around which student will go to which school.  There are entire publications and writers that have made a full time job charting, predicting and guessing where a high school senior will go to college to play ball.

Watching parties are built around national signing day, such as the one at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.  It is estimated that around 300 high school athletes will descend on this venue as the place where they will make public their choice in a college team.  Many high schools will hold special assembly meetings, covered by local news and, in some cases the national media, for local football heroes to declare where they will be attending university.  It has become, especially in the Southeast, a sort of national championship in and of itself.

For some players there have been dozens of scholarship offers.  In the moment of the declaration the football player is alone in the spotlight.  Often there is great artistry in maximizing the drama of the moment.  The young man offers thanks to everyone from his parents to his coach to the volunteer that managed the local pee- wee football program.  He thanks all the schools that have made him an offer and talks about what a tough decision it was and finally the choice is revealed. The crowd, on queue, cheers wildly for the next super star of college athletics.  Some will go on to be great college football players while a very select few will advance to play on Sunday in the NFL.  Most will find that being a big shot playing with high school boys is a lot different from playing with college men and will spend most of the time at college football games on the bench.

When it comes to recruiting the best team in the nation, for the last several years it has been the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. “Experts” rate each recruiting class to determine which team signed the most talented group of incoming players.  From 2008 till 2016, Alabama has had the top-rated, recruiting class every year with only two exceptions.  In the recruiting game there are very few teams that operated in the rarified air of a top twenty recruiting class.  Since 2005, only 41 teams have made an appearance in the top twenty recruiting list.  During that time only 5 teams have been a part of that elite list every year; Alabama is one of those teams.  Since Nick Saban arrived, Alabama has been the best recruiting team in college football.  To go along with that, over the last 8 years Alabama has won 4 national championships and has come close on a couple of other occasions.  I think we can say that based on its excellent resources, in terms of talent, Alabama has performed as expected. 

What about the church in America?  When it comes to the resources that are available to the church how is the church doing?

Churches often act as if there is a chronic short fall in terms of financial resources.  But the reality is that most churches do, in fact, receive generous offerings from their members.  If giving is down, is it matter of motivation?

Churches always seem to be short of volunteers for our programs.  But are we having a hard time recruiting help because we are offering programs rather than life-changing ministry?

Church attendance, membership, and conversions are in decline.  But is that because we have lowered the meaning of belonging to the point that being a part of the community of faith is not terribly important?

As the church of the risen Savior we have:

_§    The Greatest Message of all times.

_§    The Word of God to teach and guide us.

_§    The Father whose love is the motivation for the grand venture.

_§    The Son who will plead with God to move Heaven and Earth at our request.

_§    The Holy Spirit to empower, convict and lead us to the great work of the Gospel.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  In football, Alabama, when compared with the other teams, is better than anyone else at amassing talent and tends to produce winners.  We as the church have resources that are beyond compare.  But in the American church we are dramatically under performing. 

I do not have the answers!  I cannot write an article or a blog or a book and outline the steps needed to make the change.  But I can say as a churchman, church consultant, minister and Christian, American Christianity isn’t working.  Maybe it is time to challenge all of our assumptions about how to do and be the church.  Maybe it is time to say, let’s start over and return to faith and the practice of the church as she was in those first dynamic years.

What can be done about the pretty American church?

As the American church works hard at being beautiful it goes through a great many contortions to appeal to our consumerist society.  Several years ago a minister at a rapidly growing, emerging, mega church told me: “To grow a church all you really need is great music and children’s ministry.  If you have those you can get by with average preaching.”  In other words, you better have star power where people want star power. 

“Come to church and you could win a free Harley Davidson motorcycle.”  One church, in an effort to teach the community about grace-the gift that makes glad, actually had a drawing during their worship service in which they gave away a new motorcycle.  I attended one church, a satellite of the mother church, in which the pastor apologized for reading a long passage of Scripture before his teaching.  This church would be very appealing to a secular person-great light show, loud band (yes ear plugs were offered), high volume fog machine, a comforting teaching about building a better life and home, very little Scripture-clearly nothing to scandalize or offend. 

If we appeal to the consumer mindset of our culture by crafting worship to suit the culture, will it be up to our culture to say “enough”?  If our capacity to reach the world is dependent on star power, what shall we do with our ministers, churches and servants who will never be stars?  In hundreds of ways, some subtle, others not, we communicate to the Christian community, “You should be in a church with epic awesomeness at every turn.”  In my own community a pastor from a star kind of church was talking with a couple that attended a smaller congregation.  When they expressed their contentment to stay with their own church the pastor asked, “What could ***** church possible offer that we don’t have?” The star church is very good at attracting people, more often than not Christians from other congregations.  In our efforts to make the church irresistibly attractive to our world, we may be sowing the seeds of our own demise.  

While I do not doubt the sincerity of those who are pushing the church to be more available to the culture at large, I believe we are reaching a tipping point at which the church will become culture expressed in religious terms and nothing more.  I understand that culture will inevitably have an impact on the ministry of the church.  I also understand that we must not assume that the sub-culture of the church will be easily understood by the world at large.  However, a constant danger for the church is to be so shaped by and pursuant of the culture that it becomes apostate.  It has happened to a church culture with a much deeper theological heritage than ours. Take for example Bishop Ludwig Muller and the efforts of the Reichskirche.  I do not believe that the church in American will turn into a political machine.  Our temptation lays more to the glitz, glamour, and polish of entertainment.  In the name of reaching more people and growing bigger, in the effort to have a grander show and more exciting experience, to be or imitate the new, newest thing, we shift our focus from the eternal to the latest church beautiful effort.

Allow me to offer a disclaimer here.  I am not advocating sloppy, poor quality, dead ritual, mind numbing worship.  I have watched churches throw together efforts of such poor quality that I was embarrassed for them.  I have heard musical presentations that were hideous beyond description.  What I am advocating is that the church rediscover the ancient beauty of worship.

It is said that the Reformation moved the center of worship from the altar to the pulpit, from saying the Mass to preaching scripture.  It has also been said that the church growth movement moved the center of worship from the pulpit to the praise band.  I believe that it is time to move the center of worship again.  I believe we can have worship that is deeply moving, yet can be conducted by those with less than star quality talent.

Here is where we can return to the ancient beauty of the church and for many it will be new.  We can rediscover the power and the beauty of worship that is centered in the Lord’s Supper.  To gather at the Lord’s Table every week was clearly the practice of the early church.  It is a practice in which the focus is on the One who is the sacrifice and taken away from any who would be a star.  It is the drama of the life, death, and resurrection of the One whom we claim to worship.  It is a table that welcomes all true believers, while reminding each that they are present only by grace.  When compared with the body and blood of Christ the grandest light, fog, and music shows become a shallow flirtation.   

Some would argue that to make the Lord’s Table the center of worship every week would cause it to lose its significance.  I have seen this in churches when communion meditations are poorly prepared, when little thought is given to the cross and when communion is treated as a prelude to a sermon.  We do not think the Lord’s Table is critical and so we prepare for it as if it is not critical. 

But I believe that if we put the effort into making the Lord’s Table significant, it will be significant.  If we spend adequate time in prayer and scripture as we approach communion we will find that it is consistently a source of strength and worship.  I have worshipped in the grand event church and with stars on stage.  And I have worshipped in the small gathering where there was an absence of stars, but we stood in awe of the Savior and ate His body and drank His blood.  I will always choose the nail scared hands to the star-studded stage. 

Ugly Jesus Pretty Church?

 Was Jesus unattractive?  Last week we began to braid three threads together.  The first is that as fallen humans we tend to have a carnal bias toward those we find attractive.  The second is that there is a possibility that Jesus was not an attractive man.    Israel once had a king that was attractive.  “Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else.” 1 Samuel 2:9   That was part of the problem.  What he looked like on the outside tended to obscure what was in the heart.  The appeal to outward appearance was such that Samuel would have, had not God whispered in his ear, chosen David’s older brother rather than David.  David’s son Absalom nearly succeeded in his coup helped, no doubt, by his good looks.

We can never say definitively if Jesus was homely, but a literal reading of Isaiah 53 certainly makes that a possibility.  The power of the ministry of Jesus was not that He “wowed” the people by his stunning good looks.  Let’s pull in the third thread.

Thread #3 Church Beautiful

While we don’t know what Jesus looked like, we can definitively say that the American church works very hard at being the “Church Beautiful”.  When I say beautiful I do not mean beautiful in terms of acts of righteousness; I mean in the superficial type of beauty that attracts crowds. 

I suppose this is nothing new.  When I was in elementary school our church’s VBS curriculum featured a picture of Jesus that some of the ladies at church said looked a lot like Robert Redford.  I suppose that part of our fallen human nature is that we try to make Jesus look like what we are attracted to.    What do we want in a Savior?  One that is beautiful, magnificent, attractive, and that can draw a crowd.

So, the American church works very hard to be attractive.  In fact, at times the church is almost obsessed with being beautiful.  This is sometimes manifested with buildings that are stunning to look at, but are poorly functional, under used and over-priced.  In my role of church consultant focusing on capital development and buildings, I have seen buildings and building plans that were driven, not by a sense of ministry or vision, but by expressions of the giant egos of congregations or leaders.

“Young is beautiful” is a message not lost on the church. To be attractive some churches make a point of making sure those on stage have a certain appeal to them.  “It is a matter of branding,” is the justification that one worship leader gave to explain why older people were not used in the praise team.  It is hard to look cool, hip and gucci (a newer term for cool), if you have some geezer trying to praise Jesus.  We all know that having old people praise Jesus would make the Lord GMT (gets me tight = angry).

As children and especially teens, we experience significant peer pressure-the need to fit it.  Some people are so driven by peer pressure that they become peer dependent, finding their approval in looking like their peers.  It seems that some pastors never get over the need to fit in.  So driven by their desire to be appealing they have to look the part of cool.  If you doubt me please explain why after Rick Warren in southern Cal began wearing floral print shirts (perhaps appropriate for SoCal) these same type shirts began to show up on pastors in the foothills of the Appalachians. 

A colleague of mine that was working a church convention told me, “Pastors were so easy to spot, it is as if they had talked and planned to dress alike-square, black frame glasses, shirts with the identical stitching around the pockets, cute flipped hair with lots of product in it.  Like teenage girls that talked on the phone that morning to plan what they will wear, they all dress alike.”  

It is not just young preachers; mega church pastors look so much alike I have a hard time keeping up with which one goes where.  I was once told I could never lead a large church because of the deformity of my right hand.  I would expect the real issue would be the deformity of my spirit and heart.

Dress to impress may not be a Biblical mandate, but it appears to be important in the American Church.

Not only does the church feel that it must look good, it has to have the best show in town.  To get people to listen to the gospel we need weekly WOW.  Fantastic concerts every weekend, lights and fog machines and, at Easter, an air drop of eggs from a helicopter.    Where will it end?  Who knows!  I think I know where it is going and it is not good.  Living in Florida, I can tell you the church will never out-Disney Disney.  But that seems to be what we are trying to do.  It started a long time ago even before Robert Redford Jesus and the “World’s Largest” banana split for VBS.

Isaiah 53 teaches us that the Messiah would not be so beautiful, magnificent or attractive that His attractiveness would be the reason people would want Him.  But the church today seems to believe that for people to want us, we have to be beautiful, magnificent and attractive.

So, what can we do? Next week the new/old beauty.

  

Was Jesus an ugly man?

Was Jesus unattractive?  I mean if you saw Him walking down the street would you think, “That is one homely dude”?  My intent is neither to be disrespectful nor to cast aspersions at attractive or unattractive people.  My inquiry is not simply academic; I think this has bearing on the church in America.  Please allow me to braid together three threads and come to a conclusion for the church in America.

Thread #1 Beauty Bias

The concept of “beauty bias” says that attractive people by the very reality of their attractiveness have advantages over unattractive people.  In other words, a nice looking girl in minor distress is more likely to get help than an unattractive girl in the same circumstance.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfvcpHvitjY

As you can imagine, this creates a great many arguments from all sides.  Feminists, conservative Christians, evolutionary biologists, ad agencies, and those looking for a spouse have a profound interest in the subject.  

Thread #2 Setting aside privilege.

If we understand correctly, Philippians 2:5-8 teaches us that the eternal Word emptied Himself of all the advantages of being God in order to be the sin-bearing sacrifice that humanity needed and God’s justice demanded.  When we consider the incarnation we see that baby Jesus was born with few advantages.  Born into an oppressed people, into a family of limited means and into a family that had to make a lot of adjustments very quickly.  Of the first few years of His life there appears to be significant difficulties.  As I studied this, I turned to the suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53 and had to challenge something I had been taught all my life.  Isaiah 53:2 says:

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,


And like a root out of parched ground;


He has no stately form or majesty


That we should look upon Him,

Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him

I was always taught that this is a reference to Christ as He is enduring the tortures of the Passion and Crucifixion.  I discovered that nothing in the text states or implies that to be the case.  

I am no Hebrew scholar, so I turned to K&D (Keil & Delitzsch Commentary) to do the heavy lifting of the study.  Additionally, I turned to the help of a Hebrew interlinear Bible.  What I found was rather fascinating.  Look at four statements from verse 3: 

·      The word translated “form” is the word that described Rachel as beautiful in contrast to weak eyed Leah.  It also describes Esther and Abigail.

·      The word majesty can be translated ornament, splendor, or magnificence.

·      The next phrase could be translated “when we see Him, no beauty”; this word beauty was used to describe the trees of the Garden of Eden.

·      Commenting on that last phrase K&D says: He dwelt in Israel, so that they had Him bodily before their eyes, but in His outward appearance there was nothing to attract or delight the senses. On the contrary, the impression produced by His appearance was rather repulsive, and, to those who measured the great and noble by a merely worldly standard, contemptible.

Jesus appeared to be the kind of person that if you saw Him, you would not notice him and if you did, your conclusion would be that He was not worth noticing in the first place.  His appearance, rather than attract a following, may have turned people off.

To be continued. Next week: “Church Beautiful”