As
Christians we are profoundly aware that, like a ship without a rudder, our
culture is adrift having almost no connection to a Biblical worldview. Every
ship without a rudder is doomed when the slightest storm blows and we can see
storms on the horizon. But I am not sure
if this is the world’s or culture’s fault.
Allow
me to recall a few moments that brought this to mind. I once heard a youth minister say, “We pretty
much let the kids (teenage youth) call the shots. We want to focus on building relationships so
when they have problems they will come to us.”
I recently attended a worship service in which the sermon of the morning,
with the exception to a passing reference to scripture, would have been
appropriate for a motivational or group therapy talk. I was told of a church that was closing down
their youth Bible study for summer, because we know the world, the flesh, and
the powers of darkness all take the summer off.
The last night before summer break, which was soon after Easter, was
going to be a big send off party. The
week before that was going to be a party for each individual class, including a
tea party for the young girls. From a
different church a lady positively gushed about their formal Mother-Son
Dance. She showed me her picture with
her little boy. Both were dressed to the nines, but her outfit was very provocative,
and would have been appropriate, perhaps, for her husband on an anniversary
date. I had a micro-mega church (a
church approaching mega church size) pastor tell me his secret to success was
to “do youth ministry for grown ups”, lots of fun, great music, really cool
worship and people you want to hang with.
I was somewhat surprised (but should not have been) on a recent drive to
pass a church with its own putt-putt golf course, complete with pond in its
side yard. Recently, I had a lady tell
me that she was a Christian, but she tried not to flaunt it. She believed in God and went to church a
couple of times a year. She is a genuine
believer that she is a Christian. By the
standards of many of our churches she is right on par. The reason we do not have a Biblical
world-view in our culture is because we do not have Biblically minded people in
our churches. We are called to be salt
and light in the world and sadly, in many cases, Christians are neither. Our problem is not that we do not
believe. Many who think they are “Christians”
truly believe. The problem is we do not
know what to believe-we don’t believe truly.
Human
beings are profoundly spiritual beings; we are drawn to faith like a moth to a
light. From Stone Age animists to atheistic
scientists all humans look for explanation, wonder, and the objective of life
and it is faith that gives the reason to existence. To believe is no big
accomplishment. The problem is that what often passes for faith is actually
sloppy, shallow, misguided, and self-serving wish-dreams. Why is this? It is generally a combination of
the church's sloppy, shallow, misguided, and selfish teaching and the
individual’s satisfaction with a sloppy faith and an unawareness of anything
more. We have focused on the benefits of faith or wish- dreams disguised as
faith, but have not focused on the object of that faith.
Through
church history false teachers have attempted to undermine the person and the
work of Christ and thereby compromise His authority and Lordship. Some did this by denying His divinity, others
by rejecting His humanity. The New
Testament asserts both. As we have
failed in our teaching we have left our people, congregations and world subject
to the seduction of a worldview in which God is reduced to some kind of cosmic
welfare office or divine sugar daddy. I
fear that like a boat approaching a waterfall the demise of the American church
is picking up speed. We are doing more
and more of what has not produced disciples, and now that the church growth
bubble has passed, attendance growth has stagnated or begun to decline and we
are left wondering what to do. I propose
a refocusing on the story of Scripture: Someone. In the Old Testament “Someone is coming”, in
the Gospels “Someone has come”, and in the rest of the New Testament “Someone
is coming again”. We must have a
passionate refocus on the study and careful teaching of Christ presented in
Scripture.
To
this end I am making some changes in my life.
First, I am ending my topical blogging.
From now on I will dedicate the blog to writing what will be, hopefully,
useful Bible studies that can serve either for teaching or personal
devotion. Second, I am leaving social
media. I have determined that social
media is not helping raise Biblical understanding or meaningful
conversations. Third, 180 degrees from
social media, I am adding additional efforts at direct human connection for the
purpose of discipleship. Finally, I want to remember that I have only one job,
to make disciples, from here on out I want to judge everything in my life as to
how effectively I am doing that one job.
Unless we as Christians reorient ourselves to this task of making disciples,
and shift away from growing church attendance, I believe that within a
generation the church in America will look very much like the church in Europe.
P.S.
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