The death of the church

Christians I know will think I’m crazy, or plotting, or just angry when they read this (and they may be right on the first and third) but here’s my prediction: the local church is going to die and never return as we know it…and it will happen sooner than you think.

A bold prediction, I know. Am I happy about this? I don’t know. In some ways I am, in some ways it’s really sad. Here’s a little stream of consciousness on why I think it’s going to happen:

Disconnect

There is a pretty massive disconnect today between those who get paid to work in a church (or who ‘work’ there and don’t get paid) and people ‘out in the world’ following Jesus. Massive.

If you listen to those inside the church they all are constantly bemoaning the loss of ‘butts in the seats’ (as I often crudely hear it stated). People are leaving churches and, to them, it’s a mysterious tragedy. The problem is, they treat it as if people are walking away from God…but often they’re not…they’re just walking away from the corporate/local church.

People inside the church see this as the cardinal sin, but only because they’ve (and we’ve) been raised in a culture that says the only way to God is through the institutional church (maybe not literally, but it is a subconscious fact of faith for church leaders). Church leaders believe that ‘we’ need what ‘they’ have or we’re spiritually lost. (never mind that what they have isn’t God, but an institution)

People outside the church who are following Christ see this approach to ‘getting butts back in the seats’ as arrogant, self-serving, and a bunch of wasted energy. Afterall (I’ll boldly ask), what percentage of ‘church’ has anything to do with being Christ to the world? In my experience, very little.

The overall disconnect comes because churches think they’re invaluable, while people following Christ in the world see them as irrelevant. Any way you slice it, unless the church starts supporting those who are ‘living Christ’ in the world in more relevant ways, it’s a goner.

Who’s Doing The Most Good?

I’ll admit this is going to be a generalization. There are churches who do good. There are people outside the church who claim to follow Christ but are worthless. But in general, I’ll be bold and claim:

Most life changing, hope giving, poor feeding, alien welcoming acts of Christ are done completely disconnected from the local church.

The people I learn from and are inspired by in their faith are people outside the church institution. Sure, they may go to a church. They may be a member. But the works that they do tend to be more self-sufficient and disconnected from that congregation. They aren’t doing things because their congregation supports them (or, heaven forbid, facilitates them)…but despite the fact that it doesn’t.

I’m thinking of activists for the poor and needy. Many authors teaching Christian truth. Everyday people serving in homeless shelters and lobbying congress on behalf of the poor. Setting up non-profts to welcome the alien and the orphan.

Do churches do this stuff? Yes they do…but more often, they don’t.

Instead, most churches are spending time trying to get more ‘butts in the seats’, balance the budget, plan the next big worship blowout, or raising money for a youth trip. It’s all about them, it’s self serving. It’s the building of an empire rather than the doing of a mission. I’ve heard the arguments that these things are all done to bring more people to Christ, but I don’t buy it.

So, I’ll boldly argue that more Christ like activity happens disconnected from the local church than spawning from it. Because of this, churches are not only irrelevant, they’re unnecessary to us doing mission.

It’s easier to connect

One of the greatest arguments I always hear for the local church is ‘Christian community’…the getting together of people with a common faith to support and spur one another on. This community is absolutely essential. (I know because I’m pretty bad at being a part of it, and I suffer for it) The problem is, the local church sees itself as the only place to get this community, the only place to get Christian support, challenges from other believers, and inspiration to serve God.

Again, I see this as an arrogant view by the local church. In my life, the most authentic, inspiring, healthy, growth-encouraging Christian communities are those that form naturally. Groups of friends who meet together for dinner. Guys who get together to study scripture, not because they’re part of a ‘church group’ but because they respect each other, are friends with each other, and seek to be Christ to each other.

Previously, it may have been difficult to form these groups, so the local church was the only place to find them. With the drastic overhaul of interpersonal communication, the change of work styles from a 8-6 factory shift to a salaried ‘get your work done and I don’t care how you do it‘ workday, we’ve made it easy to plan and attend these groups on our own, without the help of the local church.

These days its easier to connect with each other, easier to form authentic Christian community outside of the local church which gives us one less reason to ‘need’ the church, which apparently functioned more in this respect as our personal assistant than our spiritual leader.

What about accountability? What about spiritual truth? What about (blah blah blah)….As soon as we assume that the local church is the only place The Spirit can keep us accountable, the only place that can preach the truth, and the only ’safe’ source of correction and inspiration, we’re right back where Luther started, aren’t we? In a place where the church claims spiritual authority, undermining the role of The Spirit in each and every believer. And I, for one, won’t have it.

Is it just me?

The response I hear too often is: “Well, Bob, you’re just different. Sure, maybe you don’t need the church because you have the luxury of time and the drive to make this stuff happen on your own…however, everyone else needs the church to serve these functions.” To translate: “You’re a freak, stop applying your freakdom to everyone else.”

But you can quickly see it’s not just me. Look at the numbers. Look at the lack of ‘butts in the seats’. Am I really the only one who thinks all these things? Am I the only one who sees the disconnect? To say so is ignoring the problem churches complain so much about: They’re losing their congregations. Why? I’m trying to tell you if you’ll listen :)

Losing Followers of Christ?

Note that I said “losing congregations”, not “losing followers of Jesus”. Let’s say the local church dies as I predict. What impact does that have on followers of Christ in our country…in our world?

When I talk with church leaders, it’s no secret to them that they believe at least half (I’m being generous here) of those ‘butts in the seats’ aren’t actually followers of Christ anyway. Sure they come to church, but they do it for reasons other than to worship The King (Worship, by the way, is something I don’t have an easy answer for replicating outside the local church..which maybe means this will be an important part of post-church communities of Christians….).

They’re there because their wives make them go, or to check off their ’spiritual thing’ for the week, or to relieve their guilt by giving some money, or to meet a potential spouse, or to keep their kids from doing drugs. Whatever it is, people are at the local church for many, many reasons…but most of these reasons have nothing to do with Christ.

So, if the church goes away, what happens? I’d suggest that nothing happens. The people who follow Christ in churches will continue to do so outside of churches. Those who show up for any other reason will stop showing up and will just find another way to fulfill these needs. And, heck, in the process maybe they’ll stop being confused that Jesus is there to fulfill their selfish needs, to be a box that needs checking, and instead will encounter him in “real life”.

I’d argue that the number of people following Christ may actual RISE if churches were to die rather than decline. Have you talked to many people who are ’spiritual’ but don’t attend church? If you have, you may think, as I do, that the church going away would be the best chance of them encountering Jesus…removing all the barriers that churches throw up, and putting Christ’s voice clearly back in the mouths of their friends and family members.

Long Live The Church

As I often point out, note the difference between my usage of Church and church in this post. Unless I mistyped, you won’t see ‘Church’ (big ‘C’) anywhere before this section. That’s because, while I predict the death of the church (lowecase ‘c’, which means the local institution), I pray and long for the explosion of The Church (uppercase ‘C’, which is simply a reference to all people worldwide, and throughout history, who call Jesus their Christ) in new and dramatic ways.

God tells us that He will sustain The Church. He will maintain it and feed it until He returns. For that, I’m excited beyond belief. Note, however, this is a very different thing from maintaining and feeding the local church as we know it. God doesn’t promise our 501c3s won’t go bankrupt and that all the butts will leave the seats. He simply promises that he will make sure those following him, every day, will be encouraged and taken care of until He comes back.

So, again: long live The Church.

Less Butts

I’ll leave this entry with a simple (and cheesy) question: Shouldn’t leaders in the church put down their arrogance and be glad that there’s less ‘butts in the seats’? Afterall, less butts sitting means more potential legs moving and hands giving, and THAT is more like what Christ asked us to do.

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This entry was posted by Bob on August 25, 2010 at 10:15 am, and is filed under General. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

1watchman

God is all-knowing. He forcasted the assembly (i.e. church) would become apostate [2 Thes. 2:3; 1 Tim.4:1; 1 Jh 4:3] and fail (as did theTabernacle and Temple). Worldlyness is the cause of them failing. Both the shepherds and the flock have become worldly and now it is just a matter of time. However, there are a few individuals who follow the lamb where ever He may lead them. These rare few have gone outside the gates to be with Jesus. They have been either forced out of churches or saw the light and left willingly. These rare few outside the gates, understand that the true church are those who have their name written in the Lamb's Book of Life in heaven. They understand that His true church hasn't met yet! They understand It will meet for the first time when Jesus returns. Then, individuals will be saved, not churches/assemblies! This is my understanding. P.E.S.
MT

Who wants to be bored sensless every sunday. Then do I trust my children with a vicar ?
Brain washing from birth is the way to go its working for islam !
Brett Satkowiak

I want to thank you for this post, Bob. It brings to light a lot of great questions that I've been trying to answer for myself regarding the church.

What is the Church? What is the church? What should the church be and how should it function? What is its role and place in life and faith?

I certainly don't agree with your theory that the local church will die. However, I do agree that in many respects, it's missing the point, and because of that, is at risk of, or already has, lost its place in the life of the Church. It's something that needs to be explored and it's a place where I know I need to be challenged. Thanks, man.
Josiah Ritchie

I think you are most charitable in your understanding of those outside the church. I've met plenty of people outside the church who do good things, but they aren't motivated by Christ. It's more a charma like thing.

My question is what should the church be? You know I agree with the assessment that he church is pre-occupied with being outside the objectives Christ has for Christians. What I've been really struggling through lately with is understanding what is the responsibility of the local gathering of Christians (Church) and the individual Christian. What I hear most talked about is the role of fellowship and encouragement, but there is also a matter of education. I don't think that education needs to take the shape that we're used to. We needn't have a central figure expostulating on a subject, but perhaps our new culture would be better served by a group edifying each other as equals. Some suggest that an oversight body (elders) are a requirement to qualify as a Church. I'm not sure about this one.

What else do you guys think is a requirement of a group to be qualified as a "church"?
Bob

I love reading these comments (and I love, even more, not responding directly to them). I'm learning to love letting comments stand on their own, without debate :)

Thanks for sharing everyone...good points to consider in each and every comment.
Dale Critchley

Here's a train of thought to collide with yours…if we're even on the same track.

I get where you're coming from, but I think it's an overgeneralization. A lot of people need a physical grounding point, a meeting place if nothing else. A physical church building provides that. And since the spirit is willing but the flesh weak, while I sometimes get "too busy" for personal daily devotion, having a service to attend every week pushes me to go. I may not always feel like getting out of bed, but I'm always glad I did. And when people get out of the habit, other spiritual disciplines tend to drift as well.

While it may seem defensive and self-serving, I'll speak out on behalf of professional church workers like full-time pastors. Education is expensive. I've seen a lot of churches led by pastors with no formal theological training. Some are fine, since the pastors spend a lot of time reading and self-training. Most are a theological mess. They focus on relationship to the point of throwing out the Truth and don't know how to respond to false teachings or the hard questions. Or they stay so shallow and touchy-feely that nobody is educated enough to even know what hard questions to ask.

Note that I'm not trying to keep my job. If I thought I could reach people in the quantity and depth that I do as a pastor while doing some other job (that likely pays more), I would. In a heartbeat. I fought the call to the ministry for a long time for precisely that reason: because I didn't want the title to get in the way of bringing Jesus to people. But then after a lot of prayer and contemplation, I realized that I could use my God-given gifts and break down stereotypes as a pastor. *Nearly every day*, that's exactly what happens.

But I think the point here is not to get rid of the local churches. We're back to the days like the early church, where people have heard of Christianity but don't care. But they had local churches back then, because we can accomplish more together than separately. Local churches band together into denominations that support missionaries. Non-denom missionaries have to spend a large percentage of their time fund raising, while denom-supported ones can proclaim the Gospel full-time/365.

Before I came here to Shepherd of the Ridge, I told them that I'm not a recruiter and am not about adding members to the roster, but about connecting people with Jesus. They said that's the primary reason they called me. They get it. I've been in inward-focused churches. They die. They should. Churches need to be about bringing Jesus to people, not bringing people to church. At the same time, there are certain things you'll only get in a local church. The Lord's Supper comes to mind.

Bob, your comments remind me of the recent Anne Rice statement about leaving Christianity but not Jesus. Remember that the church, while in constant need of reform, is never going to live up to your ideals until we get all those sinners out of it. At the same time, you rightly call every local congregation on the carpet to assess what it's doing, not doing, and why.
Carl Gladstone

I'm trying to help the United Methodists do some laboratory work in "alternative Christian faith-community development" so they can see this kind of outside-the-church ministry in action. And while I do continually have to field the "butts" question - I think people are learning that there may be a way to support one another in Christian community without all the baggage of, as you put it Bob, our 501(c)3s.

John and Charles Wesley were always more worried about the church existing as a shell - absent of the substance of Christian discipleship and mission while maintaining the form - than they were about the church dying out. I think that is a very helpful caution that your post seems to resonate with.
David Richards

Very interesting post. Some thoughts....

My family has been searching for a church home for a few years. My "church" has been a group of guys I meet with weekly for bible study. They have been my support with friendship and prayer.

We have been searching because we believe it is good to be in a body of believers. Worship, children activities, youth activities. All these make us want to be connected with a body of believers. God has recently put us in a church body. It is not perfect, but it is where we are to be.

about your question....I would question if people who don't have their butts in a pew are out doing good or just sleeping late. Many Christians are just lazy. Lazy in our faith, lazy in our prayer, lazy in our work. I wish it was true that people were out "moving and giving", but the cynic in me says otherwise.
Larry Miller

The only church I have seen succeed at this is Church of the Highlands in Alabama. They have a good community of people and love the Lord!
Thomas Czinder

Best line in the whole post:

“You’re a freak, stop applying your freakdom to everyone else.”

Ugh. Once again, Bob, you make me stop and think. How dare you make me think! I agree, question, disagree, and don't know where to begin with a lot of what you've said. But here goes.

I seriously lament the decline of the local church. I lament the fact that that which was such a place of hope and support for the body of Christ is now becoming a spiritual WalMart where too many things are just out of stock.

The gathering together of the body of Christ for worship (we can talk about what that means later) however, isn't likely to happen outside of the church. The very sense of being a member of the body of Christ will likely be diminished outside of a defined community. We can't be "superheroes for God." We're called to be an eye, an ear, a toenail, a kneecap for Christ. That being said, what responsibility do each of us have for building up the church (which is part of the Church)? Doesn't Christ continue to love his Church and by association, his church?

My brain is too confused now. I'll stop.
Bob

Great comments so far, thanks for sharing. Keep em coming!
sempei13

I don't get paid by a church. I agree that churches are largely irrelevant. I'm praying that you find one that isn't. Lives and eternities (both) change because of the church I get to be a part of. I love hanging out with people that I meet there. There are more butts in the seats because there are more new lives being birthed from the wreckage of the past.

If the church is a social club for the saved to meet once a week, sing songs they don't understand and read out of a book in a language no one speaks (not latin, middle-english), it needs to close down it's doors. If you sit next to an alcoholic that was invited by a former stripper who's now married to an aspiring rapper who leads people to Christ through his social-networking business, you might just be in the right place. BTW, their names are Amy, Sandra, and Tim.

I live in Acts 2. I've seen thousands of people trust Jesus in an instant and people going out to give women from shelters a day to make them feel like the princesses they are to Jesus. I know a registered sex offender who's starting to see that maybe grace is for him.

The local church isn't dead. It's just hidden amongst a bunch dead places that were once outposts of the hope of Christ. Finding it is hard. Once you find it though, you don't leave.

Paul
Micah Webner

My daughter and I have been listening to Perry Noble's message "I Love my Church" this week on the way to school. I could grab a whole bunch of his points (including scripture references) to argue with you, but I've read your post carefully enough to know I'd just be arguing semantics. Besides, I don't think you're really advocating the demise of the local church. I think you're suggesting that the local church, in its current form, is so broken that it would be better to throw out this version and start over rather than try to even fix what's here.

Your comments about hands and feet in action instead of butts in seats ties with what Perry said about membership. He said Newspring isn't having new members' class and membership any more. Instead, they're emphasizing ownership.

When you're at the gym, and something breaks, what do you do? You go to the front desk and report it broken. That's what too many church members want to do: report it to the front desk and make somebody fix it. Membership implies rights, but ownership implies responsibility. As an owner, or at least a stakeholder, it's up to us to get off our butts and start being the Church.
FreshBread Media

An excellent article and for the most part I do agree. I do, however, believe that your view of what may be happening outside the church walls is a little rosier (is that a word?) than reality.
In my experience the world in general and specifically the Christian world has, for varying reasons, become so self absorbed (aka selfish) that most people could care less what's going on in their own family, let alone a stranger down the street.
I do think that the decline of the (small c) church is indicative of the decline of the (big C) Church. I do long for that NOT to be the case.
I guess it starts with ME doesn't it? What am I doing to be the Church outside of the church?
An excellent, must-read article.
John Wilkerson

Nice post. More people need to start being the Church instead of going to church and we do that by "going" and making disciples. Many Christians think it's their pastor's job to lead people to a relationship with Christ but it's every Christian's "job".
Phil Graves

Interesting article Bob. I think the phrase "be the Church" is more appropriate than "Go to Church". Jesus told us to go out and make disciples. Too often "we" ask people to come to us instead.