Rethinking the Church

RETHINKING THE CHURCH

The Question Series

 

Jesus has given us the church as a gift. When he died and rose again, a community of people who followed his life and teaching emerged as a result. Since Jesus ascended to heaven, his people have gathered together regularly to encourage each other and to proclaim Christ to the world. It is through the church that the Holy Spirit works to accomplish God’s mission to save people from sin.

            However, throughout history, the church has stumbled and failed to be the church time and time again. But God did not abandon the church; instead he raised up people to rethink how church ought to be, how it should look, how it should act. The Anabaptist movement was one such event in history where a group of twenty-somethings, young adults, filled with the Spirit, chose to rethink the church. Their obedience was radical. 

            In light of this, I believe it is fitting to address our last question in this series: Why are young adults leaving the church? Young adults have often been at the forefront of change in the church. So, it is a critical question for our times because the church in North America is suffering this loss of young adults. We need to ask this question. We need to rethink the church with respect to the answers. I present to you seven reasons young adults are not in church and ask that you prayerfully consider them. 

            These findings are based on a five-year study by the Barna Group and research by the Malphurs Group. The research uncovered several themes as to why 3 out of 5 young Christians disconnect from the church after age 15. (see https://biologos.org/articles/six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church/ 

and  https://malphursgroup.com/?s=15+reasons)

1. The Church is out of touch with the real world

 

Today’s teens and young adults have unprecedented access to information, ideas, and worldviews, as well as a huge consumption of pop culture. They are informed about the social issues of the day and can cite facts and figures to debate a variety of ethical topics. My son has often “schooled” me on matters that I once thought I was proficient in including racial equality and human rights. It’s a humbling experience to discover I’m more racist than I believed. 

            In connection with this knowledge, young adults see the church as stifling. One-quarter of 18–29-year-olds said that Christians demonize everything outside the church (Dungeons & Dragons; Harry Potter, etc.), or they ignore the problems of the real world (LGBTQ issues and racial conflicts). Instead of engaging with culture, the church is seen as opposing everything before trying to understand it. I remember as a young adult how the church protested the movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ.” It was decried as a gross abomination of the life of Christ. The louder the church protested the more people wanted to see it. 

            I wondered if Jesus was out of touch with his world. When you consider the way he taught and the images he used to convey truth, I think not. In Luke 13:1-4, Jesus referred to a current event where Pilate had killed some Galileans and to a tower that collapsed on 18 Jews to teach about repentance. Paul too quoted the “rock stars” of the ancient world in Acts 17 when speaking to a think-tank in Athens. Jesus was not out of touch, nor should the church be today.

 

2. Church is boring

 

Young adults say that something is missing in their experience of church. God is missing! People go to church looking for God and have difficulty finding him. The statistics are sobering: 31% said church is boring; 25% said faith is not relevant to their career or interests; 23% said the Bible is not taught clearly enough; and 20% said God is missing from their experience. 

            As a pastor of thirty-plus years of experience who took four years off to sit and listen to other pastors, I would have to agree. I was often bored; I fell asleep watching online sermons from our church; only our life group kept me engaged. Church can be boring. 

            I realized two things about this revelation: 1) I had a bad attitude and needed to adjust how I came to worship. I began praying more earnestly about meeting with God. 2) When I engaged the church in service, I was more invested in the life of the church. 

            Boring is nothing new. The Corinthians thought Paul was a boring speaker. They liked the flashy Apollos better. One night in Troas, Paul was speaking late into the night. He must have been droning a bit; the lamps in the upper room were burning steadily; and young Eutychus was falling asleep. It might be presumptuous to say he was bored, but he fell out of the windowsill he was sleeping in and died (Acts 20:7-9). While Paul was able to raise Eutychus from the dead, most pastors cannot resurrect listless listeners in the pews.

 

3. Faith and science are too often in conflict

 

Young adults, especially those who attend university, feel disconnected from church and from faith because of the tension between Christianity and science. The most common response from young adults is that Christians are too confident they know all the answers and do not respect scientific evidence. Nearly one-out-of-four are turned off by the creation-evolution debate. 

            One well-known creationist has said that the reason young adults are leaving the church is because we don’t teach a literal 6-days creation. But the statistics tell a different story. When geologists and scientists examine the evidence, they see an old earth. That’s what the universities teach. 

            I am not saying the Bible is wrong. In fact, I have been reading about Genesis 1 and Genesis 6-9, Creation and the Flood, from renowned biblical scholar John Walton – he does not deny a Creator or the fact of the flood – who says that the Bible is not wrong, but we might be. Our assumptions about what the Bible teaches need to be overhauled. In other words, we need to come humbly to the text and let it speak, rather than come with preconceived notions about God.

 

4. The Church’s standard on sexuality is pretty tough

 

I don’t have to tell you that we live in an over-sexualized culture. The access to digital porn and explicit material, every TV show and movie has sexual themes, and advertising that appeals to sexuality, is overwhelming. The church reacts to this pressure by creating a different tension: abstinence. One of the significant tensions for young believers is how to live up to the church’s expectations of chastity and sexual purity in this setting, especially when marriage is delayed till their late 20s. Those who make mistakes, succumb to temptation, or hold different values, feel shamed by the church, judged, deemed unclean.

            I cannot help but think of Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman in John 4. What a contrast. Jesus’ simple request for water turns into a conversation about faith. Jesus offers living water that quenches all thirst; she wants it; Jesus says, “Go call your husband.” She says, “I have no husband.” He says, “I know…you’ve had five, and the one you are with now is not your husband.” This woman has made sexual and relational mistakes, yet Jesus continues to invite her to know him, to discover him. Again, I am not saying we abandon our values of purity, but can we show love as Jesus showed love?

 

5. The Church is a fortress

 

When the psalmist says God is fortress, that’s a good thing. When the church is a fortress, that’s a bad thing. Young adults have been shaped by a culture that teaches open-mindedness, tolerance, and acceptance of others. Those who attend university discover other races, religions, sexual preferences, ideologies and so on…and most young adults want to find common ground with each other. When they look at the church, they see walls go up to protect against these differences, where the world is trying to pull down walls. The church appears to be too exclusive in this way: you have to think a certain way, look a certain way, be a certain way – like a country club. Young adults often feel that they have to choose between faith and friends. 

            A recent phenomenon growing out this fortress mentality within North American Evangelicalism is something called “deconstruction.” This is where Christians rethink their faith and jettison previously held beliefs. In some cases, they no longer identify as Christians. One writer compared this phenomenon to a cupboard. A person goes through the shelves, takes down a cup or saucer, looks at it, and wonders if the item still belongs. Sometimes it is put back; other times we decide it really isn't essential. Some want Jesus without the church; some don’t want Jesus at all. It is natural to fear deconstruction, especially if it leads to unbelief. But if we are afraid to ask questions of ourselves, how we do church, how we do faith, we retreat into our ever-shrinking fortresses.

            Churches cannot afford to be fortresses of doctrine without the essential elements. Jesus commended the church in Ephesus for its adherence to doctrine and values. However, Jesus lowered the boom on this fortress-church. He said, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first,”(Rev. 2:4). Good teaching needs to be upheld, but if we forget that love is the greatest commandment, we cease to be the church.

 

6. The Church does not allow doubt

 

Young adults say the church is not a friendly place for people with doubts. They do not feel safe admitting that sometimes Christianity does not make sense. Their doubts are trivialized by the church in most instances. We need to allow people to ask questions, to grieve losses, to process life without pat answers or cliches.

 

7. The church is not a community for everyone

 

It should be, but it’s not. Single young adults are made to feel like singleness is an interim stage, a period of life you have to go through like standing in line for a ride at Disney World. Most churches give the impression that singleness is spiritually less-than. Much of this anti-singleness message if preached by our churches, sometimes with words, other times with actions. Sometimes it is conscious, other times unintended. But single people hear it loud and clear: “You are incomplete until you get married and have at least two to four kids.” (If you have more than four, then people think you are weird again). Single young adults have a hard time feeling like they belong to the church community. Putting them in singles groups only perpetuates the problem (Preston Sprinkle, 169, People to be Loved). 

            Paul, who happened to be single at the time (widowed?), taught in 1 Corinthians 12 that the body is one with many members. This is more profound than we know from a quick reading. Then he says, “and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ,” (12b). Paul doesn’t say “so it is with the church,” but “so it is with Christ,” (who, by the way, was also single). Saying it this way gives Christ pre-eminence as head of the body – as Paul told the Ephesians, he is the head we (the body) grow up into in every way (Eph 4:15). 

            Paul then says we were baptized into that one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – indicating that the community of faith has no racial or class distinctions, and I daresay, no marital distinctions. Then why do we act like singles are second-class members of the church? Every part of the body is important; every person counts; every person matters. 

 

These are some heavy issues to think about as a local chapter of the global church. But we must. Young adults, and others as well, have been hurt by the institution of the church. The church has had to change over the centuries as cultures change and as people experience shifting models of doing life. As people have been hurt by the stiffness of the church as an institution, it is time for the church as a body to help heal those people. 

The church is a visible expression of the body of Christ, as if it were Christ himself. We need the church to be the church, to meet regularly to share Christ and be like Christ to the world. We need the church (period). But we need to adapt our unchanging values (Jesus Christ is the Son of God) to an ever-changing culture. The values do not change, but how we communicate them as the people of God, does.

Rebecca Pippert, an author and speaker, met Bill in Portland, Oregon. He was a student at a local university who came to know Jesus. He was always disheveled in his appearance, and he never wore shoes. Bill was always barefoot.

When Bill became a Christian, his appearance didn’t change. Near the campus was a mostly well-dressed, middle-class congregation. One Sunday, Bill decided to go and worship there. He walked into church with his messy hair, blue jeans, t-shirt, and barefoot. People were uncomfortable, but no one said anything. Bill began walking down the aisle looking for a seat. But the church was crowded that day, so he got all the down to the front without finding a seat. He decided to just sit down right on the carpet. You could feel the tension in the air. 

Suddenly an elderly man began walking down the aisle toward Bill. Was he going to scold him and lecture him about how one dresses for church? 

As the elderly man kept walking down the aisle, all eyes were on him. You could hear a pin drop. When the man reached Bill, with some difficulty he lowered himself and sat down next to Bill on the carpet. He and Bill worshiped together on the carpet that day. There was not a dry eye in the church. 

Young adults need us to get down on the carpet with them. In other words, we need to join them where they are and rethink church together. 

 

                                                AMEN