I feel really stuck.
Its a more personal post this week, about where I’m at:
I know much of it is a consequence of my choices, but it just seems like a raw deal.
I am 30 now. It seems everyone my age is on their career path already, or something at least similar to what they will end up doing. Many people change their career streams but perhaps not as drastically as I have recently. It really does feel like I threw all my eggs into one basket… only to find the basket was actually a food blender.
At some stage, along the way, I settled in for a life time of service to the Institution of church; an existence of small salaries and long hours, and truth be told I was happy to do it. I felt called to do it. I still do, although things have changed somewhat now. I spent 10 years studying and becoming a professional minister. I think I was good at it too, but like many others, who people don’t like to mention in churches anymore, I became disillusioned with the Western Institution of Church.
You think I’m the first? You’d be sadly mistaken.
Here’s an interesting fact: of the 32 people who started out with me in my class at Baptist College, only 3 are now Pastors in churches. The rest of us just could not match up what we read in scripture with what we saw in many of the churches we worked for. It caused untold tension (I know because many of us often speak about it). Some of us gave up the bigger picture and settled in for a lifetime of up-holding the Institution, along with all its flaws, never questioning because our livelihoods were at stake. Some (like me) tried to join in and change things from the inside; giving a picture of what things could be, but always being told to sit down and shut up by those who had something to lose, or those who feared change. Some walked away whilst at College because they couldn’t do it. It hit us all at different times, and in different ways, and for different reasons.
Now many of you who are happy in your churches will be thinking that these people, and others I know like them, walked away from God, and they’re actually heathens. I suppose you have to think that, because if they’re not people who have turned their back on God, then you have to admit that maybe they see something you don’t, and then, just maybe, you have to take an honest look at the way things are. I hate to burst your bubble again but these guys are some of the most Godly people I know. One is running a school for handicapped orphans in the Drakensberg. Three are teaching English in the Far East. I recently watched a film made by one of the guys of the slums in Kenya which he made to create awareness of the situation there. One guy works running an AIDS clinic in East London. One guy trains teams to travel to churches and build up their youth ministries. One guy runs as sports ministry to under privileged kids. I could go on but the point is that they all struggle with Western Institutional Church… not because they don’t love God and what He’s trying do, but maybe because they love what He wants to do so much that they won’t give up on the dream of a restored world, and swap it out for Institutional mediocrity. When I take a look at the big picture; what they do feels more like Jesus.
I know this is hard to hear, and I sound like a judgmental ass, but I hope you see past that… my judgmental ass that is:) I don’t dislike church. Of course I don’t! I love the idea of people who follow God, getting together to grow their spirituality and change the world… that’s church! I just think that what we call ‘church’ (local western-style churches) have become so distracted and defensive that they have given up on some of their purpose. And its gotten so bad that people seem to want to stick their heads in the sand instead of facing the uncomfortable stuff to be make sure they are on track.
The reactions to these blog posts are a case in point:
Some, who have left church already, are writing to me saying, “YES! Thats what I wanted to say but didn’t know how to, and no one ever really listened to me.” Why don’t we actually listen to guys like this? What are we scared of?
Some who are happy in their churches, end up vehemently defending their brand of church asking ‘how I could be saying this stuff’, because ‘look at my church and how great we are’. I’m sure you are, and I’m genuinely glad you’re happy, but maybe you could still take an honest look at some of this stuff with me?
And a precious few, brave souls are at least willing to ask the questions with me so that maybe, just maybe, a more effective, more God-honouring church can someday soon rise out of the self seeking masses. These are the guys who give me hope; those who are happy in their churches but still have a holy discontent for more and better, and if it means asking the uncomfortable questions then so be it.
I say this because I believe nothing will change until some brave churches are willing to acknowledge their mistakes, not explain them away, and then make the radical changes needed to set things right and get back on track. I don’t have the answers but I feel the tension… and I know I’m not alone. The big reason I am taking this break from church (in its typical form) is because my spiritual director gave me some great advice just before I left my job at the church. He said, “You need to take some proper space now, and work out what you think about things, because heaven forbid you just start up another church that just looks slightly different from the rest. The global mainline church is in big trouble”, he said, “ and we need some prophets to try and see a way forward.” I want to be one of those, if its not too arrogant to admit, BECAUSE I love God, and still think that those following Him (the Church) are the hope of the world.
Here are a few very loose and random thoughts so far:
1. What if a church met in a venue which cost them no money?
2. What if a church had no paid staff, but leaders led for free, and everyone served just to make it work as an organic community?
3. What if a church still collected the money people wanted to give to God, but ALL of it went to meeting the reals need of people and making the community around them a better place (instead of the measly 10%-15% we allocate on most church budgets)?
4. What if we let down our walls of paranoia and superiority, and spoke to people of different denominations (and dare I say it, different religions) to see what we can learn and how we can connect? You don’t have to give up your beliefs to learn something from someone who isn’t like you.
So practically speaking, this is why I’m stuck:
I’m committed to this process of working through my issues with ‘western church’ to try and see a way forward, and then be part of the solution. I don’t know what that looks like but I do know that I have to avoid just jumping at the first church job that comes my way because it will stall this internal process. I also know I need a job and no one else really wants to hire me in this ‘Affirmative-Action’, ‘too-much-experience’, ‘too-little-experience’, ‘we’re-in-a-recession’ economic climate. I want to do this process properly. I want to keep speaking to friends who are helping me bounce thoughts around. I want to keep writing this blog and hearing your feedback. I want to finish this book I’m writing. I want to keep on thrashing this out with my ‘Spiritual Dads’. But I know that if I took another job with a church I would have to give it all up and settle in to tow the line.
I really don’t know what to do.
I’m stuck.
Hey Sean,
I’m one of those went to college with you going to teach English in the Far East friends of yours
My spirit hears and feels your pain! My life is very similar to your own and as I approach 30 (i’m 29 this year) i’m left wondering whether anybody would believe that my life looks the way it does because i’m genuinly trying to follow Jesus with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul.
Saved from drugs and occultism I knew there was nothing I wanted more that to share the saving love of Jesus with a lost world. A year after my conversion (at age 19) I went to study and train for ministry at BTC.
College was awesome and I really feel God’s Spirit worked a miracle with our little group of students. And I think that the nature of our struggle is evidence of that. God’s prophets were never accepted amongst the masses of His people.
I went through 4 churches during my college years alone. I’ve never taken a job ministering in a church and never felt I could. At first it was because I couldn’t choose a church, then I couldn’t choose a denomination and now I can’t even choose a tradition. I see the Spirit of God moving all over the world and I cannot reconcile what I find in the Bible and in life with what happens in most churches.
During my time at college I met my wife and we’ve had 2 beautiful boys and we are very happy. But this doesn’t help me put food on the table. I continued my studies through Unisa after graduating from BTC and thought I might end up lecturing – I’m not so sure anymore.
I’ve worked 8 different jobs over the course of the last 10 years and I’m about to go back to Asia to start my 9th.
I have no career. Partly because the world is so corrupt that I struggle immensely with what is asked of me in order to take home a paycheck at the end of the month and partly because I have this ongoing tension between feeling called to minister and struggling with the institutional church. I also value God, life and family more than I value work and money and this usually puts me at odds with employers who only care about profits.
Recently Jesus’ words in Matthew have become extremely live giving to me and so I share them here with you (From the Message):
“A Life of God-Worship
19-21″Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
22-23″Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!
24″You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.
25-26″If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
27-29″Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
30-33″If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34″Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. ”
I really do believe He has called us and prepared us for a purpose Sean. I don’t know what that is, but I know that He does. I also know that He knows that I have a family and that without Him we have nothing (Nothing to eat, nothing to wear and nothing to Live for). Life would be so much easier if I could just settle down, start a career and get on with it. But with God in my Life I don’t know whether I can
Much Love in the Lord my Friend
Jacques
And today on ‘How To Scare Church Workers’ we ask… “What if a church had no paid staff?”
I’ve thought about this a lot since hearing a guy named Mike Frost challenge the idea of being paid to do ministry – that is just doesn’t match up to the way things are done in Scripture.
What if my congregation decided to stop employing staff? I *think* I’d keep doing what I do. But my salary supports my family (in part – Nikki works very hard and is paid fairly well for it), so if I weren’t paid, I’d likely have to take time out of ministry-type activity to try to fulfill my God given responsibility to protect, provide for, and care for my family.
I love what Rick Warren did after earning loads of money from his Purpose Driven Life book sales – gave back everything his church had ever paid him. What a legend. And what a freeing action.
I try to keep an eye on my heart (aka motives) in the salary issue – the paycheck is there to enable / free my time to serve, rather than to stop me taking new ground. If I started feeling like it was being used against me as a controlling thing I’d rethink the whole situation. Fortunately I have one of the most supportive, open, and caring senior pastors I’ve ever known. Not everyone’s experience I guess.
Hey man,
I feel your pain and we often spoke about this stuff so I agree with you. The only thing I have to say that I dont agree with is your one line
“Now those of you happy in your churches will be thinking that these people, and others I know like them, walked away from God and they’re actually heathens.” I don’t think you turned your back on God at all. Yet I am really happy in my church. Maybe I missed something which is quite possible. But yeah good blog and good reading. Have a good one…
Hi Sean
Thanks for this post – some great quotes in there too, like, “It really does feel like I threw all my eggs into one basket…only to find the basket was actually a food blender.” Lol!
This is the money quote: “The global mainline church is in big trouble…and we need some prophets to try and see a way forward.” That’s right on the money – and you’re one of these prophets. Just don’t lie on your left side for half a year.
Speaking to those who are different is a brilliant idea – see The Evangelism Project. Also, might be cool to start an Omega Course (the Alpha Course is about an introduction to Christianity; the Omega Course – created by the brilliant Pete Rollins (and no, it’s not packaged, so we’d have to come up with the content ourselves)).
In terms of “stuckness” I’ve been there for a while…and have just recently decided to move my web development ‘job’ to a hobby, and do VJing and interactive visual art/environments as my main thing. I don’t know how that’s going to work! But it’s a risk, and I’m throwing everything into it.
I know I need creatives alongside me…and I can be that for others. So…wanna come hang out in Obz?
well dude its obviously cos you’re not in the vineyard slash [insert own denomination here] ha ha maybe not – grape chatting to you today and i agree with a lot of what you’ve written here and am looking at a bunch of the same stuff as a paid pastor in a church – n fact going to use this in a note or as a note on FB so stop me quickly if thats not ok… i think Star Trek summed it up when they said “it’s church Jim, but not as we know it” (some poetic license) and like i quoted to you today what my old pastor said to me yesterday “i wonder if Jesus arrived today how much of what we call church would fall in line with the mission He left behind” – thats the question we have to figure out and not care about who doesnt understand or starts throwing stones or fingers… and a grape place to begin is Acts 2:42 – should we be like that, partly like that, and how do we begin… with you buddy… its kingdom not institution. (altho sometimes within that and even with all the failings and getting it wrong, the institution does a blimmin good job, sometimes… see Xenophobia.)
Sean – thanks for your honesty. I went through the same thing around 7-8 years ago. It was a really difficult decision at the time – a whole heap of conflicting emotions, but it was the best thing I’ve done. (and I was with Vineyard – I used to literally have Brett’s job
)
Your spiritual mentor dude has very good advice. A good friend and mentor gave me similar advice at the time. It’s been a long and sometimes scary road, but I’m in a better place now than I’ve ever been ‘spiritually’ – although many would consider me a totally backslidden, heretic and probably on a one way course to hell (good thing I don’t believe in all that stuff any more). So – welcome to freedom.. Perhaps we should start an ex-pastor’s anonymous group. Chat soon…
Sean, as your friend said, the visible church is in trouble, but i wonder if the problems you’re pointing out are not just symptoms of an underlying cancer that is far more deadly.
Your friend suggested “we need some prophets to try and see a way forward.” Have you considered that the prophet that is needed is another Ezra? And that we need to look back in order to see forward? We need to look back to historical, Biblical Christianity. We need someone who has “set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach His statutes and rules” (Ezra 7). In other words, this side of the Cross, we need pastors who are passionate about God’s Word and about living and preaching the gospel faithfully. If only churches would regain the faithful teaching of the Bible, just as Ezra sought to do, that would be the start of much healing in the church and the world. Read in Nehemiah 8 of the great rejoicing that these people, starved for the Word of God, sent up when Ezra and his companions “read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” Look at the great revival as people responded, weeping, cut to the heart by the Word of God, convicted of their sin and strengthened by the joy of the Lord as they renewed their faith and sought to serve Him as He taught them.
Isn’t that what we want, what we need, today? But there can never be such revival without the reform brought by a return to the Bible. These people were serious about it, because they recognised the importance of God’s Word when it was taught faithfully: “All the people gathered as one man into the square… Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard… And he read from it… from early morning until midday… And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.” (Nehemiah 8)
i agree with you that there are many, and serious, flaws in churches today, and i recognise your passion, pain and disillusionment. i have also experienced the agony of living in a broken church in a fallen world. But, Sean, unless we get to the root of the problem – the dearth of faithful Bible teaching in today’s churches – we will only cover the problem beneath a skin of “christian” community and social platitudes, where it will continue to fester. God has not left us without the means to try and see a way forward. He has given us His written testimony, and ordained that pastors and teachers should equip the church for works of ministry by teaching the Bible. (Ephesians 4) There is no other basis for the church and its ministry than the authority and proclamation of the Bible.
Marcus, while I think it would be great if everybody could simply use the Bible to return to an historical, biblical Christianity, I’m not sure that the solution is that simple.
Biblical Christianity was established without the texts that we have come to consider Biblical. While I’m not suggesting that the Bible isn’t important, what I am saying is that Early Christianity was birthed and grew rapidly without any significant focus on the books of the New Testament.
The focus was on the experience of relationship with Christ and the Father through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We were saved so that we could enjoy relationship with the Triune God.
When the Apostle John received the vision on Patmos, which he wrote down and we have as the book of Revelation, there were already a number of problems in the early church.
The church at Ephesus was hard working and sought to follow right doctrine and obey Christ’s commandments. But they were doing it in their own strength. Jesus’ rebuke is simple. Come back to loving me. That is what is most important. Love Me and everything else will fall into place. When you Love Me above everything else that you do, then your lives will be destined for eternity.
The community at Smyrna were a complete failure in the eyes of the world. Poor and persecuted, nothing on earth went their way. But Jesus does not judge with the eyes and mind of mankind. He could see that they really loved him. Their reward for suffering and dying for him: Eternal Life in the Kingdom of God.
In Pergamum the church is praised for holding on to their relationship with Jesus in spite of heavy persecution. They do not deny knowing him in a personal way. The language used is that of knowing someone and being unwilling to deny that relationship. Unfortunately they had also become involved with other groups who were causing them to split their devotion between Jesus and “other gods” just as Balaam had taught Balaak to encourage the Israelites to do. We must be committed to our relationship with Jesus above any other concerns. If we seek to save our lives we will loose them, but if we loose our lives for Jesus’ sake we will gain eternal life in Him.
In Thyatira the community is also praised for a strong and living relationship with Jesus, one that leads naturally to good works and Spirit inspired ministry. However, they too had begun to split their relationship between Jesus and another. Jesus must be the head of our relationship with God and all other relationships must come as a result of loving Him.
The church at Sardis appears to have had a dead faith, believing in God, but not having the works of God to enliven their faith. They were all very busy – but seem not to have noticed that the Holy Spirit was not busy with the same things that they were busy with.
Philadelphia was praised as a community who kept Jesus’ Word. It is easy for us as 21st Century Christians to simply equate Word with Bible, but I don’t think that this is what Jesus meant. The Bible had not yet come to exist (though many of the writings were being circulated by that time). But Jesus was already talking about keeping his Word when he was walking around Palestine talking to crowds of people (with the Bible as we know it hundreds of years in the future). He says to people, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now this may sound legalistic at first, but Jesus is not talking about how to prove our love for Him. Rather, He is stating the natural result of a loving relationship with Him. If we love Him, our lives will naturally take on the attributes of His own life. In Philadelphia people are praised for not turning their backs on Jesus when the times got tough. They maintained their loving relationship with Him even though the world around them made it difficult to do so.
Laodicia was a typical materialistic church, happy to have the material comfort in exchange for a true and meaningful relationship with Jesus. But Jesus invites them to a meal, an intimate image of fellowship and love – if only they will hear him knocking.
In my opinion it is deep, experiential relationship that is lacking in the church today. Christians can know all the right doctrines and do all the right things and never once connect with the living God.
It simply isn’t possible to teach and obey a Biblical Christianity. Just look at the history of the Church. Very few people set out to teach and obey an Unbiblical Christianity and yet we have had little agreement on what Biblical Christianity is for the last 2000 years. The Roman Catholics and the Orthodox couldn’t agree, the Lutherans and the Calvinists couldn’t either. The Baptists and the Methodists don’t agree and neither do hundreds of other splits and offshoots that have developed over the long history of the church.
Being a Christian has much less to do with following sound doctrine as it does with living in relationship with the Living God. When we love Him, we will naturally do what we see Him doing. That is how Jesus lived with the Father while He was on earth and I think that it is the same way we need to live with Him now.
Much Love in the Lord Jesus
Jacques
Have you ever read any of the books of Roland Allen? Especially Missionary methods — St Paul’s or ours?
He wrote 100 years ago, and still very few are listening.
I sometimes think of the guys I was at college with. One planted a bomb in Westminster Abbey and went to jail. Said he did it because he thought the church was too fixated on buildings, so you’re not alone.
Jacques, great comments and a good recap of some of the problems which did plague the early church and of the need for a living faith that expresses what it believes in obedience to Christ and service to His people. Thank you. i certainly was not denying that there were problems in the church — Acts and the epistles also bear witness to that — nor that our faith needs to express itself in action.
i was not saying that if we were like the early church everything would be fine. What i was saying is that we need to return to Biblical preaching to have any hope of having a church that honours God. The propositional truth of the Bible has been watered down to such an extent, and even abandoned, in many churches that many are unable to distinguish what is true about God and how we are to enjoy relationship with God.
i just want to respond to some of the comments you made. You said: “Biblical Christianity was established without the texts that we have come to consider Biblical. While i’m not suggesting that the Bible isn’t important, what i am saying is that Early Christianity was birthed and grew rapidly without any significant focus on the books of the New Testament.”
It is true that the earliest of the canonical New Testament writings (James or Galatians) were written more than 20 years after the church began. Paul was converted about ten years after the church began. The canonical New Testament writings were not completed until AD 95, about 70 years after the church began. But this does not mean that the early church was without the teachings that we retain in the Bible. The early chapters of Acts record the apostles’ teaching in the first days of the church, following Pentecost. The events recorded in Acts cover more than 30 years of history of the early church during which the apostles and others they appointed were teaching the early believers the things the Bible now teaches us. Acts 2:42 tells us that the believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
While the believers undoubtedly had an experiential relationship with God, they understood only from the teaching of the apostles, which we have recorded in the Bible, Who God is, that they were sinners, that Christ was the only Saviour, and that they needed to be reconciled to God by repenting and believing Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Without believing the teaching of God communicated through these early evangelists they would not have been saved.
Paul makes this clear in Romans 10: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in one of whom they have not heard? …” How can one have any saving experience of God without believing in Him? And how can one believe in Him without being told about Him? God reveals Himself to us today finally, authoritatively, through the Bible. Without the truth of God’s revelation of Himself in the Bible, we do not know Who God is. Experience alone cannot tell us Who God is. To say it can is to claim arrogantly that we have better knowledge of God than He has of Himself, for the Bible is His revelation of Himself to us.
i agree that “We were saved so that we could enjoy relationship with the Triune God.” However, it is not enough to say that; we must also say what we are saved from, and how we are saved from it, and how we know Who this God is. Those are not things that we know from experience (with the exception of knowing what we’re saved from, as Romans 1 tells us); we know these things only from Scripture.
i’m not sure we’re arguing different things or just misunderstanding each other. But we do need to be clear that what one believes is important, and that it is necessary that we come to God on His terms, which He has revealed to us in the Bible. You wrote: “Being a Christian has much less to do with following sound doctrine as it does with living in relationship with the Living God.” But without knowing Who God is and what He has told us about salvation (issues of sound doctrine), can one have any relationship with the Living God? We can’t come to God on our terms; we must come to God on His terms. “Doctrine” isn’t some concept devised by the institutional church to stifle people’s faith or have them toe the party line. “Doctrine” is what Scripture teaches about God and our relationship to Him and to His world. Paul wrote that a pastor “must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” (Titus 1:9) A “good servant of Christ Jesus,” wrote Paul to Timothy, will teach the faith to the church, “being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that [he] has followed.” (I Timothy 4)
i agree that a deep, experiential relationship with God is necessary and is sorely lacking in the lives of many. i agree that right doctrine and doing right things alone can never save one. What i am arguing is that what we believe is important, and precedes experience. When John gives his reason for writing his Gospel, he says he has written “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31) We cannot have life in Christ Jesus unless we believe, but we have to believe the truth about Him, the true truth that is taught finally and authoritatively only in the Bible.
Hi Marcus,
I agree with most of what you’ve written and I think we are both just looking at different parts of the experience of knowing and coming to know God. I Think my concern was/is that I’ve often seen people use the Bible and it’s doctrines as a replacement for actually encountering God. As though knowing the Roman’s road to salvation or citing the key texts on atonement were sufficient to claim a relationship with God.
I have personally found that it is only through my clinging to God that He forms me Theologically though the leading of The Holy Spirit (and often uses various sources, the Bible, My Life, The Life of others and even some “non-Christian” content).
I think sometimes (though I am not saying this is the case with yourself) people can be motivated by the wrong things when it comes to emphasising correct doctrine, but then one could say the same thing about some emphasising experience…
Certainly no quarrel here, more like two sides of the same coin
Much Love in the Lord Jesus
Jacques
Jacques, thank you for your gracious and reassuring response.
We all emphasise things because of what we see as a necessary response to the world around us. i recognise your emphasis on a vital relationship with God as something essential. The drum i’m beating here is the authority of Scripture and the necessity of preaching Scripture, because i’m painfully aware of the ways in which that has been sidelined and distorted in some of the contexts of which Sean has written.
Martin Luther said, “If I preach the Word of God with the loudest voice in the clearest way at every point except that where it is under attack, I have not preached it faithfully.” What is most under attack today, and especially in these contexts (even if sometimes only implicitly), is the authority of Scripture and its teaching on salvation. i am concerned about what Francis Schaeffer called “content-less religious experience.” As Jerram Barrs says, “That is what many people have in many churches: content-less religious experiences that have no relationship to something that God has actually done in the past.”
If we do not hold to Scripture as ultimate, authoritative truth, we lose the gospel. The gospel i’ve heard preached in some of the contexts related to Sean’s posts is not the gospel recorded in Scripture. i’m simply saying that if those churches are to be transformed, it is not enough to start with things like whether or not pastors are paid or the church owns buildings or the congregants engage in social action programmes. The problem runs much deeper to whether the Bible accepted as true truth and taught faithfully, or whether people are being offered “content-less religious experience” and a vain hope. Truth is far more important than comfort.
Grace and peace
– m
Hi Marcus, now you’ve gotten me wondering.
What kinds of things are you specifically talking about that you feel are missing from the preaching in “these” churches.
Are you familiar with C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity in which he highlights the central tenants of the Christian faith. Do you think it is enough to hold to these central vital aspects or do you hold that a more specific understanding should be taught regarding these various essentials of the Faith?
I know I’ve joined this conversation after over a year, but I’d like to say that I think you are both right. I think that what is lacking in the churches is a genuine connectivity with God in a way that the Bible, when read and taught well and honestly, points to. I agree with Marcus that without a solid Biblical basis, spiritual experience becomes complicated indeed. But I think having acknowledged that, it is important to bear in mind what Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:39-40
I do believe the churches have developed genuinely unhelpful theologies which have all but almost entirely lost their meaning; but an honest return to the reality found in the Scriptures, which itself can only be revealed [experientially rather than purely academically] by God’s Spirit is essential for establishing a way forward. The problem with this though is that if God doesn’t deal directly and existentially with our sinfulness, the way we interpret the Bible will be vulnerable to personal bias and manipulation; and there isn’t a soul on earth that can claim absolute objectivity.
So for me, it’s both/and. Both a genuine approach to Scripture and authentic relationship with God are dependent upon a genuine transformation of heart which only God’s Spirit can accomplish in us, but His grace; and this is a moment-by-moment walk of faith and humble learning, which we will never solve entirely this side of the grave.
Somewhere in the Bible it is written:
Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie wasted?
Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts;
CONSIDER YOUR WAYS.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little;
ye eat, but ye have not enough;
ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink;
ye clothe you, but there is none warm;
and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts;
CONSIDER YOUR WAYS.
Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.
Thanks for the comment Sue… not really sure what you’re saying though. Could you clarify?
“The House of God” seems to lie in waste! And everywhere people seem to be running around, each trying their OWN way, of fixing it. This is why God says;
Consider your(“The Church, you, me, everybody”) ways. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. Even from the days of your fathers have you gone away from mine ordinances, and have you not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But you say, Wherein shall we return?
Does Anybody really give glory unto the Name of God, if they do not follow His ways? If He is our Father, where is the honor He deserves? And if He is our Master, why do we not fear to displease Him? If He is our Friend and Savior, why do we not consider Him?
Sorry, still don’t really understand what you’re saying. I’m struggling to see through the thicket of religious cliche.
“A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, rendering it a stereotype, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.”
O ok…. hmmmmm, It would seem that I also have not understood you. Sorry about that.
I keep thinking everybody is like me, ha hahaha. I would never think the Bible is “religious cliché”. If i can’t use the Bible to see, what i shall use as my guide then?
There is a huge difference between the Scriptures (the words on the page), and the way you ‘wield’ them; which do you think I’m challenging here?
I like this conversation,
“the way i ‘wield’ them”. Your challenging me, and that is good. Only a fool would go up against God. Let me ask you something, do you think I disagree with what your saying in your post?
I have no idea
hence the question.
You say church’s, should have no buildings. My Church has NO building. So its going to be hard to find us. hahhahaha
You say paster’s/priests, should not get payed for what they do. My paster doesn’t get payed for what he does, never has. And I’m 25 years old now.
We hold true to the Scripture, not because it is Doctrine, or religion. But because it is the Word of God, it is truth, and he is our Master.
I have never belonged to any “church”, hell i didn’t even go to Sunday school. And yet i have been “Christian” all my live. I’ve been baptized, received the Holy Spirit, and partake of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don’t know this “institution” you guy’s are going on about, this is probably why God’s word doesn’t sound cliche to me.
But let me answer your question. Your right! The Kingdom of God is not a building or a “church”, its not a book, you cant get payed to stay in it, its not just for a certain type of people either. . . . . . So I have another question for you. Are you willing to life like Jesus did? Hated, and despised by your own people?