Where is my Church? 305 Machray Ave Wpg. MB 7 pm Sunday evenings.

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Lost in Christendom


Lost in Christendom

My one friend says we are an “out of the box” church. My other friend recently read a book, “Messy Spirituality”  and says it describes us. Here I am a pastor of a church with a couple hundred people, with very grass roots community ministry and yet it leaves me feeling, (trying to have feelings!) like an alien in Christendom.

Here we are trying to grow and build the structures to enable growth but we have no pattern. Modern church offers us patterns that fit the 20th century church, but not the church that I know, love and serve. Most of our faith community have no previous church experience. Some consider us their church but still have not made a commitment to Christ. Some consider me their pastor but have attended a worship service with us, yet make use and attend other venues we offer!

One similar example I remember, is this story. There was a church that funded a young couple who produced a ministry they had a vision for. It was to reach the youth culture with the message of Christ. This culture of youth to be reached  could be thought of as homeless but were not. They were a strong sub culture that few understood. The vision for ministry to those kids was exactly what God wanted. The place was packed with all the university age kids who weren’t in university, but looked like vampires, gothic’s etc. However when this ministry didn’t get them into the model of church, the church pulled the funds. The ministry closed. Leaving all these kids without their “church.”

The funding church measured success by getting these kids into their church. Never realizing that the church the youth called home was nothing like the middle class suburban church. The mistake was, if you accept Christ you will leave your “things”  (sub culture distinctiveness) and become like us.

In my search for how to minister better to our faith community I have questioned other pastors. They give to me what direction they can that has worked for them. The books I  read, the other pastors I can hear from etc. all leave me thinking, that their ways just won’t work with us. I yearn for the blueprints and instruction manuals, that tell me the way. But what I find is written in the language of Christianise.  Some of those patterns and blueprints I am sure are still used because the other churches are using them. Sort of like cowherd mentality. One cow wonders towards the fence so they all wonder towards the fence. Or in modern  expression, “zombie land.” The aimless wondering and following in the direction of everyone else. It must be good cause others are using that concept, pattern, program etc.. Going in that direction cause we do, cause others are, not measuring the results accurately.

But when I am told about these great programs etc. I think about how well will these concepts and programs  work with a church were the greatest percent of them have never been to another church and have no church experience.

For example, our membership class. We definitely need to revamp it again. It is a greatly modified version of what came out of Willow Creek movement.

It’s design is to find out what peoples talents and gifts and personality are and what category they fit into and then plug them into the church in a slot that suits their gifting. The people with some church experience do ok with it, but the people with no or limited church experience are just struggling and feeling like they don’t qualify. The questionnaire manual was written for Christians! And though some may have made a decision for Christ they still don’t fit the regular Christian normative experience. Their decision is probably too recent. And they don’t understand the language and the culture.

So I pray and bump around in the fog of faith. Knowing what is there and I know it is there but not seeing clearly. Trusting it is the voice of Christ I hear. However there is a cost! When you follow the less regular beaten path of your faith community, you are perceived as not successful and not on board.  Sorry we don’t fit the pattern but we are following Jesus. Just wish there was a book on church planting in subcultures that are more like pre Christian era?! Now there is another discussion, the era we are in is more like pre first century Christendom.

 

Evangelism First Century Style.


Evangelism First Century Style.

Sunday after Sunday it is the same. People in church who have not made a decision for the Lord. But they keep coming.  And then there are some people who consider us their church but either haven’t made a decision or attend other venues we other but do not attend worship services.

You would wonder how that is that some people  would attend but acknowledge Jesus is not their Saviour and Lord. You may question, don’t we preach the gospel? Yes we do but we grow them into the decision. We strongly believe in, “Belong, Behave and Believe” and just allow the process of growing into Christ. Some, I would say, fall into the kingdom of God. They find themselves making a decision for Jesus like some people  fall in love.

Part of it is that some people attend our church occasionally and attend somewhere else too. So we just pastor everyone who comes in and accept them as part of our community. We decided to disciple everyone, as if they were believers, even if they were not. In other words, we treat everyone as a Christian even when we are unsure if they have made a decision for Christ. We found that this pre decision discipling worked to ground them in their faith and to borrow a phrase, we “assimilate” them into the collective (the Borg of Startrek.)

Let me explain two biblical models of evangelism. The popular one, that I subscribed to for years, was the “road to Damascus.” It follows the story of Saul on the road who has a powerful life changing encounter with Christ. It leaves a great story to tell and a definitive day as to when Christ was encountered and a strong impressive story of encountering Christ in a life changing moment. It was my experience (actually on a road!) and that of thousands. At our church we still give invitations to accept Christ at a definitive “come to Christ” deciding moment. And time after time people do. For a long time it was the way we operated. And we still give these invitations.

Then we noticed something that was rather discouraging. Our record of decisions for Christ was high. High enough to cause us to boast even. But as our leadership discussed where these people were we realized many did not stay nor keep their decision for Christ.

We made another  observation. We had people who had come to Christ and we didn’t know when or that they had. When we questioned them we found some of them just “fell into the kingdom of  God.” And still followed Him. They knew they had come to Christ but it was more gradual and they weren’t sure exactly when. When they were baptized they often just made up a  date as to when they had come to Christ!

Their experience was more of a “road to Emmaus.” Walking along with Jesus, and getting to know him. Then came the revelation that this is the Saviour, and a decision to accept. We find that in our church experience our statistics of those who have come to Christ may not be as high for the records, but we retained more in the kingdom. This also went along with our method and thought to just accept people as one of us, and disciple them as if they already were one of our faith and community, then in time they will believe the same as us and then act the way a Christian should. Or in other words their behaviour becomes more Christ like.

So both styles of evangelism are biblical. And both work. When you meet the unsaved in our church, rejoice with us and let them be. They’ll get there. I love the unsaved. Such nice raw material! “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.”