Thoughts on “A Church for People Who Don’t Like Church”

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Why Church?A couple days ago, I posted "A Church for People Who Don't Like Church" about a local church who boasted such a thing on their huge sign. Many of you posted some excellent responses to the question of what makes people not like church.

Today, I'd like to discuss the three lacks I see as being deal-breakers for most people, Christian or not. Sure, more lacks exist than these three, but I think any church that overcomes these will be 90 percent on target.

3. The church accentuates the inconsequential while downplaying the essential.

    I was once a part of a church that deemed repaving the parking lot more important than world missions. True, if a church's parking lot resembles the Grand Canyon, visitors might be a little turned off, but it's the priorities of the heart that come through. Even unperceptive people can tell when something big's out of whack. And though we occasionally give unbelievers no credit for discerning the deeper waters of your Christian heart or mine, folks are less stupid than we believe.

    If we gush over our church's beautiful sanctuary, but ignore visitors, we choose the inconsequential over the essential. If an elder goes on and on about how important tithing is, while the discipleship program at the church is non-existent, then we've got our priorities screwed up.

    I don't know about you, but I suspect that most people who walk into a church have their senses on full alert. They're scanning and evaluating every single second of their time in a church. To make matters worse, our inherent American skepticism only enhances the full bore analysis of everything a church does. Visitors, Christian or not, can see through the veneer we've been cluelessly polishing for years.

    Some people get overwrought about those churches that play up the kind of coffee they serve out in the lobby. If a church wants to whisper something positive about the quality of their coffee that's fine so long as they shout the Gospel from the rooftops. Sometimes it seems—at least to me—that the gushing over the free-trade, rainforest-preserving coffee is given greater honor than Jesus Christ.

    An obvious example, perhaps. But what inconsequential things do our churches trumpet while they totally ignore the essential heart of Jesus?

    Personally, I think every aspect of what a church is and does should be held up to scrutiny. Accentuate what is permanent and lasting and downplay everything else. Don't keep stumbling around in the old status quo. If our churches aren't making a difference in the lives of their congregants or are failing to impact the community around them, then a real gut check is needed.

    Put it all on the table and shine the light of Christ in it. The gold will always clarify if we do so. Then let's put it on display. 

2. The church's people are cold, self-absorbed, or immature.

    I don't care how impenetrable or crusty a person might be, she'll warm to people who are loving and genuine. But more than one impenetrable or crusty person has turned his back on the Church, never to return, because he encountered disagreeable Christians.

    Listen, we're the aroma of Christ. Put a fresh-from-the-oven cherry pie out on the table or fire up a carafe of hazelnut-infused coffee and watch how that luscious aroma sets mouths a-watering. How much more will people who are saturated with the perfume of Jesus attract others! But if we're a people of hope and joy, why is it that so many people are turned off by Christians? Is it because we're sending the opposite message? Do we smell bad?

    While some people flow in the gift of hospitality, others can learn it. Seriously, you can teach people to be more friendly and caring. We can be more considerate. Having a little consideration head our direction couldn't hurt, either. Contrary to popular belief, you can't kill someone with kindness. In fact, I would guess that most people are dying for a little love to come their way.

    I've lost track of how many times I've walked into a church and feigned ignorance of all things "Christian" in order to get a visitor's-eye-view of what interactions come my way. Nothing hurts more than to walk into the most widely known church in this country and walk out an hour later without a single human being saying anything to me. Not one word. 

    Who we are as genuine, caring people makes an impact. If the Church of Jesus Christ can't out-love a sewing circle, softball team, or motorcycle club, then perhaps we should stop asking why people are choosing to spend their time elsewhere.

1. The church lacks the transcendence of the Father, the fullness of the person of the Son, and the immanence of the Holy Spirit.

    My wife and I discussed this concept of "A Church for People Who Don't Like Church" and came to the same conclusion that nothing—absolutely not one thing—can substitute for people encountering the Godhead in our meetings. Why would anyone darken the doorway of a church that has never seen the Holy Spirit dwell there in power?

    Being a charismatic disqualifies me in the eyes of some people from being able to speak about the brooding of the Spirit in our church meetings. They automatically assume I'm some tongue-speaking nutjob jumping pews with a cobra in one hand and a cottonmouth in the other. But I've been in meetings—too few if you ask me—where the Spirit was so thick in the room it was like swimming through oil. For all our talk of being a New Testament Church, I can't read the Scriptures and see any other kind of church than the one where God shows up and shakes everyone. Folks, that should be a normative experience for us! Too many of our churches resemble the Sahara instead of India at the height of the monsoon season. We've satisfied ourselves with a drizzle when the floodgates of heaven are poised to rain down on us! 

    People are dying to know Jesus as a real person. Our churches in this country are doing a massive disservice to each person who steps inside their building if they fail to present Jesus in His fullness. Yet how often do we shy away from this aspect of the Lord or that so as not to offend people with the truth of who Jesus was and is?

    The cross may offend, but we're not getting enough people to that point because we've not made enough of the attractive person of Christ. Of course people don't want to die at the foot of the cross if we've never given them a reason to be so in love with Jesus that taking up the cross becomes a small burden to bear. Every man, woman, and child on this planet is dying for Jesus. I'm convinced that even the most heinous person to walk this sod has some hunger for the reality of Christ in his or her life. Our problem is that we've not preached Christ enough to meet that need. We can't be shrinking back from the truth about this Person we claim we love enough to die for.

    Nor can we preach a small God who only exists to satisfy our relentless cry for self-aggrandizement. The folly of most megachurches consists of tossing out the Father's transcendence and otherness in favor of the celestial grandfather monstrosity so many are selling. The Orthodox churches understand this; I suppose that's one of the reasons that so many megachurch burnouts find Orthodoxy attractive. What else explains the rapid growth of Orthodox Churches in the last five years? If God is not transcendent, then we're worshiping the wrong God. I suspect that many people are, having been sold on easy believism and "God, our buddy" shenanigans.

    Let's face it, we'd be packing our churches if we approached this correctly. As Leonard Ravenhill was fond of saying, "You never have to advertise a fire." Show me a church that upholds the transcendence of the Father, the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ, and is so filled with the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit that people can hardly walk into the sanctuary, and I'll show you a church people will be dying to get into. Even if they ultimately reject what they've experienced, they'll never be able to say they failed to encounter God in a Christian church.

Those are my three.

If these have struck a chord with you, leave a comment and tell me what you think. Better yet, leave a comment and let me know how you can employ these three in your own church.

Have a great weekend. 

Just Plain Christian?

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Simple, stark crossLast week at the Boar's Head Tavern, Josh Strodtbeck noted how easily we refer to any ideology as "liberal" or "conservative," and how those ideologies, even when theological, mirror those of the Democrats and Republicans.

The problem with those labels, however, is the same pothole I discussed in my post "Either Faithfulness or Relevance?" We're perpetually forcing dichotomies where none should exist. Instead, we cling to one ideological side or the other without ever asking if the truth can be found somewhere in-between.

I'm sure that most of you readers would self-label as conservative Christians if forced to choose between that and being a liberal Christian. But I wonder if a more "radical middle" exists that blurs the stereotypes we commonly attach to both of those theological ideologies.

Consider the liberal/conservative Christian trait emphasis table below:

Liberal Christian

Conservative Christian

Mainline

Evangelical

God is Love

God is Holy

Jesus the Servant

Jesus the Savior

The Holy Spirit quickens

The Holy Spirit convicts

The Bible is the story of salvation

The Bible is the Word of God

The authority of the believer

The authority of Scripture

The Gospel is for Man

The Gospel is for God

Christ in community

Christ in the individual

Praxis

Doctrine

Mystery

Certainty

The least of these

The saints

Justice

Judgment

The stewardship of Creation

The New Heaven and New Earth

The poor in spirit

The rich in Christ

The imaginative

The concrete

Salvation is a process

Salvation is a singular event

Meditation

Study

Horizontal relationship

Vertical relationship

Freedom

Discipline

Corporate sin

Personal sin

Doubt is healthy

Doubt is crippling

Immanence

Transcendence

Feeling

Thinking

Sacramental

Authoritative

For the one who is not against us is for us.

(Mark 9:40 ESV)

Whoever is not with me is against me….

(Matthew 12:30a ESV)

Is it possible that the boundaries defined by these oft-used traits are false? If so, why do we cling so readily to arguments that reinforce one side over the other?

What would a Christianity look like in 21st century America that sees no paradox in combining mystery and certainty? Or uniformly emphasizes both Christ in community and Christ in the individual?

Is it possible to be neither a conservative Christian nor a liberal one, but something altogether better than either? And if so, why is it so hard for us to live that out?

Unshackling the American Church: Cultivating Essential Beauty

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You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be made of hammered work: its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. And there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it; three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on the other branch–so for the six branches going out of the lampstand. And on the lampstand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers, and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold.
—Exodus 25:31-36 ESV

In this “Unshackling the American Church” series, we’ve talked about conserving family and community, plus the Creation, but we haven’t truly talked about the need for beauty in our lives.

The Bible mentions by name human creators of beauty, the DaVincis, Michaelangelos, Tiffanys, Monets, and Rodins of their day. Moses returns from receiving God’s dictation for the tabernacle requirements and says this:

Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver–by any sort of workman or skilled designer.”
—Exodus 35:30-35 ESV

That passage and others like it scattered throughout the Scriptures carry extremely important connotations:

  • Artists are filled by the Spirit of God to create items of beauty
  • Artworks go beyond mere creativity and incorporate skill, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship
  • Artists are inspired by God to teach art to others
  • God values what is beautiful and skillfully created
  • God values art
  • God values artists

I’m one of those people who believes Eve was the most beautiful woman ever to grace the universe. I think that God used every bit of his perfect artistry to craft a woman who in her self carried the essence of beauty. If Man is God’s ultimate creation, then some amount of ultimate beauty resides within Man.

More than being a work of art, Man carries the Imago Dei, “The Image of God”, and therefore as God creates works of beauty, so does Man. As God is pleased by what is beautiful, by extension, so is Man.

God placed in us a need for beauty. I’m of the opinion that the need for beauty in people’s lives drives us to the extremes of both artful design and pornography. The onslaught of porn that is hurting so many people is amplified in part by a misplaced need to encounter beauty. Given our need for beauty, if people can’t find it in acceptable venues, they’ll go searching for it in unacceptable ones. As our own art world degenerates into filth, and art acclaimed by “those in the know” is little more than what a chimp can scribble out if given a pack of crayons, people are dying for beauty in their lives.

  • When we desecrate Creation, we destroy beauty.
  • When we build suburbs consisting of one bland house design another, we devalue beauty.
  • When we settle for kitsch rather than skilled art, we parody beauty.
  • When we denigrate artists, especially Christian artists, we tell God that beauty is not worth conserving and that His gift of artistry is not worth receiving. We’re actually quenching the Spirit of God.
  • When we turn our backs on beauty, we lose a precious part of what God formed in us as men and women.

And trust me, we Christians too often reject beauty, whether on purpose or simply from ignorance.

While at a conference earlier this year, Tim Challies was struck by the blandness of an enormous church he was visiting, later learning that this was a deliberate decision by the church leaders. When I read this, I grew angry.

Why?

First of all, the reason given—bland so as not to detract from the Gospel—is misguided. In fact, artful craftsmanship and beauty are PART of the Gospel. God’s Spirit now dwells in Man and with that indwelling come the gifts of the Spirit of God, including the artistic gifts mentioned above. To reject this is to ultimately reject beauty. And God does not reject artful beauty. Truthfully, the attitude expressed by the church leaders is the ungodly utilitarianism I mentioned in my last post. Under utilitarianism, nothing has any further inherent value than its function.

But God rejects utilitarianism. Reread the quote that began this post and note the lampstand. Its function is to hold candles inside the tabernacle of God. But God doesn’t concern Himself merely with function, for if He did, there would be no reason for the calyxes, flowers, and blossoms that adorn that lampstand. Nor would it need to have clever design that incorporates all those elements in one piece.

God sees beyond the plain. He also understands that beautiful items enhance worship. Even if we don’t see beauty in other aspects of our meager lives, at least in the presence of God beauty exists. There’s not much to see while wandering in a desert, but at least the tabernacle itself, the very dwelling place of God on Earth, was beautiful. That beauty spoke to the otherness of God in the midst of that stark desert.

The second thing that angers me about the church leaders’ decision to build a bland church is that they’re telling all the artists and craftsmen in that church that their work has no value at all for the church as a whole. How astonishingly bankrupt! And this from supposed Protestants! The Reformation’s imprimatur on all craftsmen and artisans blessed their work as holy unto the Lord. As Luther himself said on this issue of art:

Yes, would to God that I could persuade the rich and the mighty that they would permit the whole Bible to be painted on houses, on the inside and outside, so that all can see it. That would be a Christian work.

God values artisans. (The Lord Jesus was a carpenter!) When artists and craftsmen serve the Lord with their art, they engage in worship. Yet there are churches that make artists into idolators even though God Himself has filled artisans with His own good Spirit. How utterly tragic when we tell those artisans that their work cannot serve God or their fellow Christians. Talk about quenching the Spirit!

And lastly, what a mind-boggling waste of money to build an enormous multimillion-dollar church complex that is purposefully dull. All across the country I see these piles of boring brick and I just shake my head. I’m sure someone thinks that designing an architecturally-interesting building filled with handcrafted artwork somehow detracts from God, but what detracts from God more than building a costly edifice that equally bores both the saved and the lost?

The truth of God exists in more than what we say with our mouths. His general revelation speaks, as do we when we act out the Gospel in actions rather than mere words. Words are not the only portion of the Gospel. So the leaders of that church are right when they believe that their church building speaks. The message that church building sends in this case? Our God is a dull god. And the people who serve Him are even duller.

When I’m in a beautiful church, it pulls me closer to God. When I’m in a drab and dour church, the opposite happens. Remember again one of the reasons God made the tabernacle beautiful.

It’s not as if beauty somehow detracts from worshiping God. For instance, we love this hymn:

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

I suspect folks sing this hymn in those horridly ugly multimillion-dollar brick blocks they call a “church,” but I also suspect they don’t entirely believe it. The correlation between brick block churches and “Christians” who deny all experiencing of God, all wonder, and all mystery—the building blocks of beauty—is shockingly high.

How sad for them.

How sad for us too that folks who reject beauty in life are responsible for the dearth of good Christian art we see today. Where did it go? Simply answered, we saw no purpose in it, stopped being patrons of the arts, and held artists in contempt.

Rather than rehashing old points about Christians and the Arts, I’ll instead point to previous posts detailing this essential aspect of Christian living (especially part 2):

For 2006: The Church’s Brave New Brain – Part 1

For 2006: The Church’s Brave New Brain—Part 2

For 2006: The Church’s Brave New Brain—Part 3 (Conclusion)

We need beauty. God made us with a bent toward it because He Himself deems it valuable.

As I close, I’d like to head off the inevitable cry of “Graven images!”:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
—Exodus 20:3-5 KJV

Idolatry doesn’t begin with the artisan’s idol.  We must be discerning here. Just as true circumcision is not the removing of the foreskin, but the altering of one’s heart, so the other side of that truth shows that graven images are heart-based. If idolatry exists in a man’s heart, he will craft idols that reinforce the idolatry already there.

But a Christian’s heart has been changed, molded to hold the Spirit. Therefore, what a Christian creates is unto God alone, therefore it cannot be an idol, but rather an expression of worship to God. If we fail to understand this, then we fail to understand how God can forbid natural images in one place in Scripture and turn around and ask for their creation in another (our opening passage above.)

Christians harbor the fullness of God’s Spirit, and with that comes the inclination for beauty. Above all other people, we Christians should honor our artists and praise their gifts, even while we praise God for those gifts. To reject beauty is to ultimately reject the fullness of a Spirit-filled life. Those Christians that do renounce beauty miss the full blessing of what God intended for Man.

Today’s Christians must cultivate and conserve the beautiful, because if we don’t, no one will.

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Other posts in the “Unshackling the American Church” series: