- Pastor Don
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The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out (80 percent of money given to congregations comes from people aged fifty-five and older) or when the remaining three-fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die off or both. (Kindle location 241)
The imminent demise under discussion is the collapse of the unique culture in North America that has come to be called “church.” This church culture has become confused with biblical Christianity, both inside the church and out. (Kindle location 246)
In reality, the church culture in North America is a vestige of the original movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, worldview, and lifestyle match theirs. (Kindle location 247)
So far the North American church largely has responded with heavy infusions of denial, believing the culture will come to its senses and come back around to the church. (Kindle location 256)
What does this spell for the church in the future? Armed with this information, of course, churches are launching an all-out effort to reach gen Xers. I wish! Most churches have actually just written them off, waiting for them to grow up and learn to like what the church has to offer. (Kindle location 275)
The evidence that the respondents were born-again (the evangelical definition of one’s being a Christian) yielded the following results: builders (born before 1946)- 65 percent; boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)—35 percent; busters (born between 1965 and 1976)—15 percent; bridgers (born between 1976 and 1994)—4 percent. Those interviewed in the bridger category were at least seventeen years old. (Kindle location 289)
What about retention rates? Dawson McAlister, national youth ministry specialist, says that 90 percent of kids active in high school youth groups do not go to church by the time they are sophomores in college. (Kindle location 293)
90 percent of kids active in high school youth groups do not go to church by the time they are
sophomores in college. One-third of these will never return. This rate of disconnection indicates a dilemma far more serious than mere youthful rebellion. (Kindle location 294)
One-third of these will never return. This rate of disconnection indicates a dilemma far more serious than mere youthful rebellion. (Kindle location 294)
Having retreated into a diminishing corner for several hundreds of years, the North American church culture unfortunately now reflects the materialism and secularism of the modern era. (Kindle location 318)
Not only do we not need God to explain the universe, we don’t need God to operate the church. Many operate like giant machines, with church leaders serving as mechanics. God doesn’t have to show up to get done what’s being done. The culture does not want the powerless God of the modern church. (Kindle location 320)
Church activity is a poor substitute for genuine spiritual vitality. (Kindle location 344)
The fallout from this frenetic effort to run in place is staggering in every direction. Consider the burnout of many ministers who struggle with the increase of expectations on the part of church members. (Kindle location 345)
Consider burnout of many ministers who struggle with the increase of expectations on the part of church members. Many men and women who entered the ministry with a clear sense of call to make a difference feel overwhelmed, bewildered, defeated, and generally underprepared for the challenges they face. Having packed their bags for the journey of the church age, they now have no idea what should be in their leadership backpack for the current excursion. (Kindle location 346)
Many men and women who entered the ministry with a clear sense of call to make a difference feel overwhelmed, bewildered, defeated, and generally underprepared for the challenges they face. Having packed their bags for the journey of the church age, they now have no idea what should be in their leadership backpack for the current excursion. (Kindle location 346)
Trouble is, we don’t have much evidence to support the assumption that all this church activity has produced more mature followers of Jesus. It has produced many tired, burned-out members who find that their lives mimic the lives and dilemmas of people in the culture who don’t pay all the church rent. (Kindle 356)
Those with a refuge mentality view the world outside the church as the enemy. Their answer is to live inside the bubble in a Christian subculture complete with its own entertainment industry. Evangelism in this worldview is about churching the unchurched, not connecting people to Jesus. (Kindle location 367)
It focuses on cleaning people up, changing their behavior so Christians (translation: church people) can be more comfortable around them. Refuge churches evidence enormous self-preoccupation. (Kindle location 369)
The point is, all the effort to fix the church misses the point. You can build the perfect church—and they still won’t come. (Kindle location 383)
People are not looking for a great church. They do not wake up every day wondering what church they can make successful. The age in which institutional religion holds appeal is passing away—and in a hurry. (Kindle location 384)
Church leaders seem unable to grasp this simple implication of the new world—people outside the church think church is for church people, not for them. (Kindle location 390)
We may have saturated the market of people who want to be a part of the church culture, who want church the way we do it in North America. (Kindle location 391)
North American Christians think in terms of its institutional expression, the church, as opposed to thinking about Christianity in terms of a movement. (Kindle location 397).
In North America the invitation to become a Christian has become largely an invitation to convert to the church. (Kindle location 401)
The assumption is that anyone serious about being a Christian will order their lives around the church, shift their life and work rhythms around the church schedule, channel their charitable giving through the church, and serve in some church ministry; in other words, serve the church and become a fervent marketer to bring others into the church to do the same. (Kindle location 402)
They believe the church is out for itself, looking out more for the institution than for people. (Kindle 418)
At Sinai, God delivered an assignment to his people. They were to tell the whole world about God and convince the world of his love for them. Unfortunately, Israel never quite grasped that their “chosen” status was for the sake of the mission. It incurred responsibility, not just secured the enjoyment of privileged position. (Kindle location 448)
The North American church is suffering from severe mission amnesia. It has forgotten why it exists. The church was created to be the people of God to join him in his redemptive mission in the world. The church was never intended to exist for itself. (Kindle location 470)
He defined the litmus test for genuine spirituality in terms of one’s relationships—our relationships with God and with other people. (Kindle location 496)
The movement Jesus initiated had power because it had at its core a personal life-transforming experience. (Kindle location 500)
The correct response, then, to the collapse of the church culture is not to try to become better at doing church. This only feeds the problem and hastens the church’s decline through its disconnect from the larger culture. The need is not for a methodological fix. The need is for a missional fix.(kindle location 512)
The appropriate response to the emerging world is a rebooting of the mission, a radical obedience to an ancient command, a loss of self rather than self-preoccupation, concern about service and sacrifice rather than concern about style. (Kindle location 514)
With rare exception the “growth” here was the cannibalization of the smaller membership churches by these emerging superchurches. (Kindle location 570)
Under the all-growth-is-good mantra, some unscrupulous and spiritually suspect methodologies have been employed to “get the numbers up.” The rise of the celebrity-status church culture (not the child of the church growth movement, but a development of a church culture parallel to American pop culture) has created thousands of “losers,” pastors and church leaders who are not serving in high-profile, high-growth churches. Consequently, a large part of the leadership of the North American church suffers from debilitation and even depression fostered by a lack of significance. The army of God has a lot of demoralized leaders. (Kindle location 575)
Lilly study released in 2002 found that one-half of churchgoers attended churches in the top 10 percent of church size. The tithe of members in these churches buys a lot more value-added experiences and services than it does in small congregations. (Kindle location 594)
The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture. In our self-absorption we don’t even see the people we are supposed to be on mission to reach. Don’t hear this as a call to a “deeper-life” spirituality. Often this “spirituality” is just another expression of refuge thinking (allowing Christians to hide out in Bible study). I am talking about a missional spirituality. Missional spirituality requires that God’s people be captured by his heart for people, that our hearts be broken for what breaks his, that we rejoice in what brings him joy (see Luke 15). (Kindle location 638)
The Pharisees were monoculturalists (all religious fanatics are). Monoculturalism does not embrace kingdom growth, because it insists that people conform to a cultural standard in order to gain admittance to the religious club. (Kindle location 696)
Jesus’ strategy was to go where people were already hanging out. This is why he went to weddings, parties, and religious feast day celebrations. (Kindle location 766)
Another reason we are reluctant witnesses results from our evangelism strategies. The mental model that many church members have for doing evangelism is for them to act like telemarketers. I mean, how popular are these people? Telemarketers interrupt you with a marketing message about a product you haven’t asked for and try to get their spiel out before you hang up on them. Then, if you do happen to buy what they’re selling, they pass you along to some customer service person who may or may not be actually connected to the company the telemarketer is pushing. Sound familiar yet? How many “evangelism programs” have you encountered in which sharing the gospel assumes no relationship with the customer and Jesus is sold like soap? (Kindle location 797)
They were willing to hear them out. Do you know why? Because the New Yorkers were persuaded that Cathy and her fellow cleaners believed something so strongly that it had caused them to inconvenience themselves in service to people. (Kindle location 814)
These responses show clear evidence of the spiritual awakening that is occurring in the streets. But since the church is absent from the streets, people are turning to all kinds of false answers to their spiritual quest. Church members then have the gall to sit inside the church and pass judgment on people for their errant beliefs! (Kindle location 867)
Turning members
into ministers hasn’t worked for another reason. Church members don’t
want to do what they see many ministers doing. On the one hand, when
they see ministers being where the action is, helping people, turning
lives around, partnering with God’s work in the world, they line up. On
the other hand, too many church members view clergy as professional
ministers who have been cranked out by the church industry to manage
church stuff. They have not been exposed to church leaders who are
leaders of a movement. Instead, they are familiar only with
institutional managers. (Kindle location 945)
“There’s no way I would do what you do, putting up with the complaints of church members.” What does this tell you? Many laypeople see ministers’ roles as the complaint department for disgruntled club members who want to be catered to. Church members who want to live missional lives don’t want to be captured by the same concerns of club members that tie up their staff ministers. (Kindle 949)
Laypeople see the disconnect in the “every member a minister” strategy. They are voting by not lending their time, energy, and money to ministry “vision” that has the church as the primary beneficiary or recipient. Church has become increasingly irrelevant to their workaday and home lives. Church ministry to them is an add-on activity to an already crowded life. They wonder why God can’t use them where he has already embedded them—in their homes, workplaces, schools, and communities.(Kindle location 966)
This is
what life in the church bubble can do to you. It shrink-wraps your
vision down to the size of your church. (Kindle location 988)“There’s no way I would do what you do, putting up with the complaints of church members.” What does this tell you? Many laypeople see ministers’ roles as the complaint department for disgruntled club members who want to be catered to. Church members who want to live missional lives don’t want to be captured by the same concerns of club members that tie up their staff ministers. (Kindle 949)
Laypeople see the disconnect in the “every member a minister” strategy. They are voting by not lending their time, energy, and money to ministry “vision” that has the church as the primary beneficiary or recipient. Church has become increasingly irrelevant to their workaday and home lives. Church ministry to them is an add-on activity to an already crowded life. They wonder why God can’t use them where he has already embedded them—in their homes, workplaces, schools, and communities.(Kindle location 966)
The point is not to adopt the culture and lose the message; the point is to understand the culture so we can build bridges to it for the sake of gaining a hearing for the gospel of Jesus. (Kindle location 1027)
I think a lot of church leaders and church members are intimidated by all the God-interest in the culture at large. I think we don’t know how to hold conversations about God. We’ve only been taught to sell our brand of religion. We are so intent on convincing people that their life is screwed up, their faith is wrong, their beliefs messed up, and so forth, that we demand what we offer anymore. In fact, many people outside of the church are more spiritually passionate and enthusiastic about God than many church members. They no longer need our kind of convincing. (Kindle location 1168)
A missionary church culture will need to begin keeping score on things different from what we measure now. These may include how many ministry initiatives we are establishing in the streets, how many conversations we are having with pre-Christians, how many volunteers we are releasing into local and global mission projects aimed at community transformation, how many congregations are starting to reach different populations, how manyTop of FormBottom of Form congregations use our facilities, how many languages (ethnic and generational) we worship in, how many community groups use our facilities, how many church activities target people who aren’t here yet, how many hours per week members spend in ministry where they work, go to school, and get mail. (Kindle location 1278)
Instead of dumping a packet of church club member stuff on them, why not interview them about what they would like to see happen in their lives in terms of their spiritual development and personal growth? (Kindle location 1407)
The Y staff would never say, “He’s a faithful and committed member” and consider it a success if I showed up regularly but didn’t exercise. Yet we do this all the time in the church culture. (Kindle location 1450)
The deal is this: we have assumed that if people come to church often enough they will grow. (Kindle location 1471) …“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me” ( John 5:39) (Kindle location 1486)
In the modern world, how would we typically approach the spiritual learning objectives we’ve just identified? We’d write a curriculum, produce a conference, convene a class, create a study course, recruit a teacher or other expert, sign people up, teach the material to the students, and pass out completion certificates. Then we would wonder what would happen or change as a result of the experience. The truth is that we have very little evidence that academic or conferential learning changes behavior. (Kindle location 1522).
Helping people grow, particularly in the arena of spiritual formation, is about unpacking life: challenging our emotional responses that are destructive (envy, hatred, bitterness); challenging our biases (racial prejudice, social and economic elitism, intellectual snobbery); challenging our assumptions (“my needs are the most important”); challenging our responses; unpacking our frustrations, our hopes, our dreams, and our disappointments; bringing life to God rather than teaching about God, somehow hoping to get him into our life. (Kindle location 1557)
Curriculum-driven is artificial; life-driven is organic. Curriculum-driven is arbitrary; life-driven is circumstantially sensitive. Curriculum-driven is categorical; life-driven is personal. I am not suggesting that curriculum has no place. It does. In my experience with small groups, curriculum does help to convene the spirit of the learners to focus the discussion or prompt a place to begin. Curriculum in its best use provides a stage upon which learners can launch their own life stories for review and learning. I believe in the power of community in learning, particularly in helping us make behavioral applications of what we learn. That is why I am such a proponent of small groups. The consistent challenge I run into when discussing small groups is the prevalent notion that small groups should function primarily in a curriculum mode (a Bible study, text-driven experience). This is why groups can move from one curriculum piece to another and never experience any real growth. (Kindle location 1557)
Effective groups where people grow allow people to declare to each other what is going on in their lives, what they’d like to see going on in their lives, and what kind of help and accountability they need to move toward their hopes and away from their frustrations. This brings life to the table, not a book! (Kindle location 1560)
Churches are so busy getting people involved at the church that they’ve neglected this fundamental agenda of spiritual formation. (Kindle location 1597)
