The Collapse of The Church Culture.

Hey - Going to blog my way through a recent read, "The Present Future". Read this through with a group of serving leaders to our new and forming community. I'll throw out the thought and ideas shared in the book, make a few comments here and there and hopefully respond to your own reflections and responses.

Here goes...

I believe the search for models can often short-circuit a significant part of a leader’s journey into obedience to God. The Bible is not a book of models; it is a record of radical obediences of people who listened and responded to the direction of God for their lives. I am not looking for the next way to do church, I am looking for and following the person of Jesus, the most loving gentle revolutionary I've met.

New Reality Number One –The death of the church culture as we know it will not be the death of the church. This church culture has become confused with biblical Christianity, both inside the church and out.

A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith. Do you know anybody that has an active faith and life in God, and does not participate in a local church? I do.

Wrong Question #1 – How Do We Do Church Better?

We've talked a lot about this through the MH Journey. Our aim is to BE the church. What does BEing the church look like and entail for you? What do you value along the way? How do you spend time? What does your community look like? What role does the local church play in all of this?

Faced with diminishing returns on investment of money, time, and energy, church leaders have spent much of the last five decades trying to figure out how to do church.

Many congregations and church leaders, faced with the collapse of the church culture, have responded by adopting a refuge mentality. This is the perspective reflected in the approach to ministry that withdraws from the culture. We want to engage and shape the current culture and create the future culture of OKC? What ministry are you a part of that does not directly benefit other Christians?

Evangelism is this worldview is about churching the unchurched, not connecting people to Jesus.
Some churches go to the opposite extreme. Instead of choosing refuge, their response to the collapse of the church culture is to sell out to the culture.

I am beginning to think that we need to "unchurch" the "churched" a bit.

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. Church-hopping is for church people. 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.

I am sick of trying to dream up or craft a perfect church. I'll take it messy and beautiful. In the hands of wonderfully ordinary hero people like you and me.

Tough Question #1 – How do we deconvert from churchianity to Christianity?

North American Christians think in terms of its institutional expression, the church, as opposed to thinking about Christianity in terms of a movement.

A movement necessitates, well, movement. Where are we going? Where are we stuck?

Are we inviting people to become followers of Jesus OR to convert to the church.

I want to put the person of Jesus on display and invite people to put their faith in him by beginning to live a certain kind of way, the best kind of way, the way of Jesus.

Is there a chance that the nonchurch culture doesn’t associate Jesus with the church.

We need to recapture the mission of the church. In the bible we encounter a God who is on a redemptive mission in the world. The central act of God in the OT is the Exodus – a divine intervention into human history to liberate his people from oppression and slavery. The decisive act of the NT is the divine intervention of God into human history to liberate his people from oppression and slavery. And now God has a purpose and an assignment for the liberated people. They were chosen to be the priests of God, representing him to the whole earth.

The vision seems clear, consistent and ongoing.

The church was never intended to exist for itself. Jesus preached that God was for people, not against them. People don’t trust religious institutions because they see them as inherently self-serving. So they are off on their own search for God.

The church has lost its influence because it has lost its identity. It has lost its identity because it has lost its mission. The church’s mission: to join God in his redemptive efforts to save the world.

When I read the above mentioned mission of the church, bells went off in my head and heart. That's the mission and identity of Mars Hill: to join God where he is already at work among us in downtown and midtown Oklahoma City in his redemptive efforts to save not condemn those he loves both Christian and UnChristian.