McNeal challenges the following assumptions:
-If you build the perfect church (the way we think about church), they will come.
-Growing your church will automatically make a difference in the community.
-Developing better church members will result in greater evangelism.
-The church needs more workers (for church work).
-Church involvement results in discipleship.
-Better planning will get you where you want to go (in terms of missional effectiveness)
The first chapter is entitled The Collapse of the Church Culture. A few key statements.
-"The current church culture in N. America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order."
-"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."
Wrong Question - How do we do church better? ("Church activity is a poor substitute for genuine spiritual vitality." "Many church members feel they have been sold a bill of goods...trouble is, we don't' have much evidence to support the assumption that all this church activity has produced more mature followers of Christ.")
Wrong Responses - Many churches have responded to the collapsing church culture by adopting a refuge mentality (withdraws from culture, tries to hang on to what we've got, waits for the storm to blow over so the church can get back to "normal" and resume its previous place in the culture) "You can build the perfect church-and they still won't come...people outside the church think church is for church people, not for them."
Tough Question - How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity? ("In N.A. the invitation to become a Christian has become largely an invitation to convert to the church.") "We need to recapture the mission of the church." "The N.A. 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."
1 comment:
I think McNeal is right regarding the current assumptions of the church in N. America. My experience in preaching in other churches both here in KS and in other states has been that there has been little focus on those who do not attend church, much less have ever heard of Jesus. Most of the programs or events (some call it ministry) centers on those who are already a part of the gathering. Besides, those who don't go to church seem surprised to think that the church has anything to offer them - they think it merely exist for its members.
Then the problem comes when you attempt to make changes to reach people for Jesus and those in membership say -"we've never done it that way before" or "look at them, they act is if they've never been in a church before". Well, duh.... If we're trying to reach the unchurched don't you think it is very likely that "they've never been in a church before" or that "they've never even heard of Jesus" other than a curse word?
If we're merely waiting for the storm to pass over, we've missed the boat because it's not about getting back to "normal" (dead?), it's about being obedient regarding what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
Eddie Fox and George Morris have got it right about God. He is a seeking God, a sending God, a missionary God who has chosen to reach the lost through his Son who has empowered us through his Spirit to seek the lost, to send others to reach the lost, to have a missionary heart for the lost all because he loves us so much that none should be lost. We are not to be about saving the institution but offering salvation to those who are separated from God because of sin. It would behoove us to get that right. (Maybe it would be good that the institution would die, not the church, but the institution).
Ironically, the church in America is still quite effective compared to it's European brethren. For example, only half of one percent attend church on a given Sunday in France. Ouch!! But that's for another blog.
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