Recently, I got a
mailing from another church saying they were "transforming Charlotte for
Christ." I say "another"
because it seems that I get something every other week from one Christian group or another
planning to transform Charlotte for Christ.
It would seem by now that one of them would have already transformed it. No matter,
God bless their efforts--they are welcome to try.
Even so, I can't think of a single city, large or
small in the developed world where it could be said that a single church or
group of churches have transformed it for Christ. Overall, the churches today seem to have less
impact on their cities than ever before.
Crusades and programs come and go,
yet the crime rate remains the same,
unwed pregnancies continue to rise,
abortion mills stay open, porn
shops and night clubs continue to flourish,
and the total number of
churchgoers remain pretty much the same,
shuffled between one megachurch or another.
I am not an expert
on city transformation, but I can still speculate on some of the reasons why
the churches' impact is so little felt.
First, there are preachers. Preachers are
responsible for most church planning and promotion, and are usually the one
declaring we should "transform Charlotte for Christ." But preachers
(as everyone knows) are often notorious liars.
They don't lie about the Bible or the Gospel, but they do stretch the
truth quite a bit about their own personal importance and influence. We make
one timid convers and count it as a hundred.
We receive ten dissatisfied members from some other church which has
just undergone a split, and tout it as if we had just broken the gates of hell.
We forget that the world is impossibly big, and that one person or one church
cannot win it alone, no matter how gifted or important we suppose ourselves to
be. The only thing "city-wide" about most of us are our egos.
Second, we forget
that when the church seeks to transform the city, the city in turn will begin
to transform the church. It is a two way
street. As we gain more influential perches
from which to proclaim our message, the
denizens of the city who are ever hungry for power and influence, will flock to
us, hungry to use our influence for their own purposes. Politicians visit the big churches. Businessmen seek out networking
opportunities, promoters of causes and
providers of services will flatter our egos,
worming their way onto church boards,
promising money and influence. We
kid ourselves into thinking we are exploiting these movers and shakers, but all the time they are exploiting us. As we grow in the city, we become like the
city, indistinguishable in goals and standards from other institutions around us.
We preachers are
susceptible to what Eugene Peterson likes to call "ecclesiastical
pornography." The dream of some
ideal, secure, and influential churches, which is smoothly transforming people around
us with our slick programs, smooth
preaching, and attractive members is just as sinful and misleading as the
airbrushed babes of Playboy. We lust
after this with an unholy lust that causes us to forget the real, ordinary
parishioners around us. IN our quest for
a city-transforming ministry, we look
after the big and dishonor the small.
For the sake of efficiency, we ignore the hurting in our own homes, thinking them less important than the hurting
downtown. We speak prophetically to the
big social issues, yet stay silent about the sins in our own house. We condemn homosexuality, but encourage pride, we condemn lust and leave gluttony
alone, we fight abortion, but keep
silent about prayerlessness. We become
hollow, because we spend all our time on outer veneer, not inner transformation. We seek to transform the city, yet have
forgotten to transform ourselves.
It's interesting to
notice that while Paul--perhaps the greatest evangelist who ever lived--rarely
mentioned evangelism in his letters to the churches. He did not berate the Ephesians, for example,
to go out and transform Ephesus.
Instead, he told them to seek Christ.
When they sought to be like Christ,
witnessing came with the package. Instead of making plans for world
transformation, we should seek the transformation of our own souls. As we
become like Jesus, we impact the world.
On the other hand, if we try to become like the world in order to reach
it, we will become less and less like
Jesus.
Again, I don't want
to berate churches who feel called to impact cities for Christ. I support their efforts. It's just that I often feel we are spreading grass seed when we should need to be planting
oak trees. We are making converts who,
like grass, fade with the slightest heat,
when we should be establishing disciples with deep roots in the eternal
Gospel, who will not fade in times of famine. It takes much longer, and is
definitely less flashy to build a few praying Christians, but in the end, it is
much more satisfying.
