The Face of the New Church

In my last blog, I wrote my belief about the contemporary church--that it is sick, perhaps dying.  This is because we are obsessed with institutional success and worldly reputation. 

When it comes to our mission, the church has just about compromised itself into irrelevance.  In our passion to reach the world, we have spent our time trying to copy its means, its methods, its likes, and dislikes.  We've been so busy trying to "reach the lost" that' we've forgotten why we’re reaching for the lost.  Instead of bringing people to Jesus, we've made it our business to bring Jesus to them--in a safe, sanitized version that wouldn't offend anyone.  When we see churches that have athletic programs and day-care centers that are bigger than the church, we really have to ask the question whether Christ died on the Cross to give the world athletic programs and day-care centers.  We've made a safe, comfortable niche for ourselves in a society that allows people to be comfortable with us,  satisfying ourselves that we are somehow of use to an increasingly pluralistic or secularized society. 

This isn't new.  The church has been at peace with the society which contains it for most of the last seventeen hundred years--and for the most part, we've been successful at it. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce calls itself the "city of churches."  Our nation has a National Cathedral, but no official God.  Clergy open meetings of the Senate and House, and pray at inaugurations.  Clearly, we have nothing to fear from such pluralistic tolerance, and no one much fears us. 

The world is changing though, more than we are.  The world is looking at us, and discovering that Christianity doesn't go with perfect tolerance.  We actually have a stand against homosexuality, adultery, and other things. 

It was such intolerance of the secular society that made Christianity the first forbidden religion in the Roman Empire.  Today's universal culture, which mirrors Rome in so many ways, has no tolerance for intolerance, either.  They are rejecting the church, and the Christian religion as being intolerant and exclusive--which (in fact) we are. 

I don't want this to be downbeat, though.  In fact, I'm very upbeat about the church as a whole.  Jesus said about the church that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it."  It may be that the institutional church is dying, but the spiritual church will never die.  Rising out of the old church institutions is coming a new church--smaller, leaner,  less institutionally driven, but closer to what Jesus had in mind.  This new church does not focus on buildings or programs, but on serious disciples of Jesus. 

Faith is the rock on which the church is built--more than belief, but a living relationship with Jesus. The outer shell of worldly institutionalism may die, but the inner core of the committed will go on.

 This is not my idea, nor am I saying anything new.  It's coming from everywhere, from Fundamentalists, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians-- from black churches, white churches, contemporary churches, traditional churches, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Catholic--all across the board.  Arnold Toynbee said that one of the great lessons history teaches us is that where there is darkness, the stars come out.  As the old church fades, the lights of the new members of the new church will truly shine.

What will this new church be like?  Personally I don't think it will be "like" anything. It will be diverse in its views, practices, and traditions. But the new Christian church which survives will have certain characteristics.

1.       It will have a passionate faith in Christ. It is not enough to believe in Jesus--we must also have faith in Him--that is, Jesus must be our ultimate concern.  The new church will first of all seek to get closer to Jesus.  Any other pursuit is irrelevant.

2.       It will be a church filled with God's Spirit.  Its members will seek a relationship to God and seek His guidance in everything from the way they get up in the morning to their lifetime goals.

3.       It will seek out spiritual disciplines. Before we were called Christians, followers of Jesus were called People of the Way.  This referred to the Christian discipline of life--prayer, fasting, gathering, forgiveness, giving, and so forth.  The earliest writings of the church outside the Bible were about such things. The Methodists were called Methodists because they followed a lifestyle or method for doing everything.  The Puritans were Puritans because they sought pure lives.  Richard Foster said that spiritual disciplines are not important in the Christian life--they are the Christian life.  The new church must make the spiritual disciplines a real priority.

4.       It will show the love of God to the world. Roman society could not understand Christians. They did not understand why they adopted babies left to die of exposure, why they opposed abortion, why they believed in the equality of slaves and masters, why they evangelized single women, why they refused to go to gladiator games, or why they showed mercy to their enemies.    They did it because they loved. They were willing to die for that love, and they did.   The new church will have to love in the same way, not promoting its own importance, but quietly loving behind the scenes.  The new church will have to follow the old church in this.  We will still be fishing for men, as we do today--the difference is that the only bait we have will be ourselves.

5.       It will seek to live by a corporate rule of life.   The early church adopted rules of life, which were not about laws, but attitudes: charity, chastity, temperance, simplicity, tolerance, honesty, integrity, and forgiveness.  These were a corporate ethos that was strongly taught, and which all new believers were expected to practice.  The new church will need such attitudes in the increasingly secular society of the future.

As I said, there's nothing new about any of this.  It's just a matter of actually being sincere and dedicated followers of Christ.  What's going to be different in the future is that there will be little opportunity for the church to be anything else. We can no longer survive on our sterling reputation as one of the pillars of community life.  We will have go to back to being a small group of radicals in society, without political influence or society respect,  just living for Jesus and for Jesus alone.

I think this is the future of the Twenty-first century church.  And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. 

A Church or a Chapel?

The word “chapel” was believed to have derived from a holy relic—the capa or capella of St. Martin of Tours.  This relic was carried into battle by the French army as a token of God’s favor. The priests who carried the relic were called capellians, or in modern vernacular chaplains. Later, other holy relics went with them.  When these totems were not employed in battle, they were stored in a reliquary called a chapel.  In time, these reliquaries became the main place of worship for the noble families.  The keepers of the reliquaries performed religious services for the benefit of the nobles who owned the buildings, doing their weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other services.  In time these priests, called chaplains, became very powerful.

Chapels, were not churches, though.  In fact, in many ways they were the opposite of churches.  The Greek word for church—ecclesia-- means a group of people called by God to meet together, to seek Him and do His will.  God brought His people together without regard to race, status, education or background.  In the early church, anyone who wanted to could come together and seek Him.  Farmers and lords met together on equal footing.  Not only that, but they also had an equal calling to do God’s work. The early church was called the Body of Christ, an organic structure in which God distributed His spiritual gifts and divine personality,  for the purpose of furthering His kingdom on earth.   The people who met together were not related by blood or nationality, but by faith and love. It was an army, not a hospital, dedicated to doing and finding His will together.

Chapels in the medieval context were not for all people—but for the private use of the royal family. The blessings of the chapel were not for everyone, but only for those who the royal family said ought to be blessed.  Power and authority did not flow from God to the king, but from the king to God, or at least to the representative of God’s house who he commanded to be there.  The chapel existed for the king’s benefit. The church exists for God’s.

Now for the big question--which churches are churches and which are chapels?

Looking at the religious landscape there are churches on every corner==many having only one or two families attending.  Most of their people have the same last names.  Many have less than seventy attendees on a Sunday. 

Big churches are not really that different. They may have more last names on the role, but there are usually a few influential leaders who have real power.  Often, it is a single, lordly pastor who controls everything.  On paper, they exist for lofty goals—winning people to Christ, transforming lives, feeding the poor and the hungry, but practically they are institutions whose real goal is to stay alive as institutions, supporting big preachers, big programs, and a big organization, that must constantly be fed with people and money to stay alive for the purpose of being whatever the lords of the church want it to be. 

Before we can decide whether a church is a chapel or a church, we need to ask what conditions are necessary for a church to be a chapel.

Before a church can be a chapel, there has to be the assumption among its leaders that there is nothing unique about it. If we think we are the only true church in town, it is harder to be a chapel. Our consciences would convict us that we had better open our doors for anyone, because there is no one else who will.  However, if we think we are just one of a hundred other churches, who have no unique message, then we can assume that some other group will take care of the rest.  Like the segregated churches of the old South, we can assume that someone else will minister to the inferior people, and we do not have to do it.

Second, we have to assume that the reason our church exists is for our comfort.  It exists for the same reason our living room exists, for a place we can relax, be ourselves and do whatever we want.  Our living room is not for refugees or for the homeless, but so that we can feel comfortable at home.  We can say “this is mine, and I’ll do whatever I want here.”  Only if we think of the church as our own private property can we think that we can get away with keeping outsiders out.

Third, we have to assume we should have nothing to do with the rest of the world except to impose our will upon it. When St. Francis of Assisi had the audacity to go preach to the Muslims instead of killing them during the height of the Crusades, the church in general was highly displeased.  The only time the medieval priests went forth was to wage war on their neighbors. Then they would trot out their holy relics as a sign that God was on their side, not the enemy’s.  Others were the enemy, not the mission field.  It is not much different from churches who march against abortion and gays, but otherwise stay within their walls.

Finally, in order for a church to be a chapel, the flow of power has to be from the church to God, not God to the church.  In other words, there must be a higher source of power in the church than the Bible and the Holy Spirit.  In a chapel, there is always a king or noblemen who wields the real power, while the other peons sit back and let them. 

The church is God’s instrument for doing His will on the earth. The chapel is an instrument for legitimizing our work in the eyes of God.  Maybe we need to ask whether the place where we worship is a church or a chapel. 

Meat and Milk: Spiritual formation in Mature Believers, Part 3

The Function of Faith

So how do we maintain spiritual health throughout our lives, in the face of opposition?

Faith is the key—not an idle or casual faith, the kind Bonheoffer called “cheap grace,” but faith that is foundational to our existence, our reason to be.  If we are to grow past the point of spiritual reproduction, we must grow in our experience of Christ through faith.

Faith performs eight basic functions:

1. intellectual challenge;

2. emotional engagement;

3. behavioral reinforcement

4. supportive relationships;

5. higher authority;

6. life interpretation;

7. connection to history;

8. and a realistic hope.

A healthy faith system will involve all eight of these functions in a consistent, interrelated whole.  Many people, believer and nonbeliever alike, derive these eight functions from more than one source.  They may, for example, intellectually accept the doctrines of Christianity, but receive their emotional engagement from music, sports or entertainment.  They might experience an emotional high, but separate their faith from their intellectual life, becoming emotionally Christian, but intellectually brain dead.  Or to give another example, they may seek their community in worldly friendships, while going through the motions of Christian ritual.  When these eight functions are divided, we become practical polytheists, looking to a pantheon of worldly gods to cover up the deficiencies in our relationship to the true God.  Sooner or later, however, we will discover we cannot serve two masters.  In a time of crisis, divided faith cannot stand.

Let us look at these eight tasks of faith one by one.

(1)Intellectual challenge.

  There is a mistaken assumption that just listening to preaching or going to Sunday school will give the mature Christian all the spiritual answers he or she needs.  We may have the answers, but the questions keep coming.  If we rely on simplified versions of spiritual answers, and do not exercise our minds, we will be ill equipped to respond to the new situations life constantly puts before us.

Not all Christians are intellectuals, but all Christians are sometimes expected to justify and rejustify what they know to be true.  Every mature believer should be challenged to understand theological issues and have a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible.  Without these, the mature believer becomes ineffective in his own self-examination and in discerning how to counsel others.  Most Sunday schools and cell groups are not intended for this kind of study but for fellowship, worship, and many other things.  Christian churches need to rethink their curricula when it comes to the needs of mature believers.

(2) Emotional Engagement. 

David Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence points out that emotional sensitivity rather than intellectual abilities are the best predictors of success.[22]  Goleman writes that the portion of the brain governing our emotions is much larger than the portion devoted to reason, that the path from the intellect to the emotion is like a cow path while the path from the emotions to the intellect is like a four lane highway.[23]  The heart influences the head more than the head influences the heart.  It does little good to strengthen our faith intellectually unless we concurrently deepen our passion for God.  Just as a relationship between a husband and wife becomes complacent, so does our relationship with Christ.  We need to be challenged to deepen our emotions toward God, just as we must with our spouses.

One only has to read the writings of the great intellectuals of the faith such as Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas to see that these men were as passionate in their writings on God as the wildest Pentecostal or Charismatic.  The deeper our emotional attachment the greater our intellectual understanding is likely to become.

(3) Behavioral reinforcement. 

Perhaps the greatest contribution behavioral psychology has given to the world is to demonstrate the link between action and emotion.  We do not just smile when we are happy; smiling makes us happy.  We do not just react angrily when we are upset; shouting gets us more upset.  The things we do and the rituals we follow reinforce our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  The church’s emphasis on the “means of grace” helps us to deepen and enhance our relationship to God.  As James wrote “faith without works is dead.”[25]  Inward faith without outward behavior quickly disappears.   

Behavioral reinforcement of spiritual beliefs take three forms—inner disciplines, outer rituals, and the practice of a Christian lifestyle.

Inner disciplines include prayer, fasting, Bible study, confessing, meditating, praising, and silence.  Donald Whitner says “God’s people have always been a spiritual people.  . . . I have never known a man or woman who came to spiritual maturity except through spiritual discipline.”[27]

Outer rituals are practiced publicly in God’s house among God’s people.  The early church devised a wide variety of corporate disciplines—morning prayers, evening prayers, regular times of fasting, the Eucharist, confession, weekly worship, prayers before meals, family devotions, liturgy, litanies, and benedictions.  They enable us to fulfill the Scriptural command to “pray without ceasing”—not prayer every moment of every day, but prayer regularly performed throughout the days, weeks, and years.

Rituals and spiritual disciplines though are meaningless without a Christian lifestyle.  A Christian lifestyle is not defined so much by what we do not do, but by what we do.  Refraining from sexual immorality, intoxicants, gluttony, greed and sloth may fulfill the commandments of the Old Covenant, but it does not rise to the level of the New.  Loving others, feeding the poor, sharing our faith, showing compassion for our neighbor and turning the other cheek are the heavier duties that Christ called His disciples to perform.  Ethical Christian behavior is absolutely necessary for Christian maturity.

(4) Supportive Relationships. 

If there is one overwhelming deficiency in our cybernetic world, it is for intimate community.  We need a community that stirs us each to deeper spiritual expression.  Mature believers need to be with people who can nourish and encourage them while they in turn encourage others.  As Bonheoffer famously said, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. . . . Let him who cannot be in community beware of being alone.”[28]

Being in a church, even serving in a church, is not the same as being in community.  Many of us serve on boards and committees so pointless and soporific that St. Peter himself would no doubt repeat his weakness at Gethsemane and once again fall asleep.  Churches are often the worst place to discuss struggles.  Even in churches with a well-functioning small group ministry, only a portion of the church are involved in small groups.

(5) Life interpretation. 

Faith equips us to interpret our life story.  Whether our lives are on an upward slope or a downward slide depends entirely on which direction is up or down.  Whether our history is the work of a benevolent God working all things for good or whether it is a random accident determines our life course in the future.

The only way to know and interpret our story is to tell that story.  We must put it into words.  The simple act of talking or writing about events helps us to come to terms with them.

In 1 Samuel 7:12, after God routed a Philistine army bent on Israel’s destruction, the people of Israel erected a stone monument to the occasion, calling it “Ebenezer”—“thus far has the Lord helped us.”  A testimony is a similar memorial in our hearts, reminding us of the goodness of God in the past, which He has promised will continue in the future.  Mature believers should be encouraged to remember their personal past, so they may remain steady in the future.

(6) Connection to history.

The church that ignores the past also cuts itself off from the present.  The church may be faithful to the Scriptures (which is a product of the past), but its understanding has become disconnected and disjointed from the great thinkers of the past.  It need not hide from history by concealing denominational connections, or throwing out every tradition.  Believers need to understand their roots so they can understand where they belong.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, Sir Isaac Newton once famously observed. Connecting to history is a primary task of faith.  We need to understand how we fit into the historic continuum.  History assures us of our place in the universe.

Older believers are often upset by the rapid change in society.  We should not be—change is a part of life.  But if change does not help us reinterpret the past, it will be involuntary and unwelcome.  Taking time to provide mature believers with a historical perspective will make change more palatable and manageable.

(7) Unquestioned authority. 

For us to build and maintain a personal world view, we must have some authority we deem to be true.  Faith gives us something to believe and follow without question or compromise.

The rapid decline of the mainline church is not due to its unwillingness to change, but to its denial of its past authority.  The church must stand firm on what it believes, and stick by it.

The real issue is not authority so much as submission.  Christ gave us an example of voluntary submission.  He submitted Himself to the Father willingly and joyfully.  He submitted out of love.  Paul submitted himself to the corrupt authorities of the Roman empire and the Jewish establishment by choice, not by force.  In Romans 13, he encouraged Christians to submit to the Roman empire out of choice.

It is counter intuitive but nevertheless accurate to say that only unquestioned authority allows us to freely pursue what is greatest in life.  Scientists cannot do research without believing in empirical evidence.  A high court cannot question the standards of a lower court without some basis in constitutional law.  A grammarian cannot grade papers unless she regards dictionaries and grammar textbooks as authoritative.  The constitution may need changing and grammar textbooks may need to be rewritten, but until they are we need them.  We could not function without authoritative standards.  A church which does not speak with authority cannot provide a solid foundation for individual faith development in its members.

(8) A realistic hope.

The eighth work of faith is to assure us of a worthwhile future, making the struggles and privations of this world capable of being borne.  Without positive hope, positive change is not possible.  If we cannot expect a positive outcome for our labors, we will cease to labor.

Hope does not have to be a positive outcome for us personally.  A terrorist may blow himself up out of hope for seventy virgins in heaven, or he may do it out of hope of starting a political movement that will usher in a new Communist state.  A philanthropist may give money to be rewarded in heaven, or to make the future world better.  Either way, we do what we do for hope of something better.

For Christians to be balanced and healthy spiritually, we must take into consideration all eight of these works of faith in our lives.  As a church, we must make sure to meet these needs and to equip Christians to meet these needs for themselves.  If we want the church to be healthy, then believers of all stages—new, young, and old,—must be equipped for a lifetime of Spiritual growth and development.

Summary

The track of an individual Christian’s spiritual life is unique, but there are common stages along the way.  Seekers are new believers, who have just come to trust Jesus.  Learners or catechumens are those who are developing as believers, discovering their spiritual gifts, and discovering God’s direction for their lives.  Mature believers are Christians who have a sense of God’s vision for their lives, and are seeking to follow Him in a complicated, challenging world.

Historically the evangelical church has done a better job with the discipleship of new believers than they have with maintaining the spiritual health of mature ones.  By treating all believers the same, the church may either fail to reach new people, or sustain the old ones.  Christian discipleship programs aimed at leading new believers into maturity leave the mature believer desiring more.

Mature believers need to be challenged to go deeper into the faith, instead of repeating the same teachings again and again.  This challenge needs to come through eight aspects of faith—intellectual challenge, emotional expression, rituals and habits, intimate community, life interpretation, a connection to history, definite authority, and a realistic hope.

Clearly, maintaining our spiritual lives in maturity cannot be forced from without; it must be pursued individually with all zeal.  Nevertheless, the church must provide opportunities for continued spiritual growth, while not forsaking the lost, or ignoring the discipleship of the young.  The church must have a multi-leveled approach to discipleship.  Though this may be difficult, with God’s grace and the Spirit’s help it can be done.

[1] I John 2:12-15.  All Biblical quotations will be from the NIV unless otherwise noted.)

[2] I John 2:1,2:28,  3:18, 4:4, and 5:21.

[3] Jameson, Faucett, and Brown Commentary, electronic database, copyright 1997 by Biblesoft.

[4] (Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

[5] Ibid.

[6] I Cor 3:1-4 NKJV

[7] Strongs, op. cit.

[8] Author, Mapping the Christian Life, (RevPress, Bilouxi, Mississsippi), 2008, pp.  ix-xi.

[9] Geoffrey J Cuming  Hippolytus:  A Text For Students: (Grove Books, LTD.,Bramcote, Nottingham,England,1987), p. 16.  

[10] Ibid.

[11] The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. By E. M. Blaiklock, (Thomas Nelson,Nashville, Tnn.) 1986, pp. 220-221.

[12] Hipplolytus, p 18.

[13] This is the probable beginning of the tradition of Lent.

[14] Hippolytus, op. cit. p. 19.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Mi.) 1995, p. 130.

[17] Adapted from Marks of a Disciple, by Lorne C. Sanny, © 1975 by The Navigators. The complete booklet is available from NavPress at: www.navpress.com

[18] http://www.campuscrusade.com/catalog/Transferable-Concepts-Bible-Study-Series.html

[19] Billygrahambookstore.org

[20] Matthew 28:19-20

[21] James Sire, Habits of the Mind (Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill) 2000, p. 27-28.

[22] Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books, New York, 1997, p. 35.

[23] Ibid.  p. 19

[24] Peter Scazzero The Emotionally Healthy Church, (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Mi.) 2003,  P. 19.

[25] James 2:20

[26] Richard Foster The Celebration of Discipline (Harper One, New York) 1978, p. 7. 

[27] Donald Whitner Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Navpress, Colorado Springs, Col.) 1991, p. 17.

[28] Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together (Harper & Row, New York) 1954, p. 77.

[29] Michael W. Foss Power Surge (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Minn.) 2000, p. 146.

[30] C. S. Lewis Surprised by Joy (Harcourt, Brace, and Company, New York) 1955, p. 7.