Theology of the Church Archives - Page 32 of 54

If you tried to get on my blog within the last 36 hours, or on the forum over at GraceCommentary.com, you might have noticed a lot of errors and slow load times. Why did this happen? I tried to upgrade my sites. I added some elements that I hoped would make them run faster and smoother. Instead, the sites pretty much shut down.

So, I reverted them back to the way they were. The site still loads slow… but at least it works.

All of this got me thinking about church. When the church began 2000 year ago, things were good. Disciples were made. People believed in Jesus. The gospel spread. But over time, several things happened in culture: other religions developed innovations, scientific discoveries were made, governments changed hands, and wars were fought. The Christian leaders at the time thought that to keep up with the changes they were observing in culture, they also should innovate and change.

20/20 Hindsight
Looking back now, we see all the thousands of little innovations and tweaks that got us to where we are now. The pews, the buildings, the clergy, the politics, the money, the power, the liturgy, the bells and smells, the holidays, the dress code, the rules, and everything else that we think of as “church” was at one point, someone’s minor little innovation to help them make disciples.

But, just like with my website, some of these innovations, though good and helpful and added with the best of intentions, have become unnecessary coding on the life of the church. Rather than speed things up, they slow the church down. We get bogged down in ritual, rules, regulations, none of which are biblical, but which many believe are necessary to “run the church.”

Church Plugins
As a result of all these unnecessary plugins, we have come to the place today where people get tired of waiting for the church to load, and just move on to something else. They’d like to get involved or comment, but even once the page loads, it takes too long to register, and read all the comment policies, and sign up for the openID, and then, once they finally got to write a comment, they had to squint their eyes and try to decipher some funny-shaped letters which were meant to keep out computer spammers (digital heretics), but all these letters do is frustrate those who are trying to join the conversation. Even then, after they decipher the funny code to prove they are human (true believers), they are told their comment is being held for moderation (the pastor has to approve it).

So, they utter a curse word, make a mental note to not ever read your blog again, or attend your church again, and head over to Facebook or read their favorite blog about beer.

This is one of the reasons people are abandoning the church in droves. It is not that they are unspiritual or don’t care about God, the Bible, and Jesus. They do. It is just that we have made it too difficult for them to get involved and be heard.

Two Responses
Many churches are not even aware that this is going on. They notice attendance is falling, but think it is just because the big church down the street stole all their people, or the community is dying, or people are too busy, or whatever. But some churches are realizing that things need to change. And of those who do, there are generally two approaches to change.

1. Make Church Cooler
First, some churches try to innovate more. They get nicer buildings to compete with the work-out clubs, dance parties, and beer fests that the community seems to love. They add strobe lights and fog machines and state-of-the-art sound equipment to compete with the concerts. They get funny and obnoxious speakers to compete with the political comedians and comedian politicians. In essence, these churches believe they just need to add more plugins and get a cooler layout, and their readers will return.

And let’s be honest. For some of them, it works. They become huge. They get book deals, magazine covers, and radio spots. All the churches in the country try to follow suit.

But the nagging question still remains…are they actually making disciples and advancing the kingdom in a better way…. or are they just bigger, richer, and more popular? The answer is that we don’t know yet. Time and history will tell.

2. Revert Church Back
There is another approach, however. One that is gaining strength and popularity. This is the house church movement. Those in this camp see all the innovations and plugins that have been added over the past 2000 years, and see the the load on the server that these cause, and so decide to get back to the basics, strip it all away, and start over. No technology (or very little, anyway), no clergy, no budgets, no buildings, no sound systems, no lights and fog machines. Just people getting together to live life and follow Jesus.

I am not opposed to this approach. In fact, I am currently part of it. But I get real uncomfortable with the reasoning and logic behind much of the house church movement. It seems that many house churches, having rejected the historical innovations of the church, simply reverted back to the way things were at the beginning. Just people, meeting in their homes, sharing food and fellowship, discussing Scripture, and praying for one another. The logic seems to be that if it was good enough for the church in the beginning, it should be good enough for today.

I couldn’t disagree more. I agree this is how it was in the beginning. There’s no denying it. But here’s the problem: although the Bible reports how the early church functioned, the Bible does not require us to do it the same way. The early church did what they did for hundreds of reasons, but one of them was not “This is the one right way to do things forever and ever.”

My Church Position
So why am I (somewhat) part of the house church movement? Not because Frank Viola wrote a book about the pagan roots our church practices. Frankly (pun intended), I love some of those pagan practices and see much spiritual value in them. Nor am I part of the house church movement because I dislike sermons, songs, and stained glass. To the contrary, I absolutely love all three. I desperately miss good expository preaching. And I’m not part of the house church movement because I read about house churches in the Book of Acts. I do read about it there, but so what?

I am part of the house church movement for one main reason. I believe it offers the best and most streamlined way of reaching our culture for Jesus and helping people follow Him. Let me be even more honest. Five years from now, I might realize that there are ways to plug my convictions about disciple making and following Jesus into the mega-church model, and that it offers the best way of reaching our culture and helping people follow Jesus. I actually see signs around the country of this happening already, and am optimistic that some mega churches will be able to make the transition. If so, maybe I’ll join one.

What is the best way to make disciples?
Bottom line, there is the one factor I primarily consider when looking at a church model. I ask, “Is this the best way to draw people to Jesus and make them fully-devoted followers of Him in this culture?” In Greco-Roman culture of the first few centuries, I look at house churches and say, “Yes. That was the best.” After the conversion of Constantine in 312 AD, I look at the inclusion of church buildings, liturgy, and clergy, and say, “Yes, that was the best.” And elements of that model truly were best for about the next 1700 years. Through the Middle ages, and through the Enlightenment, and the Modern era, that model worked quite well at making disciples.

But about fifty years ago, the world-wide culture began to radically change. Like it or not, the church must recognize the reality of our postmodern culture and how that impacts our mission in the world. This post is already too long, but by my analysis, the best church model in a postmodern culture is one that focuses on a few things: simplicity over complexity, service over power, humility over arrogance, generosity over greed, inclusion over exclusion, and loving relationships over faceless masses.

I think the house church model presently does the best to fit the cultural challenges. And not surprisingly, there are lots of similarities between our culture and the Greco-Roman culture of the first three centuries, so it makes sense that the house church model, which was so effective then, is also effective now.

Don’t Revert. Upgrade!
Transitioning to a house church model is not a “revert” back to the way it was in the book of Acts. It is actually an upgrade from the institutional model to a more streamlined, service-oriented, all-inclusive, everybody-has-a-say operating system with fewer scripts, plugins, coding errors, and restrictions. And definitely no “Are you human?” codes to decipher.

So, have you upgraded your church recently? If so, how is it functioning?

Gauging Church Efficiency

By Jeremy Myers

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In an era where people are cutting budgets and becoming energy efficient, the church must do the same. I’m not talking about the electric bill and “going green.” One area of waste, fraud, and abuse within the church is the money and time that people give to church programs. Are we truly getting a significant return on our vast expenditures in these areas?

Studies show that on average, a church has three conversions per year for every 100 people who attend. These are actual conversions, not just people transferring from one church to another. Based on this statistic, let’s look at how much money and time churches spend on average to gain these three conversions.

Money
It is estimated that the cost of running a church is about $1700 each year for each regular attendee. This number is within ballpark range for small churches and mega churches. A church of 50, with a building and one pastor, costs about $85,000 per year to operate. A mega-church, like Rick Warren’s Saddleback Community Church, costs $34 million for 20,000 in weekend attendance. Do the math to see if these numbers hold basically true for your church. You will probably be “within the ballpark.”

So if the average church gets three conversions for every 100 people, and the average church expense for 100 people is about $170,000, then the average expense per conversion is over $50,000.

Yes, yes, I know. A lot more is going on in church than just evangelism, and a lot of the money is spent on discipling those who believe. But still, one of the goals of discipleship should be evangelism. If people are being adequately trained, then the money spent on their training should result in a greater number of conversions. But it is not.

So the question becomes: Would you support a non-profit organization which had the stated goal of “evangelizing the lost” but spent over $50,000 for each convert? I don’t know about you, but I would have difficulty supporting such a ministry, especially if they had been doing this for 2000 years and their effectiveness became worse and worse over time.

Speaking of time, let’s look at an asset of the church even more valuable than money.

Time
Aside from the money spent on church, consider the cost in time. Though many spend only an hour or so in church activates per week, others spend much more. Some, such as the staff, devote 60 hours or more each week on church activities. Of course, this is their job. On average, a church member spends about three hours per week on church activities. This does not count the time they spend getting ready for church, driving to church, and going out for lunch after church. Nor does it include personal Bible study or prayer time during the week. This is time they actually spend in the church building or in a designated church program.

Three hours per week isn’t a whole lot when you realize that the average person watches that much television every single night of the week. But still, it appears that even these few hours spent on “church” accomplishes very little.

Three hours per person per week results in about 150 hours per year. So 100 people spend about 15,000 hours per year on “church activities.” Taking the average conversion rate of three conversions per 100 people, about 5000 hours go into each conversion. When you realize that a full-time job (40-hours per week) fills 2000 hours per year, each conversion takes two-and-a-half years of work-hours.

So again I ask, if you were supporting a missionary who had one conversion every two-and-a-half years, would you continue to support that missionary?

Yes, again, I know that some missionaries labor for 40 years without seeing a single missionary. But these stories are often followed up with the fact that when a new missionary arrived on the scene, they see hundreds or thousands of conversions in the first few years of work, not because they figured something out that their predecessor did not, but because the faithful missionary of 40 years had prepared the soil, planted the seed, and watered the ground. The new missionaries on the scene just happen to be there for the harvest. So statistically, we do expect the average conversion rate for missionaries to be much less than one conversion every two-and-a-half years.

Is this a good use of time and money?
Is all of this time and money really a good investment? Possibly. No price is too high for the single soul, and a lot more goes on in the typical church than just seeking conversions. For that $1700 and 150 hours per person, the people who attend also get friends, fellowship, encouragement, support, guidance, and spiritual education. So maybe it is all worth it.

But what if there were a more efficient way of providing all of this, while at the same time, seeing more people become followers of Jesus? In the coming weeks, I will propose a few.

The One Book You Should Read Before Easter

By Jeremy Myers

21 Comments

Read below for information about winning a free copy of The Challenge of Jesus, by NT Wright.

It is the rare book that leads me to tears. I cannot actually remember the last book that did so. But today, as I finished reading The Challenge of Jesus by NT Wright, I wept. As I tried to read the last few pages through blurred vision, I kept silently shouting to myself, “This! This is the Gospel! This is the Jesus I am looking for. This is the Jesus the world wants, but doesn’t know they need. This is the Jesus the church has locked in the attic, out of shame—or possibly fear—for what might happen if we let him loose.”

In this book, NT Wright has put my soul to words.

Let me briefly explain what the book is about, and then summarize why I found it so compelling.

In The Challenge of Jesus, chapters 1–5 are essentially a summary of one of Wright’s other books, Jesus and the Victory of God, and chapter 6 is a preview of a book that at the time of writing had not been published, but which is now available, The Resurrection of the Son of God. In these six chapters, Wright consistently amazes the reader not only with his insight into the Jewish backgrounds of Jesus, but also his conservative stance on the historical reliability of the Gospels. It is so rare to find a world-renowned New Testament scholar who actually believes that the New Testament is accurate and reliable.

The mixture of Wright’s historical knowledge and conservative stance lead to some challenging and surprising insights into the life and mission of Jesus. Ultimately, Wright paints a picture of Jesus as being the one in whom all the plans and promises of God to Israel are fulfilled. This reading of Jesus helps remove the age-old animosity between Calvinism and Arminianism, the debates about faith and good works (p. 43), election and free will, the meaning of the Kingdom of God (cf. p. 36), and the ongoing battle between Dispensationalism and Covenant theology. In Wright’s reading, these debates become almost nonsensical. They are cases of asking the wrong questions. Such debates are beside the point (p. 73).

Wright’s reading of the Gospels (and the entire Bible) emphasizes the central theme of the people of God in exile (p. 36f), and that the Bible is a story in search of actors and an ending (pp. 43, 159). Jesus is the pivot point in the story, and brings into himself the people of Israel, the Temple, the Torah, the Land, and the Covenant (pp. 55f, 110f). The purpose for all these are now repurposed in and through Jesus. The resurrection showed that this was the purpose all along.

As fantastic as the first six chapters were, the last two chapters are where my tears were shed. Using the story from Luke 24 about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as a framework, Wright shows how the startling news about the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb transformed and re-imagined the mission and purpose of the early church, and how it can do the same for us.

In these chapters, he shows how the reality of postmodernism is actually a blessing for the mission of the church, not something to be attacked or fended off with ever-lengthening doctrinal statements. Postmodernism contains a good critique of modernism, for which the church should be grateful. I wish I could explain his reasoning on this, but you really must read the chapters for yourself to grasp the full weight of his argument. The part that led me to tears is on pages 172-173, but I cannot reproduce it here, as once again, ripping these paragraphs from their context causes them to lose their force. I will, however, conclude with a small excerpt—a message, I felt, was straight from Jesus, through NT Wright, to me (make of that what you will):

“Foolish ones,” replies Jesus; “How slow of heart you are to believe all that the Creator God has said! Did you never hear that he created the world wisely? And that he has now acted within the world to create a truly human people? And that from within this people he came to live as a truly human person? And that in his own death he dealt with evil once and for all? And that he is even now at work, by his own Spirit, to create a new human family in which repentance and forgiveness of sins are the order of the day, and so to challenge and overturn the rule of war, sex money, and power?” And, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, and now also the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, he interprets to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

If you are looking for a book to prepare your heart, mind, and life for Easter, you could do no better than read The Challenge of Jesus. I, for one, am going to read it again.

Free Book Offer
If you would like to be entered in a drawing for a free copy of this book, please post a thoughtful comment below about this post, NT Wright, Jesus, the Gospels, the resurrection, or anything related. The drawing will be next Friday, February 25.

Top Ten Albany Church Websites

By Jeremy Myers

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I recently reviewed 25 Albany Church websites, and wrote an article about it at Examiner.com. One of the more surprising things I discovered (or maybe it’s not so surprising) is that while many of the churches did a good job talking about their services times, children’s programs, and upcoming events, few wrote much about opportunities for taking care of the poor, feeding the hungry, helping orphans and widows, or many of the other missional elements of being the church.

Today, websites are the primary way people get first impressions about your church. Before the Internet, first impressions were given when people drove into the parking lot. Now, they get a first impression by checking out your website. If you don’t even have a website, what does that tell the potential visitor about your church? It tells them nothing, because they can’t even find you!

If you want to see how I ranked these 25 churches, head on over to the Examiner.com article, click on some of the links, and see if you agree with me. If you want me to rate your church website, just put a link in the comment section over there.

For the comment section here, does your church have a website? Why or why not? Do you think house churches should have websites? Why or why not?