Sit Boy, Sit. Good Dogma.

In order to understand why we need to grow our churches organicly (whatever that may mean - don't worry, we will get to that), we need to understand a little about how we, The Church, arrived at our current location as well as what the location is.

There was a time, frequently referred to as “the good ol' days,” when the church was the center of society (as in the first quadrant of the illustration below). A large percentage of a community's life centered around the church.  It was not only the moral compass and center for their lives, but it was their social and philanthropic center of their lives as well.

This afforded the church the ability to define for it's community what was acceptable and what was not. It was really unlikely that people would challenge the status quo that was being established (one, not surprisingly, heavily weighted down with dogma). Challenging the thing that defined your community and was the center piece of many people's daily lives and activities would have probably been a really good way to make sure you were not accepted by those who had power in the establishment and ultimately you would probably be pushed out to the margins of the circle of society, if included in it at all. So, the status quo that's being established goes unchallenged and ever-unchanging.

As you could probably guess, this kind of influence (and let's just be honest, power) was somewhat intoxicating. The Church, particularly it's leaders, began to believe the myth that they had established. The myth wasn't that they were at the center of community, because in many ways they really were. The myth that they had begun to believe was that they deserved to be there, that it was by some divine right that they have so much influence (and power).

That was the beginning of getting left behind. In the illustration below, the first quadrant represents where the church once was – in the center of society.  The blue arrow represents time and change. Over time, society began changing.  The church, in it's perceived place of godly instituted influence and power, did not change even though it has a history of changing and, at times, doing so dynamically. The further society moved down the time line, the more it changed and the more church did not. With each passing year The Church became less and less relevant for a quickly change society.

The bottom half of the illustration is where we arrived. Society has moved on and, much to the surprise of The Church, has done just fine without us. People, it turns out, were created in the image of a very responsive and ever dynamic God and were able to find other social centers, other ways to express their philanthropic needs and other ways to fulfill their spiritual desires. The Church didn't fare as well. We continue to insist that we can repeat the things we used to do (maybe with a few minor adjustments, but certainly not with any changes that are significant or truly challenging) and expect to reap different results. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work and The Church not only continues to die, but more importantly it continues to be less and less relevant for more and more people which takes away the opportunity of doing ministry with them.

We have a problem. Growing our churches organicly is at least one good solution. But before we go there, we need to understand how our current condition has effected our relationship with our community. We will look at that in the third installment in this four part-er on Growing Church Organicly.

Part 1: Hopey-Changey
Part 3: Can The Walls Come a Tumbling Down?

Hopey-Changey

Churches are dying at an alarming rate. Research by The Barna Group suggests that 3500 to 4000 churches close every year. More than 2,765,000 people leave the church each year.  And yet we, the Church, insist on doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results. When confronted with change we insist that “it has always been done that way,” as if history is an acceptable excuse for continuing down our path to demise. 

In thinking about this, it is helpful to turn to Dr. Paul Batalden. In looking at the dis-function of our health-care system Dr. Batalden, a Dartmoth Medical School Professor, is fond of saying, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the the results it gets.” If your church is dying, it is perfectly designed to die. You can keep repeating the past over and over again and consistently get the results of dying. That's exactly what most churches are doing.

For years and years churches have joined in with movement after movement, each designed to help the church change. Most of them don't work – at least not in terms of change. They do tend to be very good at distracting from real, substantive change. They are very successful at taking away our guilt for having a church that can't attract new members, because we think "at least we are doing something."

The problem with why these programs fail more times than they work is also part of the problem with many churches themselves: our ability to accept cognitive dissonance. Talking the talk, but not walking the walk... and not really being bothered by it, more or less acknowledging it. The world outside the church, in large part, see us as hypocritical. And we've given them every reason to do so. Churches profess love of neighbor yet either explicitly condemn people of certain lifestyles or implicitly condemn them by our silence when others claiming to be Christians do. We profess that we are all made equal and that we are equal in the eyes of God yet we are astoundingly silent on issues of social justice. The list could go on and on, and I'm not saying that some churches aren't authentically living into these things (because some are). What I am saying is that the world outside the church just doesn't see it much. What they do see leads them to deem us all hypocritical.

That kind of existence allows us to work our way through programs on emerging\ transforming\re-imagining church without ever really doing much more than the head work.  We have learned the skill of cognitive dissonance well. It keep us from having to do things that make us uncomfortable like spending time in low income housing areas, talking to the homeless, ministering with those in jail...you know all the things Jesus said we were doing to him when we do them. Cognitive dissonance means we get to be 'Christian' without actually being very Christ-like.

Naturally our churches get to do the same. We can read all about the “hopey, changey” stuff, talk about it it in positive tones, and ultimately back away from it when it leads us to do something as drastic as playing a guitar instead of an organ during worship... or worse yet, playing a guitar instead of an organ during worship and feeling like we have really stretched ourselves. 

While we “study” the programs on changing, we get to feel like we are doing something. The problem is the companies who market them have to  be able to... well, market them, so the programs always have some kind of a release valve built in that allows those who don't really want to commit to change to be able to do a little something different, feel better about having done something, without actually really addressing any of the systemic problems. It leaves the core system in tack and it continues to perfectly get the results it gets...but we feel better because, “Well, at least we tried.”

In the next three parts of this four part series, we will look at how we got here, the Church's response to dying, and what we might do about it.  In book after book, authors have tried to take on this topic so the work I'll do here is admittedly cursory, but maybe it will be a place for you and/or your church to begin engaging in the conversation.  If so keep one thing in mind, don't do it if you aren't willing to enter into it with a willingness to be committed to the vision and the change.  This is more than a good idea; it is more than a possible way to keep your church from dying; it is an act of faith.

Part 2: Sit Boy, Sit. Good Dogma.

For me 'Left Behind' has become much more than a book.  Much like 'Tea Party' has colloquially become a descriptive for a particular archetype of a group of people, Left Behind has become the same for me.

Recognizing that I am working with generalities here and that generalities always do a disservice to some people who identify with the group, for me 'Left Behind' has come to describe a particular type of church goer. (I use 'church goer' here because I find that some of the people, while they might identify strongly as Christian, exhibit far too many actions that call to question the authenticity of their identity. They do, however, tend to be very good at going to church).  This group believes that one day those who have not been 'good Christians' will be separated from the love of God – left behind as all the 'good' people get sucked up in God's magical, over-sized Hoover (actually probably a Dyson, I can't help but believe God would have upgraded by now). That may not be exactly how they would put it, but you get the idea.

Along with this perspective comes a few other... well, let's call them personality quirks.  Frequently, Left Behinders have a quiet (mostly unspoken) air of superiority. Let's face it, if you know you are going to be saved (sucked up by the Holy Dyson) and that others are going to be left behind to wallow in their heathenness... it would be sort of hard not to feel the littlest bit superior.  Along with that comes a few things: very little spiritual growth because they already have it right, a general sense of entitlement, resistance to 'other,' resistance to new ideas (or change),  and the ability to be thought of as 'nice' without actually having to consistently demonstrate love of neighbor and enemy.

This all creates a problem with moving the church forward.  I have to completely agree with John Spong's assessment that the Church must change or die.  As a matter of fact, I am no longer interested in participating in arguments that suggest otherwise. There is much work to do and anything that distracts from moving forward puts the Church that much further behind.

That's the crux of the problem.  As a church tries to reclaim the foundations of Christianity (to reassert the necessity for love of God and neighbor and those we may perceive as enemy; to actively minister and worship with those who have been marginalized; to stand up to the status quo, hypocrisy, piousness, and those who take advantage of 'the least of these'), we meet great resistance from two places. 

The first is the Left Behinders, who do not like the change that comes with doing all of those things.  What the change looks like can be offensive to people who believe they already have it right.  It confronts who they have been for years and can even suggest to them that they were wrong. Understandably that can introduce doubt in a place where there had only been blessed assurance that they had their one way ticket to the Holy Dyson in the sky.  It also means letting in people who may have previously been thought of as outsiders, 'others' and quite possibly the ones that would miss out on the great vacuum ride to the heaven. 

Typically, the Left Behinders, have established some place of power, prestige or position and the change needed in the church to avoid slow death threatens those places.  They are likely to hunker down without any real regard to the theological soundness of the movement forward (or movement back to biblical foundations) and will cherry pick verses, make appeals to tradition and even demonize the leaders of the change.  Their reactions are completely understandable considering what they believe and how they have experience Christianity thus far.  It also happens to be a path whose tangent would continue to lead the church further and further away from it's calling...and it is not acceptable.

The second resistance will come from those who agree with the need for change. They tend to have a real passion for the life and teachings of Jesus and in their own lives you can see those teachings mirrored in their passion for those some might think of as 'other.' These are people who have frequently themselves been marginalized within the traditional church; their voices, while allowed to be expressed, are lovingly (possibly 'nicely' is a better word) minimized by the Left Behinders who hold the power.

As change begins to be realized, it is this group that will put up the most earnest and biblical arguments to slow the change down – they don't want to leave the Left Behinders behind.... ironic, isn't it? ... (and we're not even done with the irony yet).  Their love of neighbor will lead them to advocate for those who, in one form or another, had previously 'nicely' marginalized their voice - the marginalized voice speaking up for the powers that be (and the irony still isn't done).

It is actually easy to see why they would react that way.  It is exactly what they wish, on some level, someone would have done for them when their voices had been marginalized and it does seem to be the loving thing to do.... and it is, for awhile.  There is a point, however, when it should be clear that, while some have chosen to be a part of the change, others do not have ears to hear and out of love for the overall Body of Christ (of which they are a part) we must shake the dirt off of our collective feet and continue on our journey forward.  While we do, we can still wish blessings upon them, but in a time when transformation is essential for the longevity of the Church, holding our forward movement back for those who have made it clear they do not have ears to hear is analogous to shooting the Body of Christ in the foot.

Ironically, there will be Left Behinders that chose to remain behind.  They will act as an anchor pulling the Body backwards as it tries to move forward.  The funny thing is, if we don't move forward we will continue to move on that tangent further and further away from God's will and when the second coming does arrive,  at least in terms of their own theology, we will all be left behind...even them.