conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

As a layperson, I find so very much depends on conversation. Which means, when I talk I am not afraid to speak about/shy about bringing up my daily, practical reliances on Jesus. And when the other person talks, I listen and do not run away, even if/when s/he says shocking things to me. I can acknowledge that it's shocking, and even explain that I am not sure how to process the thing(s) s/he has said, but NOT RUN AWAY. Sticking around, I find, makes judging (by me) impossible. And makes love very possible.

That's one-on-one evangelism, not "churchwide" evangelism -

Of course, it's easier to push against thoughts than it is to actually have new concepts. In that spirit, I offer some reactions to the Internet Monk approach.

1. If you can’t picture Jesus doing it, you probably shouldn’t do it.

What does this mean? It's a real struggle projecting the Jesus of Nazareth into a Jesus of Chicago or New York. Or even Muscatine, IA. The further removed we are from 30AD, the more we need to distill the Gospel into its essence. So I can picture Jesus podcasting the Sermon on the Mount in multiple translations with songs and paintings and generally using every means at his disposal to communicate the vision of love that is central to every other unselfish behavior we associate with Christianity. I might even be able to visualize Christ as an electronic terrorist, disrupting the stock market and turning over the virtual tables on our materialistic society. Too many people use a narrow view of an ascetic Jesus to narrowcast their version of Christianity.

2. If it obscures the centrality of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, don’t do it.

Again, at this point of the 21st Century, it's easy to confuse Jesus as icon with the message that he brought. The message is timeless, and the deliverer critical in understanding the message, but the language used here seems so focused on the medium and less on the message. Perhaps I am playing semantics, but I worry that the words of the Gospel have become museums, so making the text central troubles me.

3. If you aren’t producing followers of Jesus Christ, what are you doing?

OK. I think followers of God and partners with Christ works better for me. As an ex-Catholic, God and Jesus are different manisfestations of the same force to me, so I'm more indifferent than most. Since Christ is the human incarnation this feels better. But followers of Christ's teachings is the real Commission.

4. If you brought idolatry into the picture, you did a bad thing.

No comment - I think I'm missing the context.

5. The Glory of God means God is seen clearly, truthfully and Biblically. Keep that in mind when you say you’re doing whatever "for the glory of God."

This is a repressive comment to my mind, but then I'm not sold on the glory of God to begin with. At least, not as we understand glory to be on earth. The glory of God is the glory of simplicity, the glory of unconditional love, the glory of creation. It's not a truth. God can only be seen clearly in these elemental forms. The Bible is an imperfect document that has lasted for centuries because of its flexibility, not because of its clarity.

I think that we overthink the Great Commission and growth. Because America is based on marketing, we respond to marketing. This means that churches need to embrace it. But the core of marketing is not about pandering, lying or changing the message to suit the times. It is about understanding the needs of the people you want to reach and then re-communicating your message so it reaches them often so they hear it when they are ready to hear it. If that means tv screens and more emphasis on fellowship, who's to say that's wrong? As long as the central theme of love in the Gospel is there and as long as the care and nurture of people occurs in the name of God, how far off can we be. Forget about the rules, forget about the dominant/submissive understanding we have of a royal Creator. Focus on the heart and act on that focus and then tell people how good it feels. That is the real Good News. "People will come, Ray"

Is this the true spirit of blogging? Or is it bloviating?

As a lay person, I can't bear any form of recruitment into a church I happen to choose to attend. It seems like I'm projecting my needs effectively -- I've been attending the same church for over six months, and the senior pastor has still not insisted on introducing himself to me. Smart guy! He'll let me come to him, when and if I'm ever ready.

For me, what a given church stands for matters much more than what form its liturgy (or lack thereof) takes, what music it uses or doesn't use, what kinds of extracurricular activities it offers or doesn't offer.

If a church's policies are consonant with the command to love one another and love God, then I might consider joining that church.

If the church's policies oppose the command to love one another and love God, I will flee it.

The only form of evangelizing I'm willing to do is evangelizing by example. If somebody wants to bring up Christ or Christianity as a topic of conversation, I'll participate willingly. But I don't bring it up myself. I just live it, to the best of my ability.

On the more personal side of evangelism, it isn't easy to talk about religion, especially when things are as charged as they are today. I am not likely to invite someone to my church unless they indicate that they are looking or that they are unsatisfied with their church. But then again, most of the people that I would meet to have a conversation at this level are at ... church! Why would I talk about faith to a neighbor when they are talking about the weather Why would I discuss my theory of Biblical errancy with a co-worker when I only interact with them on a superficial level on work matters? Like Megan, all I can do is live my faith and when moments of intimacy arise, try to share the "why's" that inform my behavior. Ultimately, people need to look for God - God doesn't seem to be actively looking for them.

Unfortunately, I don't do simple answers. This is problematic because I see people who want two things: 1) easy spiritual/biblical answers as a counter-balance to a complex and complicated world; and 2) people who ask, "What's in it for me?"

"I didn't get anything out of it. The music doesn't move me. I have other needs that St. Swithen's doesn't offer."

People either don't understand, or refuse to acknowledge, that Christianity in general and parish membership in particular take work. If you aren't getting anything out of it, I want to know what you are putting into it. If the music doesn't move you, may I remind you that this is not a concert. We all have a variety of needs, but we also all have a variety of gifts; try giving instead of taking.

It's not my job to convert people -- that's the job of the Holy Spirit. I think the Great Commission is problematic because it seems to place the burden of conversion on us. However, if we live our life in accordance with the Gospel, and in particular with the admonition to love one another, that is a good place to start.

The other aspect is that a parish simply can't paint their doors red and expect people to waltz in (ECUSA reference ... sorry). A parish needs an identity. We can't all feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked etc. But we CAN do an honest evaluation of the gifts we do have, come to a consensus of what one or two gifts seem to be strongest, and build a parish identity around them.

That identity, infused with the message of the Gospel, will allow us to reach out and draw in in ever expanding circles. The trick is to get the parish base to buy into this idea, and I'm still trying to figure out how to make that happen in MT.

Here's a question: why do congregations want to be bigger? What does size gain them?

Oy, that's complicated.

Well, primarily, there is security and success. The success perspective depends upon a congregations theology. So, if a community believes that it should be making more Christians, then an enlarging congregation may signify success. Willow Creek is a great example of this. They have 20,000 people attend in a given week. They have maybe 4,000 members. That is still huge, but the percentage is small.

Sometimes it means that you can "do more for the Kingdom." More people equals more resources and thus more programs and charity. Many of the Catholic parishes in Chicago like Old St. Pat's are good examples of this. They are tied into every social service group available to them.

Another dynamic is that many mainline churches in the US simply remember being larger. North Shore used to bring in 1,000 people on a Sunday. Now the hover around 150. There are more reasons for this than one blog post can cover, but suffice it to say that there are people currently in the pews who remember when the pews were packed. They wish those times to return. North Shore is hardly unusual. Many urban (some suburban) churches are dealing with this. Those who study these dynamics suggest that the mainline church is shrinking. Even the SBC is flattening out. There is some growth in the RCC and the EOC, but some of that is immigration and some is conversion from existing Protestant bodies.

This is also a very American problem or dynamic. When Religion is not assumed by a nation (separation of church and state etc), then the church has to depend on the voluntary participation of its members to exist. There are no taxes that are set aside to support the institutional church. That makes us unusual.

Notre Dame exists because the French government helps it along. Once upon a time that cathedral was where kings and queens were coronated. (spelling!) America does not really identify in with the church in that way. Religion of any kind is not explicitly expected.

But in the end, people often like to share what they enjoy. They attend a church and care for a congregation and they would like to see it grow. They would like to see it survive them.

The request by Christ to make disciples of all nations plays into this of course. We have to have a theology about this issue. I think it deserves such attention.

Some congregations achieve a certain size and are able to maintain that for a long time. I think this is fine. Growth without discipleship is not real growth in my opinion. The numbers and income are great things, but there has to be a deepening as well. Sometimes I think this happens more easily in smaller congregations. But that may be my bias speaking.

That's interesting. Your response illuminated for me the fact that I believe that people who join churches do so because they've left other churches. So I don't think of that as "making more Christians" -- just trading the existing ones around in a circle.

That, as I said, was what I discovered I believed in the light of your response. I have no idea how well my belief hews to fact.

So, got any facts? About whether the people who join churches are coming from existing Christian backgrounds, or not?

I am going to poke around a bit to see if I can find url's about this.

The results will be complicated, of course, but it should be interesting. There are churched people, un-churched and the non-churched. I'll see what I can see.

I think that the desire to grow a church is often a misplaced priority, because it is focused on the need of a church to survive or to restore some "golden age" nostalgia. It is a need more grounded in the kingdom of self than in the reign of God's mercy and truth. I have served as a pastor for 35 years and have yet to see a church significantly increase membership because it decided to grow. Why would I want to attend a church that is interested in using me to meet their (survival) needs instead of evidencing a genuine interest in my life and destiny?

If Christians have found a reality which makes life fuller and more meaningful, it is natural to share this with others. I think that this is the most natural form of evangelism, "sharing the good news" as it has become real for me. When a community of believers has a significant number of people who are "alive in Christ," led by staff who model the expression of faith in word and deed, I think that growth will happen. And I think that the worship service then becomes an expression of the "alive in Christ" experience of the members of the community of faith.

If a church takes evangelism seriously, I think there needs to be at least a two-staged approach:
1) to meet the self-centered needs of those who are separated from God. I think most of us self-centered creature/sinners first take God seriously because we thing God will meet our needs. The hope that our self-centeredness will find a deeper fulfillment in God is, I think, the driver for the first stage of the salvation process.
2) to help new believers move beyond the selfish infant-in-faith stage to grow as disciples whose desire becomes more and more "thy will be done."

Churches that focus only on one of these dimensions tend, in the first case, to produce a cultural Christianity that is not really transforming of the fallen world, and in the second case, to produce a more "elite" expression of Christianity that seldom reaches those who do not have a previous allegiance to the faith.

Steve, your comments seem to track with my perceptions about growth, although I suspect that many churches that declare "we need to grow to survive" are finding a pragmatic way to ask the much scarier question that lies beneath. That question is "Am I wrong?" or "Does anyone value what I value?" Growth has to occur for the right reasons, but the fragmentation of society and the pervasive distrust of institutions keeps the sample rate low (to use a marketing term). So, although I believe that there is a wide audience for a diverse range of Christian viewpoints, I also believe that churches need to be both spiritual and strategic in their approach to growth. A congregation can act on its values with joy and a solid sense of their place in the Christian world, but if one of their values is an overexpression of modesty and humility, they cannot grow because no one will know that they exist. It strikes me as being similar to the Shakers belief in celebacy - it might be right, but it is self-limiting at its core.