“Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”
This question gripped me as I read this book. It’s a really, really interesting experiment. Jim Henderson, a Christian and innovative thinker, hired an aethiest, Matt Casper, to visit several churches across the US with him and provide insight into how an aethiest sees our efforts at reaching the world. As they visited Saddleback (where I work), the Dream Center, Willow Creek, and other infulential churches across the US, they record their thoughts…and the thought that rocked me the most was the one mentioned above.
Here’s why this meant so much to me. First, there’s the obvious. From this statement and others made in the book, it is clear that we, as church leaders, are missing something. Many of the methods that so many church leaders see as “culturally relevant” and possible methods as making church more attractive to a non-believer really do nothing but cause scepticism and doubt in the hearts and minds of non-believers. “Culturally relevant” lighting equipment, stage designs, staffing solutions, segmented ministries, slick presentations…you get the point. The obvious point I think I was reminded of here was that, while I enjoy all of these aspects of weekend worship as a believer in Christ, I was reaffirmed that these may actually not be effective in reaching the lost.
The more thought provoking of the challenges in this statement, though, was a second aspect. It wasn’t implied in the book, so these are merely my own thoughts, but I wanted to mention it. Here’s where this statement took me…What if church as we know it…all together…Sunday worship services, midweek Bible studies, staff, bulletins, strategic planning meetings, offices, security…I could go on…what if it all is a mistake?
I’ve been doing some thinking, praying, reading, and such since I started thinking about this. I’m going to keep doing that. I’m studying Jesus’ ministry right now. How did he do it? What were the values that drove his ministry? What were his methods? What were the things that he spoke against?
I would love to lead in a way that I could answer Casper’s question with a definitive “yes!”
dialogue ---> reality 
i remember having a discussion about this back at CCC… about if, on a certain level, gathering together was even a waste of our energy and resources that could be spent somewhere else restoring and building community… i have often posed the question, “what if, for every hour we gathered in church on Sunday mornings, we would have gathered somewhere else… in the community, helping, etc…. how would the world look different?”
i know that this is an extreme, and there is probably a delicate balance between the two, but it still feels better to me on this end of the ‘thought spectrum.’
By: brandon on January 15, 2008
at 6:31 pm