Some further thoughts on the future of the church...

I want to run down this trail for awhile longer. There is a lot more to say. We will see how far I get…

I recently had a great conversation with an awesome guy who is getting a Doctorate in Ministry. His degree emphasis is preaching to millennials.

For those of us that don't know what this means - the millennial generation, also known as generation Y, is the generation of folks who follow Generation X. They are people who were born from the early 80's to the early 2000's. While there is no specific date as to when it stops and starts, this is the basic boundary of this socio-demographic.

The explanation of why this matters and the research involved in defining all this is vast and there are volumes written on it. But since it would bore most of us to tears, I want to simply draw some observations about how I believe that the church must respond to this next generation without delving too far into the why.  If it resonates, please let me know.

First, and probably most profound for this whole conversation, we have to stop talking about this generation as if they don't care about what is true or what is right. This is neither accurate, nor does it help to further the conversation.

Regardless of what you may think about the way we should understand truth, we live in a world where there is no way to keep from being influenced by a thousand different sources of input in a single day.

I can literally get online and listen and watch the top 20 leaders from any world religion at any moment I choose. And I can also listen to any anti-religious or non-religious speakers as well. My ability to take in information has exponentially increased, and the capacity to process the information has increased as well.

That leads me to my second thought… People are not dumber than they used to be. They are in fact, more aware and more rounded in their perspective than ever. And to try to blow off other points of view simply because they don't line up with your own is foolish and degrading to others.

People can and do process information at a higher rate now than ever in history. But writing and talking at someone are having diminishing affects. That doesn't mean that they aren't important, or that they don't work anymore. It just has less affect than it used to have. And this is due in part to the lack of trust in authority in general in our culture (see my previous blog post). We as a culture are not willing to "take someone at their word" anymore.

Put up or shut up. That is the Modus Operandi of our culture.

These 2 thoughts lead me to a couple of bigger thoughts that are really important as the church moves forward.

First, in order to see the next generation be open to a relationship with Jesus, we have to find a way to keep them part of the conversation long enough for God to get ahold of their hearts.

Prepositional, dogmatic preaching is quickly becoming a thing of the past. And to go back to the beginning of this post, that doesn't mean we have to compromise truth to effectively preach. It means we have to communicate truth better. Beautiful, compelling, inspiring sermons on the foundations of truth and life practice can be done and done well without the preacher turning into an insensitive bully in the process.

And many people will validate that you are "bringing a hard word" and that you "need to give it to us straight." I would suggest 2 things: 1. in relationship, there is no straight - it weaves and winds all over the place. That is the nature of community, and that is what we are asking people to be a part of; and 2. these people that are validating the "hard word" are already Christian. Did your "truth telling approach" bring anyone else to Jesus? Or did it reinforce the lies in people's souls that tell them that God could never truly love someone as messed up as they are?

And I would say that extends even to people who have said yes to Jesus. They might have said yes to being willing to follow Jesus. But do they truly believe that He loves them? Do they truly believe that He sees them as full of potential, not as mistakes or mess-ups. For that matter, do you believe that about yourself? and about others?

I think that for too long, what I would label as "Pulpit bullies" have reigned in our churches. They essentially have approached sermons with an attitude of - my job is to convince you that I am right and that you must agree with me or you are "out." As so there is a lot of pushing and convincing and drawing lines. And to be frank, many of the lines that get drawn are foolish and bound up in tradition not Scripture so they wind up having to get redrawn over and over again. And the church looks foolish because of it.

Second major point - I truly believe that in order to reach the next generation, we have got to stop talking about certain groups of people as if they are second rate. And before you dismiss this point as one you don't struggle with, hear me out.

Over Christmas I got to spend some great time with my family. It was so much fun and probably one of the most memorable Christmases that I have ever experienced. But there were several conversations that caused me to wonder about some things.

Now, my family are all Christians and in ministry. We all love Jesus and we all love the church. And I would say that we all love people from all walks of life. But some of the comments that were made off the cuff about people who are different than us lead me to believe that there are some underlying realities that we are taking for granted.

That which is not intentional is not reproducible. And if we don't intentionally validate and value other people, we will accidentally say all kinds of foolish things about them. And it only drives those who don't know Jesus yet further away from Him.

Nobody said anything intentionally mean. But a few of the statements that were made really made me think about the implications of many of my own statements and how I can say things without thinking that really hurt others.

And people in general have a tendency to do that. We joke and laugh about others that we perceive as weak or weird. It is just like junior high only we are all older. And I get it - I do. I fail at this more often than I want to admit. But our sacred privilege as followers of Jesus is to put our God on display to the world. And those people that we make our careless comments towards are precious to Jesus. So, when we say things off the cuff about other people, it isn't just that we invalidate them as human beings, we also paint an inaccurate picture of our God. And that is never a good thing!

So perhaps the place to begin is with these questions…

How do we determine to intentionally live out being a blessing to EVERYONE around us regardless of their past, present, or how we see their future?

How do we intentionally make sure that the people who come into contact with us are better when they leave than when they came?

How do we invite people into the life transforming relationship with Jesus and keep them a part of the conversation long enough to have it take hold?

Some thoughts on the future of the church...

Here is a blog I recently read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christian-piatt/dear-christians-relax-theres-no-war-on-our-faith_b_2286820.html

I was recently reading a blog post by Ed Stetzer. He was talking about what some of the new research suggests in regard to how people are viewing the church today and how that is changing as opposed to how to people viewed the church in times past.

I also recently read another blog about the difference between the church today and 30 years ago.

I read a blog this morning about the 7 things that the church needs to do to have repeat success…
http://www.paulalexanderblog.com/leadership/7-traits-of-churches-that-experience-repeat-success/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+paulalexanderblog+%28Helping+Churches+Make+Vision+Real%29&utm_content=FaceBook#.Up9U96XZhbU

Here is a funny observation: none of the things listed in the 7 things for repeated success blog address any of the issues talked about in the blogs on how church has been affected by cultural change. So, ultimately, if you do these 7 things to repeat success, you are either (A) doing the same wrong thing better, or (B) leading people down a larger path to destruction by not dealing with what they are actually thinking about and wrestling with in their lives.

Why would you do that?

So, in an attempt to actually give some pertinent advice to help the Kingdom of God come crashing into earth in our culture, I want to give some observations that I see shaping the cultural perception of the church and how I think the church could respond in order to navigate what I observe as a fairly large shift in church history.

1. Culture in general is leveling the playing field in regards to authority. The pastor used to be a person of importance by virtue of his position alone. This is no longer true.

Maybe it is too many news reports on leaders being dishonest, maybe it is something else. But this is not a church problem, it is a cultural shift. No one is a victim here. And that matters.

Church leaders are all too ready to play the role of victim and cry out about how the culture is becoming more and more evil as we see people lose respect for authority.  But let's be honest, perhaps the bigger issue is that authority lost respect for the people that it exists to help. And perhaps greed in authority laid a path for the loss of respect altogether.

People don't trust the government, police officers, or clergy. The good news is that this shift isn't an attack on the church. It is an attack on those who aren't putting their money where their mouth is. And that is okay. Does it put pressure on us as Christians and as church leaders? Yep. But my experience has been that people are very willing to give respect. However, it will be earned - not granted.

So what is the solution? 2 parts in my opinion…

First, Preachers must stop preaching about the reality of their ideals without sitting squarely in their struggle to achieve those ideals. There is a LOT more to be said about this, but this is a blog, not a book. So, suffice it to say that when you talk about all your ideals without acknowledging your struggle, you paint a picture so rosy that the culture looks at you and says that you are either lying or more perfect than I could ever be. Either way, I don't want any part of what you are doing.

Second, Preachers need to give room in their sermons for people who have messed up. Preaching on the moral evils of abortion without acknowledging hope for those who have actually had abortions (and they are in your church) only robs them of the ability to talk about it and be set free from the guilt. Preaching on the abomination of homosexuality and not intentionally creating space for those who feel like they are struggling with this issue to talk about it is an equation for disaster.  Preaching cannot only contain right and wrong anymore. We MUST capture the tension of failure and the hope of God's agenda of restoration.

I would suggest that a great place to start would be to stop focusing on people's sinfulness. They already know they are sinners. And start focusing on God's goodness. Jesus said - If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me. How about if we get away from the discussion on election of the saints and start lifting up Jesus and His desire for the restoration of all things.

2. Culture in general has moved away from truth in clean categories. We used to be able to give systematic theologies, clean prepositional boundaries, and apologetical presentations. These have less and less affect on our younger generations. That is not because the devil got a better foot hold!!! It is because culture has changed how we have the conversation about truth as a whole. And the church must figure out how to engage the conversation in terms that people can hear.

5 steps or 7 ways or 27 things… I don't even want to read these kinds of articles. How many times have we read about 5 steps to affair proof your marriage and still struggled with wanting to cheat? And even simpler, how many times have we read about or listened to someone talk about 7 steps to a healthier you? and yet we didn't workout - because it isn't dealing with the real issues that are keeping from exercising in the first place.

It is like a husband that hears his wife express a problem and then give her 5 steps to a happier self. It demeans her pain. And when I express a struggle to someone and then they just move to well if you just did…

I secretly want to punch them in the face. The TRUTH is that living life isn't slick or clean or simple. And as the world gets smaller, the issues that we wrestle with in how we live out our faith are becoming more and more complex.

To reduce my life to 5 steps??????? come on! It isn't that simple.

Perhaps a better way to talk about these issues is to leave the tension there rather than trying to resolve it away. The answer for the world is Jesus, not my 5 steps. Keep pointing people to Him and I bet the "things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

Pain does happen and abuse is real and right and wrong are not always simple or easy. And 5 steps to resolving it all away doesn't change it or deal with the reality of the emotion that I am captured by. Those steps demean my pain and turn me off from wanting to hear you ever again.

3. What activities motivate people to serve the Lord and how we even define that has changed. Serving the church, and global missions (which meant throwing money at people to go over there) was a core issue for the church of the previous generation. Today, the younger generation is not loyal to the church. They want to serve people - people who they see need help.

I will give an example… this Thanksgiving, a 15 year old girl in our church decided to take on the monumental task of feeding 500 families for Thanksgiving. Not people - families! She organized food drives, worked with food banks, raised money and organized a meal.  It was a raging success!  She fed over 620 families and exceed anything I thought she could get done.

What intrigued me was who was excited to help with the meal. We had servers, cooks, table hosts, people milling around and just visiting with those who came. And we had too much help. Too many people showed up to help with this meal! And the best part… they were almost all young college and high school students. This 16-23 year old age range got excited about feeding the needy in their own community. And that says a lot.

What also says a lot is who was not there. As I saw it, there were very few folks from the 50+ crowd there to serve. And that is not wrong or lazy on their part. It is an awareness piece for the church to notice what motivates people to serve the Lord and how do we give them opportunities to do so?

On the flip side, there are things that our church does (i.e. buying school supplies for entire schools, service project days for the entire community, etc.) that are very motivating to the 50+ crowd without having a string turn out from the younger folks at all.

We need to see this so that we don't get stuck in a rut of doing the same things that we have always done and wondering why people have "turned their backs on God" because they are not showing up. Perhaps the issue isn't their love for God at all. Perhaps it has more to do with the activity itself.

4. The church has to care about "those people." Whomever the "those people" are in your community (poor, homeless, drug addicts, prison inmates, homosexual community, etc.), the church needs to invest a substantial amount of its budget toward reaching out and loving them.

Again, this is a blog post which is already too long, not a book so I will try to make this brief, but one of the biggest complaints that I hear from non-church goers is that the church spends all this money on buildings and staff and doesn't spend any money on the poor and needy.

Now, some of that is trumped up, no doubt. But where are the testimonies of how your church has reached out and met needs? Why don't people know these stories?

I would suggest that we have to stop measuring the effectiveness of our reaching out into the community based n how many people came to church as a result of it. And I know that will get me into hot water with some, but hear me out on this.

Jesus didn't say be generous in order to grow the church (or the Kingdom). He said be generous because that is what people who are in the Kingdom do. That is how they live. Business measures growth based on investment - R.O.I. The Kingdom measures faithfulness. Growth is God's problem. He says something about that. And yes this is a huge topic, but the point of the church is not to become a great big church. If that happens great, if not, great.

The point of the church is to be a community of people who love each other and give people a picture of what the Kingdom of God really is all about.  I will bet that if the church would focus on being the best church for the community and not just the best church in the community - if we would focus on being a place that loves the people within our sphere of influence better than any where else, and stop trying to decide how many people came to church because we did such and such…

I'll bet we wouldn't have any trouble at all with growth.

There is a lot more that I would love to say, but I have rambled long enough and probably already gotten myself in to trouble.  Let the conversation begin!!