Panes of Glass

In The Master Plan for Evangelism, Robert Coleman describes the method Jesus used to proclaim the gospel and lead his disciples. Reading through the gospels, one can clearly see the simplicity and truth of the approach Coleman describes. Jesus’ approach involved prayer, calling people to repentance through the message of the gospel, living closely among those he discipled, teaching them by example and then sending them out, time and again to practice what they learned from him. This model was practiced by the early Church in Acts. In those days churches met in homes, synagogues (when possible) and town meeting halls, but buildings were very unimportant for the mission of the Church.

In contrast, churches today are centered around the buildings in which they meet. “Community,” if it exists, generally consists of once- or twice-a-week meetings generally centered around “fellowship”—which generally means a few minutes (if any) of real spiritual discussion dispersed amongst topics of political, business, or other natures. Prayer is often relegated to “prayer meetings” and prayer on Sunday mornings rather than a 24×7 way of life. The need for repentance is forgotten as we want all to feel welcome and not condemned. In other words, the Christians in churches today segregate their spiritual lives from the rest of their lives almost to the point of extinction. Of course, this statement does not define all Christians today, but it does define a vast majority.

How can the church today become the Church that Jesus wants? To understand that, we probably should go back to where things began to go wrong, and that takes us back to Constantine. That’s a bit too far to cover everything, but suffice it to say that once Christianity and the world agreed to get along, Christianity and the Church began to become little-”c”’s; they became less than what they should have been (1 John 2:15-17).

We live in a society and world that encourages working outside of the home (sometimes at distances of forty or more miles), both parents working and convenience and speed over simplicity and hard work. Our lives are generally spent with the people we work with and the nuclear families we come home to, when they haven’t been fragmented. Worst of all, most people describe themselves as “spiritual” even though they can’t quite describe what that means consistently and use it really as a way to try to shut up evangelists. This society is a poison, and we are told in scripture that we are not a part of it, but you would be hard-pressed to find many Christians who do not join in with society (John 17:16-19).

The church’s current attempt at a solution has been to try to meet people where they are and not demand the rigors of the life Jesus described of believers: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:25-35). Again, calls for repentance are almost unheard of today. If they do go out, they are few and far between or softened so as not to offend. Some people, both inside and outside the church, think that real believers no longer struggle with sin and thus have no need for repentance. Those who hold such a view are foolish, and we should so reveal this foolishness by openly repenting and calling one another to repentance. One need look no further than many biblical heroes for need further evidence: David and Peter, James and John, Jonah, Abraham, and countless others. We need to repent and turn again to the Lord. “A broken and contrite spirit [He] will not despise” (Psalm 51).

Most tasks in the church today have fallen to paid staff and a handful of volunteers. Most believers today are expected only to come once a week, help out financially, possibly bring a friend, and possibly contribute in some way to the many programs created to replace the original form of discipleship. All these allow us to become more and more disconnected from one another, as well as Jesus Christ, which should be our primary goal (Phil. 3:7-11). Again, this isn’t true of all believers, but the stereotype sadly fits a majority.

Programming has so permeated the minds and hearts of Christians that we can hardly think of anything else. Ask anyone who confesses they don’t like programming what we should do instead, and they will come up with more programs, though usually very different from the current curriculum. Now, programs have their place. A good many services could not be performed without some level of administration; however, these should never be the ends for which we strive to honor our Lord.

We need much more than good ideas. We need more than a man’s vision. We need more than careful planning. We need faith. We need belief. Though this may at first startle, a church with four quadriplegics with real faith and persistent prayer is worth more than ten thousand able-bodied men and women willing to fall in to listen to a sermon, shake a few hands, teach a Sunday School lesson, and maybe cook a few meals. (And who’s kidding who; very few of us could even claim that much activity in our churches.) The Lord does not want Marthas but Marys [1] (Luke 10:42).

Does this mean we should completely stop all programs and works as a church? By no means! However, we must each and everyone realize and cling to the truth that God has bought us with the price of his very own Son. We are not our own, and He has given us an example to follow: discipleship. We are to go and make disciples before all other activities. That does not mean we go and bring someone to the church. That means we go and introduce them to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the Lord Jesus Christ, their only hope of salvation.

Our petty cares and concerns have overwhelmed us. Our current recession fills the minds of most. Why? What could possibly concern us? All we have has come from the Lord. He gives, and He takes away. None of your concern will do you any good. It’s been paid for, and your eternity is secure. Go and make disciples. Go and meet with the person that sits in the pew next to you. Go and meet with the person who sits down the hall from you at work. Buy the beggar on the street dinner and sit and talk with him while you eat together. Share the Lord and all the good things He’s provided you. If those people don’t go to your church, who cares? We should consider our churches less and the Church more. We belong to a kingdom that is coming and is within our hearts even now, not to the domains put in place by men.

That all sounds well and good, but how to implement it? Yes, that is an excellent question. You see, ever since becoming a believer, I have wanted someone to show me how to transform into this life I’ve described above. I found that somewhere along the way, this training and teaching was lost. We’ve moved to a primarily academic study of God via catechism and Sunday School classes with little “show and tell” of how to really be a Christian in your community. Missions training tries to prepare people for this, but often they have so little time that their methods seem a bit forced and programmed. Long-term, foreign missionaries have to learn this, but they do so as part of their integration into another culture and can’t quite adapt it when they return… or so it seems.

I believe some members of the older generations who remember what it takes, what it looks like to really love your neighbor daily. In my lifetime, I have learned how to be more and more private and to keep my comings and goings to myself and my friends. To tell me to “go and love [my] neighbor” probably looks a lot different to me than it did to my mom and dad, and the same is likely true for them. Older men and women should share and teach younger men and women. We must once again join and be apart of one another’s lives.

So here’s what I believe should happen:

1. We must begin to earnestly pray and fast (Isaiah 58). The most important in the life of believers and the body is prayer. God gave us this most wondrous gift to commune with him, and we sorely need to turn first to prayer in all things. We generally turn first to our thoughts and plans, then to prayer. We need to become a prayer-first people. Many already do this, but they should speak up more often to remind us. Everything we do should be preceded, covered over, and followed up with prayer. We should even consider a 24-hour prayer chain. We should also seek to pray for and with the lost and their needs. This is one way we can reach our community and our neighbors who might otherwise take no interest in Christ. However, prayer here is not enough. With prayer, we must provide action. We must pray, then we must act on those prayers to help all we can to find the Lord.
2. We must repent and expect revival by faith. Reading through Church history, revival always follows repentance, not the other way around. However, churches today seem to think that throwing a revival will lead to repentance. We think that “good preaching” will lead to repentance, even if the need for repentance is not preached. We must preach repentance and the need for repentance. This will be hard at first and may even require exercising church discipline, but through preaching the Word, committing to one another, sharing in humility and vulnerability, and trusting one another will get us there. Yet even getting to that point will be difficult. Our church struggles desperately with gossip. I know far more than I should and the people who should be told directly are not confronted. Pride runs rampant in the hearts of many, and false humility is sowing seeds of destruction for our fellowship.
3. We must pray over, identify, and put to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to every believer. Every member of the church has been given gifts with which to serve the body. In their giftings, each is a voice of authority, some for teaching, some for administration, some for prophecy, and so on. Yet how often do we ignore or try to silence those because we either don’t recognize their gift or don’t like what is said. We need to help each member discover and find a way to serve based on the gifts the Lord has given each person. We need to listen to them and give heed to their direction, which is from the Lord. Leadership positions should not be assigned because we need to fill it; leadership positions should be recognized based on what people are already doing.

Some will want to point out several things I haven’t said: how to use the building, specific tactics for reaching the community, administration, etc. Yes, I’ve left those off, and I have several reasons for doing so. I am gifted in seeing the bigger picture, not the details (most of the time). We need to use those with gifts for administration and hospitality to determine some of the specifics. But most important, before we can work on the details, we have to get our hearts right. All the best laid plans of men are worth nothing and will be burned away without hearts laid bare before the Lord and unity among his Church. I think that most of the details will work themselves out, so to speak. Yes, I have some ideas, but I think now is the wrong time to air them in light of the larger issue of the heart of believers today.

We have a mission to make disciples. We do not have a list of action steps telling us in exact detail how to do so, but we do have the wisdom and experience of godly men and women who’ve tried some things and learned some things from the Lord which they could impart to others. We’ve tried programming, but programming always feels like programming to the recipient and not like the genuine love of neighbor that is needed. We must come together in prayer and discipleship, both within and without our church, and spur each other on towards the image of Christ in us.

We still have time. If we begin to confront the pride, gossip, and other common sins publicly, we have a chance to rebuild trust and lead the body to true unity in the Spirit. This will be hard; we will lose some people of their own accord, and we will be forced to ask some to leave who refuse to repent (Luke 14:25-35). We must handle this delicately and in a spirit of love, and I wonder if we can really do this given the length of time since real church discipline has been regularly practiced. We have no choice. We are so called, and we should love our Lord and our fellowship enough to pursue true unity. We know we can expect revival to follow. Isn’t unity and revival worth the effort?

Footnotes

[1] Actually, I believe the Lord wants a Mary heart and Martha actions (James 2:14-17).