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prologue

We have a problem. There is an irreconcilable contradiction in the modern evangelical church. It is a contradiction that cannot be ignored, dismissed and doubled down on any longer for the sake of the church but also for the the sake of the glory of God and the health of the bride of Christ.

For the past half century there has been a movement to make the church more “relevant.” However, if one was to look at the studies done by Barna and Pew Research among others, if we are honest we would recognize that the church has not become more relevant but it has become more irrelevant despite hundreds of millions of dollars, conferences, books, magazines, podcasts, television shows and all manner of marketing. The raw truth is that despite all our efforts, more people are walking away from the church and are either dismissive or antagonistic to the church than ever before in America. Here are a few numbers from these studies to show what I mean. Where possible I will compare data from the mid 1970’s where this trend began to today. Otherwise available historical data will be used.

According to the Gallup organization, in 1971, 90% of Americans identified with a Christian religion, in 2021 that number fell to 69%. Over a 20% drop! In 1971, 6% had no religious preference, in 2021, that number rose to 21%. 47% of Americans in 2021 were church members, as late as 1999, that number was 70%. Gallup research

In Pew Research telephone polls in 2018 and 2019, 65% of adult Americans described themselves as Christian. This is down 12% in 10 years. Those who describe themselves as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular” rose in the same period to 26% from 17%. 43% identified themselves as protestant, down from 51% a decade ago. The following chart tells the story pictorially. Pew Research

In March of 2020, the Barna group said, “In essence, the share of practicing Christians has nearly dropped in half since 2000” noting that only 1 in 4 Americans is a practicing Christian. They go on to say that about half of those moved into a “non-practicing Christian” category while the other half moved into a “non-Christian segment.” They also note that 36% fewer Americans attend church weekly than in 1993. Barna Research

There is an often quoted anecdote about an older member of the church talking to another church member and he says, “I don’t care for the loud music at all but if it helps bring in the younger generation, I’m all for it.” The problem is that it is not bringing in the younger generation. Generationally, the younger the person in America, the more apathetic or antagonistic they are to the church despite the culturally relevant reaches made by the church.

The evangelical church made a shift in the mid 1970’s. There were likely others but one of the most notable evangelicals to lead this shift was Bill Hybels and Willow Creek. This was the shift from the traditional evangelical church to a church that met people where they were and was intentionally more relevant to their everyday lives than the traditional church. Ironically, though Hybels was a pioneer in this shift it was probably more those who copied his methods that took the shift to a greater extent than I expect Hybels had intentioned. While Hybels took the Sunday service to a culturally relevant, high production value event designed for those outside the church, he did not abandon the believer’s service. Rather he moved that service to Wednesdays and Thursdays. Many other churches who adopted the “seeker service” were not so intentional and adopted only the seeker service.

“Seeker services” became the model. Different churches varied in their degree and approach to the “seeker” model. Some churches moved to a dominant cultural model and became “seeker driven” churches. In these churches you may find secular music and certainly the service was driven by attracting and engaging those outside the church. Some churches adopted more of a “seeker sensitive” model where the church did not embrace secular culture as much but geared the service in a way to engage and not offend the outsider. There was a spectrum on the attractional church or seeker model but each had a focus on what they would consider the “unchurched” and each represented a departure from what would have been considered the traditional church.

There is a mountain of information written and spoken about by church growth experts in an attempt to attract people to the church. In the short term there may have been some success but in the larger picture to use an old analogy, we may have won the battle but we are losing the war. I would contend that not only have these church growth strategies been ineffective but they cannot overall be effective because we are aiming at the wrong target. In future posts we will look more deeply at the problem and we will also look toward a solution. For now let’s just say that we need to get back to the true nature and purpose of the church. At the core of the problem is that we have redefined church to something that can never be effective. But more importantly, we have redefined church to be something it was never intended to be.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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The Holy Huddle

Often a criticism of a church that does not follow the seeker model is that the church is just a “Holy Huddle.” It is nice alliteration for an innuendo that the church simply gathers with self-care and lack of concern for the world around them. The impression is that there is a group of people with arms around each other’s shoulders, their back to the rest of the world, oblivious to everything else around them and only focused on their tight knit group. That may be the case for for some church bodies but that’s not a huddle, that’s a tea party. A “holy huddle” is exactly what the church needs.

Those who accuse the church in this pejorative way must never have watched a football game. I enjoy turning on a good football game on Sunday afternoon and watching two teams battling it out. If it is a good game, there is a lot of energy on the field. Opposing linemen are going after each other with everything they’ve got. The game is a combination of strength, strategy, stamina and often times, simply the relentless determination to win. Take any one of those elements away and that is a marker the team will be putting an “L” on their record. The key to all of those elements is the huddle. The huddle directs where the strength needs to concentrate. It lays out the strategy for a winning play and gets everyone on the same page. Often it involves a call from far above the field with specific instructions for those on the front line of battle. Stamina is as much about wearing the other team down as it is maintaining your own endurance and a good leader keeps everyone at the top of their game in the huddle.

The huddle is the place where the team gets together. They get their instructions. They are built up and encouraged but they are also called to account for missed plays. In the huddle the players come together as a unified team to accomplish a goal. Ultimately their goal is to win the game but in the huddle the immediate goal may be to gain 3 yards. The next play’s objective may be to break open the defense with a long pass or to ram the football down the throats of the opposition running straight up the middle. In any case, without the huddle, the team would simply be a group of individuals doing their own thing. The only thing sure about a huddleless team is that they are going to lose. You won’t find a football team having petifores during a huddle, they aren’t holding hands singing Kum by ya. They are planning how they can kick the butts of the other team in the next 15 seconds of play.

The thing is that the church is not just facing a few four hundred pound guys making a couple hundred grand whether they win or lose. Scripture actually says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil on the heavenly realms. (Eph. 6:12) We are in the middle of an epic cosmic battle that goes far beyond bragging rights of a winning season and a very large ring. Our battle will not be forgotten next season, it will have eternal consequences. Our battle is not for fickle fans but for the infinite God.

The church could use some holy huddles. There is evil in our faces everyday just like a football line. Those snarling faces and that trash talk is happening each day on the field of life and the stakes are much higher than a “W” in a football season. We as the church are not going to take ground if we do not recognize the forces we are up against, if we do not have a strategy for the long game, if we don’t have a tactical plan for the next step and if we do not rally around each other, encouraging and holding our teammates to account. The stakes are our children, our homes, our jobs, our country, justice, economy and the list goes on. We cannot go to church a couple times a month sing some upbeat songs in a concert environment, listen to a sermon that talks about some area of life that may or may not be relevant to us, see friends and then go just about our week. We cannot be a spectator in a consumeristic gathering where we walk away evaluating the quality of the presentation. We need a holy huddle where Christians are gathered, unified and equipped to face the evil around them. We need a huddle with a strategy to take some ground that next week and come back for further instruction. We need a huddle where the body is both built up and encouraged but also held to account and pushed beyond itself.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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Worship in the Church

So what does worship in the church look like? I don’t mean what you are used to experiencing weekly, I mean from your understanding of scripture, what would church look like? We are used to the modern Evangelical church where there will be several songs, someone will pray as a transition for the pastor to come to the platform, there may be some announcements toward the beginning or the end and there is likely an invitation. If you are part of a more formal liturgical church your experience may be a little more structured and contain a few more elements, but the Christian church of the west has a fairly typical program. However, Francis Chan in his book Letters to the Church says, “Imagine you find yourself stranded on a deserted island and you have nothing but a copy of the Bible. You have no experience with Christianity whatsoever, and all you know about the Church will come from your reading of the Bible. How would you imagine a church to function? Seriously, close your eyes for two minutes and try to picture “Church” as you would know it. Now think about your current experience. Is it even close? Can you live with that?”

We call our church services “worship” services. That is an important distinction. So let’s set aside our template that we are used to. Let’s set aside tradition and let’s look at what it would truly mean for our services to be “worship services.” I am already pumped just beginning to think about it. Just imagine the anticipation of walking into a room with like-minded believers coming with the intentionality and anticipation of entering the presence and encountering the infinite God of the universe who knows no limits of power and knowledge and wisdom. He knows no boundaries of time or space. There is not the slightest hint of deceit or false intentions but only perfect goodness, absolute truth, holiness and justice. And despite such infinite transcendence, He knows your name and loves you not like His child but as His child! And you get to enter His presence. WOW!

But worship is not about you. You know you are not worthy of such an encounter so you come in utter humility in your unworthiness but in the confidence of a child. There is nothing you can bring to offer Him that will impress Him, you can only offer yourself which is all He wants. You offer yourself in submission, uncertain of what He may ask of you but completely confident not only in His love for you but also in His character that He is only and utterly good. You offer your praise to Him for His attributes, for His goodness and His greatness. You offer your thanks to Him for all He has done for you and for those around you. But it is when you truly worship, when you offer your adoration, you offer your reverence for Him and your deference to Him that you sense His pleasure. As you empty yourself of adoration for Him, He fills you with the never-ending rushing river of His love and His grace. But it’s not about you at all, it is all about Him. It’s just that this is what you were created to do and you are now doing the most fulfilling thing you could possibly do and the most important thing you could possibly do. You may worship in a song that expresses your adoration and love. You may worship in prayer or in just speaking your love and devotion to Him. At some point in the service you may worship in presenting your material offering as an expression of His supreme value and as an expression of your absolute trust.

When we think of worship, we must think of emptying ourself of everything and offering it to God. We must think of acting in absolute humility and deference to the God of the universe. Scripture often gives us the picture of people who encountered God. They often fell on their faces in humility and worship. We see this in Revelation 1, in Daniel, in Numbers 20 in 1 Chronicles 29, in Nehemiah 8, in 1 Kings 18. Even the idol Dagon, when faced with the Ark of the Covenant, God caused the idol to fall face down in His presence. Falling prostrate is an act of reverence, of submission, of deference and of humility. Of course that is not the only posture for worship. We could argue that as David brought the Ark of the Lord back to Jerusalem that he was worshiping also. After every 6 steps David made an offering. Scripture says that David danced before the Lord with everything in him. His wife was ticked off at him because he behaved in an undignified way but David remarked that he was not dancing for an audience of people but he was dancing before the Lord. In these actions, completely the opposite of falling prostrate David was worshiping and we know this because underlying the posture and the outward manifestation, David was offering everything he had, dignity and all, for the glory of God. The core of worship remained while the manifestation changed. The act of worship is an act of emptying ourselves before God and recognizing His ultimate supremacy.

When we think of the songs we sing during our church services and songs we hear on the radio, often times they are songs of celebration of what God has done for us. Or they may be songs of encouragement of what God may do for us. These are not worship songs. They are about us and often they are about what we get from God, not what we give to Him. That doesn’t mean they are wrong or bad. Certainly there are many songs with bad theology but leaving that aside, we can still offer songs of praise and thanksgiving but we should be careful to know the difference between these and actual worship. Just because a song is about God does not make it a worship song. A worship song is a song expressing our adoration, our devotion, our reverence, ourselves to God. Just because I am thankful for my car does not mean I worship it. And just because I am thankful to God for something does not mean I am worshiping Him but worship Him we must. Let’s just be careful to identify what we are truly doing lest we think we are worshiping while we are completely missing the mark.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” Then it answers, “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This is what we are doing when we worship. When we glorify God, we exalt Him. We lift Him up. We make Him the object of our attention, of our favor and we make much of Him. He is centerstage. He is center focus. Everything else is peripheral. One writer described it as everything around become shadows in the light of Him. When we do that we necessarily are humbled because He gets the full spotlight. The second part of that answer is equally important. We enjoy Him forever. When we enjoy something, our affections are turned toward that thing. We find satisfaction and contentment there. We stop searching for something better, but instead, we bask in the goodness of that thing. Again that thing takes center stage. John Piper says it well when he says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.” For someone to truly enjoy something or someone, he or she gives attention, deference and affection to that thing or person.

The worship of God is not only the one thing you were created to do, it is not only the greatest thing you could possibly do with your life, it is also expected and required by God. The opposite of worship is unthinkable when it comes to God. In Exodus 20 God says He is a jealous God. In fact in Exodus 34, He says His name is “Jealous.” In a world that tries to tell us that everything is a shade of gray, this is really black and white. We have two options, either God is everything we need or He is not enough. Imaging telling your spouse, “I love you but you are just not enough for me.” That does not end well. And we know as humans that a spouse actually cannot fulfill all our needs, we have need for friendships and more importantly we have a spiritual need of God. God does not share the limitations of our human spouses. To tell God, “You are everything to me” is an act of worship. To tell God by words or action, “You are not enough for me.” is an act of rebellion and defiance.

So what would a true worship service look like? It may take various forms but what would be non-negotiable would be that it would be making much about God and leaving ourselves to be only an offering for Him. It would express our joy, our satisfaction, the focus of our affection on who God is, not on His creation or His works or what He has done for us. It would be offering our affection, our devotion, our deference and our reverence to Him. Of course we may want to praise Him for His creation and we may thank Him for His works as a part of and as an act of our worship but we must be careful to truly pursue authentic worship. Are we thanking and praising Him merely for the benefits we received or have we set ourselves aside and we are thanking and praising Him based on His character and His greatness. Thanksgiving and praise because of benefits we have received from Him are wholly appropriate and good. Let’s just be careful to distinguish between sincere thanksgiving or praise and authentic worship. The focus and object of authentic worship must by definition be God or else we move into a realm of idolatry.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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Worship

A. W. Tozer called worship the missing Jewel. John MacArthur called worship “The Ultimate Priority.” I won’t even begin to try to do better than these two but I will put an exclamation point on their characterizations. I was once talking with a pastor who, in our conversation, said that the problem within a certain denomination was that they focused on evangelism instead of worship. That was nearly 30 years ago and I am fully convinced that the evangelical church is declining for that very reason. If we consider a previous post where we tried to prioritize either evangelism or discipleship (or both) and we look deeply, we can see that in doing so we would try to prioritize the effect and leave the cause without attention. The effect of our worship should be evangelism. If we start with evangelism we completely leave the why out of our efforts and just land on “because we are commanded to.” Which of course should be enough for our actions but it leaves us with little depth in our conversations with people.

Evangelism and discipleship are the effects of worship. John Piper stated this so well at the beginning of his book, Let the Nations be Glad! In a book about missions he said, “Missions (evangelism) is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.” Evangelism and discipleship can never effectively take precedence over worship. To put them at the top of the priority list is a misplacement of priorities in the church. What Piper explains in the book is that evangelism is an act of worship. The reason and motivation for evangelism is to create more worshipers of God. God is not receiving the glory HE deserves unless all creation is worshiping Him. Evangelism is not ultimately about people, it is about the glory of God and it is done on our part for His glory as an act of worship.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We have to look at worship more closely first. But even before that we have to clear up one thing. Worship has unfortunately often been equated with the songs we sing before or after a sermon. Maybe even songs from our Christian radio station. In our churches we often say, “let’s stand and worship” referring to singing but it is rare that we refer to other elements of the service or other elements of our lives for that matter as worship. While there is good reason that worship is associated with music, to equate worship to music is a tragic misapplication of the word. Let’s look at what worship really is.

At its core, worship is assigning great worth to something or identifying the worth of something but it goes beyond that. I identify worth to a lot of things but don’t worship them. I ascribe value to my vehicles but I don’t worship them. The same is true of my house. Unfortunately one may argue that my phone may be straddling the fence on this issue. But we can ascribe value without worshiping something. Worship takes that identification of worth to another level. If I worship an object I will sacrifice for that thing. It may cost a lot but I will sacrifice for it. I will act in deference to that thing. I will defer other pleasure, other comfort, other safety for that thing. I don’t just ascribe or identify worth to that thing, I ascribe or identify supreme worth to that thing. In a sense we can say that we bow down to that thing – maybe not literally but we hold it in such high value that essentially we become less and it becomes more. Very often we can think of sports teams in this realm but we can also think of wealth, position and relationships in this way. Consider the lengths many will go for their sports teams or for their wealth or position or even for a relationship. They will sacrifice money, time, relationships, their health or comfort, even their family for that thing of great worth. Their personal values diminish in the face of that thing. Then consider the personal emotional connection there is when there is a win or loss in that area, a game, a stock portfolio or a relationship.

The same is true with our worship of God but we need to add another dimension to our worship of God. In our worship of an object or a sports team, even though we sacrifice and act in deference to that thing, we still benefit. We do what we do for our own pleasure or enjoyment. We still recognize that we ultimately are equal to or greater than that thing and we hold the cards. In essence, if we step away from our worship of that thing, it loses value at least to us. If everyone stops liking a certain team, the value of that team declines dramatically. Much of its value is defined by our ascribing value to it. Old muscle cars are valuable because we define their value. Intrinsically they have no exceptional value. They are just old cars. Maybe “they don’t make them like that anymore” but the reality is there are are currently cars that can meet or beat their specifications. Old cars are subject to the laws of nature just like everything else. They wear out and the deteriorate. So the value of that machine directly matches the value I (and others like me) ascribe to it.

Because of who God is, that is not possible in our worship of Him. Because God is the creator of everything including us we must not only recognize that He is far greater than we are and simply because of who He is, He is deserving of far more than we could possibly offer in our lifetimes. For that reason alone He is the only one truly deserving of our worship. When we worship God we must come in absolute humility recognizing our unworthiness and ascribing ultimate worthiness to Him forgetting ourselves. Seriously, let me say that again. When we worship God we must come in absolute humility recognizing our unworthiness and ascribing ultimate worthiness to Him forgetting ourselves. It is the heart of worship. We come in humility and deference to Him ascribing to Him honor and glory. To be sure, we come with gratitude for His grace, with thanksgiving for His forgiveness and we come boldly as His adopted child but these elements surround our worship, they are not the essence of our worship. The essence of worship is based on the character and nature of God. And regardless of our worship, God’s worthiness can never be diminished or devalued. He remains the ultimate.

Many things we do can be an act of worship including singing but they are not intrinsically acts of worship. We can sing our adoration of God and ascribe honor and glory to Him in a song as worship. However, we can just as much sing about a dog in the back of a pick up or even sing blasphemies against God. The activity does not make it worship, the attitude and posture of our heart and the declarations of our mouth determines whether it is worship or not and / or who or what that worship is directed toward. Music is a powerful form of worship because in John 4 Jesus said that true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth. Music uniquely ties both of those elements in the lyrics of truth it proclaims and the emotion it generates or expresses. However, we can worship God in our work. We can worship Him in our studies. We can worship Him by giving and we can worship Him simply by acknowledging His power and majesty in the world around us. Again, the activity does not determine our worship, our heart, our attitude and our intent determines whether we are worshiping in these things. We may be doing certain activities yet not worshiping. IN that activity we may even acting in defiance of God if our heart is not right and purposeful.

There is another element of worship that is critical. Typically in the evangelical church, God is the subject of our worship. Listen to many of the songs we sing and you will hear it. Listen to our sermons. Often God is the subject of our song but we are the object. I never liked diagramming sentences in Jr. High School. And I certainly never thought it would ever be useful in life. But in this case I find it extremely important. If we take the sentence “Jeff threw the ball to Chris.” There is an action that is happening – throwing the ball. Jeff is our subject and really he’s not that important. What we want to know is who ends up with the ball? Who is on the receiving end of the action? In this case Chris gets the ball. He is the receiver. Worship is also an action. It is something we offer. Our worship needs to end up in the hands and at the feet of God. God must be the receiver of our worship not simply someone we are talking about. The object of our worship is the one receiving worship. If God is not receiving our worship we are at best neglecting our duty to worship or possibly worse, something or someone else is the object of our worship. We must be careful not to be part of unintentional idolatry.

So how is this relevant to the conversation we have been having about the church? It is not only relevant but it is critical. If the church were to focus on worship many things would fall into place. They would take their proper place in the church. Please hear me clearly. I am not talking about bands, music, lights, smoke etc. but true worship of God. First of all our focus would be a vertical, God focus rather than a horizontal human focus. We are intended to be the bride singularly focused on the bridegroom. Full stop. Our focus priority must be in place. When Paul instructs the church to be pure and spotless, we are far more likely to be be prepared when our focus is on God – in the right place. Secondly, as we keep our eyes on our Lord and Creator, our discipleship will grow exponentially because we are constantly getting to know Him and love Him more. But as unbelievers see our unrestrained devotion to Him, they will be attracted as well. More importantly though, the church will naturally talk all throughout the week about what God is doing in their lives. Evangelism will come from the overflow of the heart of God’s people. Imagine people as excited about God as they are about their favorite sports team, their favorite designer or their favorite ice cream. On top of that imagine hearing the life changes God is doing in His church. Why would people not be drawn to that?

Imagine employees going to their jobs and doing their work as an act of worship as if they were working for God. Imagine generous Christians giving in the name of Jesus as an act of worship to meet the needs around them. Imagine the sound of joyful Christians singing in worship in contrast to the songs of hopelessness from the world. Imagine artists and architects creating to the glory of God and medical professionals not only administering life giving medicine to patients but coming alongside them to the glory of God through the most difficult times in that person’s life. Then imagine all those worshipers gathering on Sunday morning in celebration of God’s glory but in utter humility recognizing the absolute supremacy of the God they serve. Against this, the gates of hell could not possibly prevail!

Worship brings God to the core of the church. God radiates in every direction when true worship is at the core of the church.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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The Radiant Bride

Paul says: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,  that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV.

We must ask ourselves how our church model compares with Paul’s description of the church.  Are we on the right track biblically or spiritually?  If we are honest, we have to acknowledge that our drive for “church growth” does not allow us much room to focus on the church being presented as spotless, holy and without blemish.  The model in the majority of the evangelical movement is to bring as many people in the door to hear the gospel as possible.  Because of that emphasis of bringing new people in all the time our message rarely deviates from talking about a felt need and then turning the corner to a gospel presentation.  That is really all we can do in that model.  In an expositional preaching model, there may be an opportunity to get there but it also may depend on which portion of scripture you are in at the time.  There are other potential roadblocks in the expositional model as well.  One of those is that often this type of preaching leans more toward informational than transformational content which does not accomplish this goal.

Many years ago I was part of a church that I found very unique.  I had just graduated college and moved to a community for a job where I knew no one.  I found this relatively small church that was simultaneously similar yet vastly different than any I had been a part of before.  As the service began there was a guy at a piano on the platform.  He was more of a worship facilitator than a leader because anyone could begin leading a song from the congregation and he would pick it up and run with it from there.  Similarly anyone in the congregation could lead in prayer, scripture or exhortation.  All was done in order and that portion of the service generally would last about 45 minutes.  There was no program, simply opportunity for expressed worship or exhortation.  At that point the pastor would come to preach.

I once heard John MacArthur say something along the lines of, “I don’t study to preach.  I study to know God and I preach out of the overflow.” This pastor I think followed that path.  I remember one morning he stood up to preach and told the congregation that he had a message prepared but given the direction of the worship time before, the Holy Spirit was leading him in a different direction and he told us to turn to Leviticus.  Who does an extemporaneous sermon from Leviticus?!  What was even more unique was that this church really functioned like a flock with a shepherd.  This pastor led his flock in a way I had never experienced before nor have I since. When a sermon was discussed, the church as a whole was tracking along.  Regardless who I talked to in the congregation, each person was taking away relatively the same message.  My experience has always been that in talking about a sermon, each person I ask usually has a different takeaway from a sermon.  This church body presented a different way to experience church growth.  It is growth in depth more than in breadth.  It was truly a flock that grew together. And this model allowed for the preparation of the bride to be pure and spotless, ready for her bridegroom.

If we define the church to be the believing body of Christ and we find our purpose not to be people centered but bridegroom centered, making much of Him, then we can more readily prepare, exhort and build up the body to be that radiant, spotless bride that Paul speaks of. But what does that radiant bride look like?  There are certainly some high level attributes we can ascribe to a radiant bride.  Holy would come to mind first.  This is a bride that is set apart for her bridegroom.  There is nothing competing for her attention because she is already spoken for and set apart for him.  Next, a bride values the things her bridegroom values.  So we must look at what Jesus valued. Jesus valued truth, He emphasized truth often and in fact He specifically said that the reason He came into the world was to testify to the truth so that is crucial for Him.  Likewise, the bride must be unwavering in truth or there is a serious disconnect in the relationship.  Jesus modeled loving people so the radiant church bride would love people.  Jesus valued time with His Father and He submitted to His Father’s will.  It only follows that the church bride would also value time with the Father and be submissive to Him.  Jesus was compassionate and patient.  A radiant bride would carry those attributes as well.  In fact Paul gave us a pretty good list when he discussed the fruit of the Spirit.

Now go with me for a minute here.  If the church was all these things, grounded firmly in truth, loving, compassionate, gentle, patient, kind etc. would God not be able to quickly, easily and effectively use that bride to draw people to Himself?  Would we have to work so hard at all the gimmicks we use to try to attract people?  Maybe, just maybe people would be attracted to the radiant bride of Christ as she reflects all of the attributes of a just, all-powerful, all-knowing, star-breathing, world-creating, life-changing, truth-telling God who loved us enough to send His Son to die for us.  I think that would be more effective than robotic lights, smoke machines and cleverly crafted videos.  What a difference there would be if the church truly desired to be a radiant bride for her bridegroom.  Make no mistake, the end goal is to be a radiant bride for our Lord and Savior, it is not to be a supermodel poster for the world to be attracted to.  But if we keep our focus clear and our actions pure, the result will be that the world will be attracted (and offended at the same time) to this radiant bride.  And more importantly, the world will be more attracted to HIM!  The key to the church getting here is worship.  We probably need to look at worship.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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Defining “Church”

Several years ago I asked a group of pastors to define “church.”  Honestly I don’t remember a lot of specifics from the conversation.  What I do remember though was being surprised that there was not a clear unanimous answer.  It seems pretty clear in scripture but it was not very clear in that conversation.  So as you read this, how would you define “church”?  You see, in order to get to solutions of how the church can be relevant or how the church can accomplish her mission, we have to have a basic understanding of what the church is.  We will never get to where we are going if we don’t even know who we are! We can’t possibly uncover our mission if we aren’t settled on our identity.

So there are many options.  Is the church:

  • A building, a place where people gather for a religious service?
  • An attractional event designed to draw those outside the church  into the church?
  • A gathering of people coming together to invite others to share their faith beliefs?
  • A hospital of sorts where people in spiritual and sometimes emotional or physical wreckage come to for healing?
  • A gathering of people coming together to express their faith, through music, preaching and prayer?
  • A refuge where people of faith come to be encouraged and built up after being worn down by the world around them?
  • A community of like-minded people who learn together and do life together?
  • A missional organization that reaches out to the community and the world doing good for others?
  • You fill in the blank _____________________________________________?

Even in these answers, there are varying degrees and depths to which we can explore.  For instance, being a community of like-minded people who learn together and do life together would have very different meanings for Unitarians than it would for Baptists than it would for Catholics than it would for Full Gospel congregations.  The examples could go on for quite some time. So how do you define the church?  Seriously, stop and give your definition before you go any further.  Then dig a little deeper and ask what your definition would mean to someone of another denomination or of another geographical location say in Africa or India or China or even North Korea?  What would your definition mean to someone of another race or cultural background? Does the meaning change or is your definition of church a universal constant?

In a way, I find myself personally caught between two very different church worlds.  I grew up in a highly conservative and traditional congregational church.  Even today the primary hymnbook of the church is made up of hymns from the 1700s and 1800s and the  morning worship service is sung acapella.  The churches do not have pastors, but rather they are led by the elders and the men of the church.  In stark contrast, for the past 25 years I have worked in mega churches where there is no hymnal, most of the music is less than 5 years  old and usually a 10 year old song would be considered out of date.  My son plays drums and guitar in the services with a modern rock band, moving lights, smoke machines and video images going on around him.

I’ve actually sent my kids to the church camp I grew up in just to mess with them.  Not really.  I’ve sent them there to experience a church culture that is very different from what they typically experience each Sunday but one that loves God just as much as the environment they are currently immersed in.  It is a good experience for my children but I’m pretty sure that if these two cultures came together, there would be some pretty significant disagreement, maybe not hard core judgement but some disagreement.  Are either less “Christian”?  I don’t think either of them would say that when you really get down to it, but they do church very differently.  Are either less “church”? Well, that may depend on how you define “church.”

Each of the definitions above could possibly be considered an element of the church however, our concept of the church would be lacking if we took one of those definitions to be our sole definition.  Actually even if we took all of those definitions as a composite definition, we would still not get it right because we need to go back to scripture and see what the church was, and what it was intended to be.

Admittedly there are some definitions in the Greek Lexicon and in our Bible Study tools that are not especially helpful.  One definition in Thayer’s Lexicon is, “any gathering or throng of men assembled by chance or tumultuously.”  However accurate that may be at some church business meetings, it is not particularly helpful nor is it representative of what is spoken of in the New Testament. We seem to get closer in this definition from Strong’s Concordance, “the whole body of Christian believers.” or even better from HELPS word studies, “people called out from the world and to God, . . . the universal (total) body of believers whom God calls out from the world and into His eternal kingdom.” And, “[The English word “church” comes from the Greek word kyriakos, “belonging to the Lord” (kyrios).”  Maybe more simply, the church can be called the “Bride of Christ.”  We can see this in Ephesians 5 and Paul’s comments in 2 Corinthians 11:2 as well as multiple references to Jesus as the bridegroom.

Throughout the New Testament we can see the church identified as a group of believers belonging to God.  It is clear that Paul sees each of the churches he writes to as a group of believers not as a group of random people.  The church or the analogous church is spoken of in terms of purity.  Paul speaks in terms of “splendor, without spot or wrinkle.”  Jesus speaks metaphorically using the imagery of a virgin. The church is seen as a holy, set apart group of Jesus’ followers whether referring to the global, timeless community of believers or the local current gathering.  There is no real ambiguity.  When the church grew, it grew with those who were being saved.  When Paul spoke to the church it was with the understanding that they were believers.

Recognizing the identity of the church is a critical step in our journey to Relevance 2.0 because if we are not absolutely solid on who and what we are, we will never be able to function effectively.  The church is to be the pure and spotless bride of Jesus (Ephesians 5:27).  It is made up of His followers who are not only ready for His return but they are also ready for living in Him, regardless of circumstance or trial, through His Spirit everyday on this earth regardless of when He returns.  This is the church of which Jesus spoke when He said that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

Here is the important part of that understanding though.  We can assent to that ecclesiological understanding academically but if we truly embrace the church as the holy, spotless body of Christ, it will change everything.  If we truly embrace the biblical model of the church, then the church can stand triumphantly, not for itself but triumphantly over the world and the gates of hell will not prevail against her.

We will take a look at this radiant bride a little later but next, let’s look at the purpose of the church.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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The Purpose of the Church

One of the main reasons the church is seen as irrelevant is because we have confused who we are with what we want to accomplish.  We have lost our true purpose as the bride of Christ. Ironically we often tell those in our congregations that faith is about who they are in Christ not what they try to accomplish for God yet our identities as a church are largely about what we do rather than who we are.  We really don’t know why we exist.  If we say we exist for some type of win or task, we are basing our identity on what we do rather than who we are.  In order to be relevant, we not only need to know who we are, we need to know why we are.  What if for the last several decades we have been looking in the wrong direction?

Many churches developed a list after Rick Warren talked about the Purpose Driven Church.  Often a church will develop 3 to 5 core values and a mission statement as to why their particular congregation exists and what their values are.  They may be along these lines:

  • To evangelize their community and / or the world
  • To create fellowship opportunities for believers or a community of believers
  • To disciple and strengthen believers
  • To worship God
  • To be a moral guidepost in the community
  • You fill in the blank _________________________________________

Churches will often include most of these values to some degree but most often a church falls into one of three models.  Think about it for your church.  If push came to shove, there is likely one model that would rise to the top.  Churches are either:

  • “Seeker” motivated – Evangelism driven
  • Discipleship driven  – Bible study focused or
  • Community driven – the church primarily is a fellowship mechanism.

This is why we exist.  We either exist to bring people in, to build them up and send them out in their faith or we exist to come together and do life/church together with familiar people who share our values. Do you recognize your church in one of these models? Most likely these models will look something like this:

Seeker Motivated – Evangelism driven: You will usually see a strong emphasis in making people feel welcome and comfortable in church.  Emphasis is placed on greeting people as soon as they hit the parking lot and making sure the service has something for everyone.  Though people may be challenged, we do not want to offend anyone.  There will generally be very contemporary music, a significant investment in sound, lights and video production, careful attention to the timing of the service and a topical message about a felt need of people.

Discipleship Driven: In this model you will often hear the pastor teach expositionally or exegetically (digging deeply into a passage of scripture often going verse by verse) through the Bible.  There is emphasis on learning the Bible and growing people up spiritually.  Often there will be a missions emphasis as well.  Growth is not only for growth sake but to lead others in to a relationship with Jesus. Less emphasis is placed on production technology and  guest services and timing of the service.  Not that these things are ignored but they are just not as high a priority.

Community Driven: This is generally a church that has been around for a while.  The pastor shepherds the current congregation and preaches for life as it is in the current group.  Most people know each other and they often do life together outside of church as well.  This is a very familial feel in the church.

Do you recognize your church in any of these models?  Likely you will see some of all of the models but one of these models will typically rise above the others in your experience in any church you walk into.  Another attribute you may recognize in any church is a consumer mentality.  People come to church for what they can get out of church and they will typically settle into a church model that they are most comfortable with. This further cements the church model because if the pastor deviates from the norm, he knows there will be pressure in some form or another to come back to the place where people are acclimated and comfortable.

Humor me for a minute.  What if we have this all wrong?  Seriously, what if none of these models is what the church was intended to be or at least not HOW it is intended to be.  Of course we are tasked with evangelism, of course we must disciple and of course we must be in community but what if we have completely switched the cause and effect of the church.  Each of the models above is quite different yet there is one thing in common in all of them.  In each model, the focus of the church is on people.  It is a horizontal focus or an others focus.  If we are the bride of Christ, that cannot be.  Our cause, our focus, our primary purpose must be for the groom, not for other people.  We will dig into this cause and effect inversion a little later but let’s put a pin it that for now.

I have lived in a couple sports towns.  These cities are insanely (I might even say pathologically) enthusiastic about their sports teams.  In one of these towns it was a regular occurrence to fill a stadium with nearly 93,000 people for a football game.  But that was only the culmination of the town completely transforming for the entire day.  In the other city, basketball arenas were consistently sold out and fierce rivalries were the normal way of daily life.  Yet I have never met an apologist for a sports team that has tried to recruit me to be a fan.  Their focus is on the team and they could not care less about my thoughts.  However, their enthusiasm is contagious.  They are evangelists for their team simply by their loyalty and their passion.  Their praise for their team says it all.  There is no need to explain to me the logical and practical benefits of being a fan of their particular club. Such an exercise would be frankly irrelevant.  Being a true fan is not about anyone around, its about the team.

These sports fans are exactly opposite of how we do church. They wear stupid clothes or paint their bodies, they speak condescendingly to those of us who do not share their passion, some of their announcers are excruciatingly irritating, they even sing songs at their events from decades ago that are irrelevant to today’s culture.  Parking is a huge problem, no one is at the gate to welcome you, they are all about money – ridiculous ticket prices, outrageous concession prices and they even charge you for a program that is self serving and has already been paid for by advertisers. In the end none of that matters because these fans’ first love is their team and they express it passionately, out loud and without apology.  The rest is just tangential. What is happening is actually worship.

Remember in Revelation 2 what Jesus says about the church at Ephesus?

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, . . .  I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

What if we as Christians worshiped Jesus as enthusiastically as sports fans “worship” their sports teams?  What if our focus, our passion, our loyalty was so keenly on Jesus that people were drawn to Him simply because they saw that we were 100% convinced that He is our everything and He is worthy of absolute devotion?  What if our praise to Jesus carried the passion and excitement of a game winning red zone drive with 20 seconds left or a 3 point buzzer beater? The truth is that when we focus on seekers, when we focus on disciple making or when we focus on community, we have already lost the game.  Athletic directors know that focusing on parking or concessions or even graphic design on the program is of very little value.  What is of supreme value is the team.  Lest there be any confusion, the team I am speaking of is not the church staff.  It has nothing to do with the church organization.  There are only 3 members of this team. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Unless our sole, passionate, relentless, undivided focus is on our triune God, we will miss what the church was designed to be.  When God is our cause, the effects will be more people coming to Him, more people growing in Him and people growing in community.  When we put any or all of those three effects as our cause, we will never achieve them effectively and we will miss an essential relationship with God in the process.  When we focus vertically on God and get to know Him deeply we are consumed by Him. As a result, we have more and more and more to share with those who do not know Him.  When we focus horizontally on people we encounter God less and have less to share with others.  The kingdom of God is paradoxical.  Jesus said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” Matt 16:25 NLT  The paradox is no less applicable to the church.  If we focus on people, we will lose them.  Want proof?  Just look at the Barna and Pew Research numbers from the past 50 years.

From another angle, imagine a new wife who loved her husband.  In fact she loved him so much that she wanted to tell everyone about him.  Whenever she was with her friends she talked about him and built him up.  Her social media was full of posts about her husband and how great he was.  In fact, this wife became obsessed with telling people about her husband.  She would travel and tell people about him.  She even wrote a book about him.  However, the result of all this praise and adulation was that she spent less and less time with the man she loved.  They even began having separate lives and they became distant.  What she knew about this man became shallow because she simply lost touch with him.  While she began showing her love and admiration for this man by telling as many people about him as she could, she eventually became just a shallow admirer rather than a true lover of this man.  Can you imagine a husband ever being honored by such actions?  Of course not! A husband enjoys the admiration of his wife and that is important to the relationship but what he really wants is the relationship with her.  He wants to be with her and do life together with her.

The church is the bride of Christ.  As ridiculous as the example above sounds, it is how we behave as the church.  How much more authentic would this young bride’s love be if she extravagantly loved this man through the normal course of life and focused her love on him.  All those around her would still see her love for him but they would see that love in a daily, authentic and passionate devotion in a constantly growing relationship.  That example is far more powerful than a hollow spoken tribute. What if we made so much of Jesus and we were so enthralled with Him that those around us were attracted to who Jesus is simply by our exuberance in Him? This is the bride of Christ.  This is who we as a church were intended to be.  If our true worship of God takes first place and center stage, the rest will fall into place.  If we get it backwards, the house will crumble on shifting sands.  Remember the church at Ephesus.  Again, Jesus said, “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, . . .  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Rev. 2:2-4 ESV.

But that leaves us with a problem.  We have to truly believe. We have to be 100% convinced and committed.  We have to be all in, not distracted by the things around us. We must be completely and unalterably transformed.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle

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Relevant?

I love the church.  The church is the one true hope on earth for a world that has lost all solid ground.  Even as I say that I know there are some who will enthusiastically agree ready to give me an “amen” and a high five! Others will shake their heads and mutter “the church is anything but that!”

Some say that the church is irrelevant.  From those who are not favorable to the church that is probably the best option.  Many say the church is just judgmental and hypocritical while others say we are a deluded bunch of weak minded people believing in fairy tales.  Some have only looked at the church from the outside but others were inside the church and were disillusioned and walked away.  These groups are a symptom that, despite all the efforts of the church to attract them, something in the church is wrong.  It’s not that we haven’t tried to be welcoming and accepting and it not that we haven’t succeeded at times but something is not right if this is the result.

As the church we should really lean in and take note.  What the church has to offer is invaluable.  The love and grace of God is far more valuable than anything that can be offered on this earth.  Yet people not only walk away uninterested, they can be aggressively antagonistic toward the church. Why?!  We can spiritualize an answer or we can say, “they just don’t understand.” But I think we need to look inside first.  How have we  messed this up so badly?  Seriously, how can we turn something so good to be looked at with such disregard and distain?

Much of the church’s focus over the past 50 years has been about relevance.  We have made strong strides to be more relevant. There are things that needed to change. It is safe to say that the efforts toward “relevant” church have impacted our style of worship, our methods of communicating, the technology and the media we utilize, programmatic elements like drama and dance in worship, speaking to people’s felt needs, what we wear to church even who we hire as church staff.  Essentially the relevant church movement has bridged that gap so that on the surface, what we experience in our daily lives during the week is very similar to what we experience on Sunday morning.  We have made church comfortable and culturally appropriate.  In that sense, the church has made great strides in de-compartmentalizing and making the church relevant to the average person’s daily cultural experience. But have you noticed that over the years as the church has progressed, studies have shown that the church is being seen as less and less relevant and antipathy to the church is growing higher and higher.  So seriously, why, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to be more relevant, are we falling further and further behind?

While we have made the church a more culturally relevant experience for people we have seen a rise in atheism, a drop in church attendance, a drop in people considering the church to be relevant to their lives, increasing expulsion of God in all areas of our society, an increasingly amoral culture, an increase of people identifying themselves as having no religious affiliation whatsoever and an increase of people simply leaving the church.  In fact the rising generation has not only very little use for the church (only 20% see it as important), they are much more antagonistic to the church (35% are anti-church)(Barna).  Beyond that we have seen our society redefine the institution of marriage against any biblical standard.  Our culture embraces legal killing of unborn children as a virtue.  History is being rewritten to exclude the Judeo-Christian influence of our nation’s founders. Our high level elected officials are now even seeking to disqualify candidates based on their Christian beliefs and expression.  All of this is happening on our watch while we are trying to be relevant.

There is a striking contrast.  Inside the church there is a feeling that the cultural gap has been bridged and the church is highly relevant to people’s lives.  We are pressing forward and doubling down with our initiatives.  Meanwhile on the outside of the church, culture is saying that there is not a time in recent history in which the church has been more irrelevant.  The church is happy that it is seemingly attracting people and the cry from outside is growing louder that our culture wants nothing to do with the church.

The problem is not that the church has not done a good job of becoming culturally relevant in its methods and presentation, it has.  Sure there are gaps but in large measure, the church has reached a meaningful presentational relevance especially in the mega-church world.  However, if the church believes it is inviting and relevant to the needs of the culture but the culture is saying the church is irrelevant and they want nothing to do with the church, well, there remains a problem and it is a huge problem.

Are there solutions?  Of course there are but they go deeper than a single blog post can contain.  However it is important to recognize a few very important things.

  • First, Jesus told us that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church so despite what some may believe, the church will not dissolve or crumble.  On the contrary, the church is the bride of Christ and she will never be extinguished.  She may be persecuted and pressed down but she will prevail.  That however does not guarantee that the church will prevail in our city, our culture or even our nation.  Jesus may choose for His bride to thrive elsewhere if we do not value her appropriately here.
  • Secondly, there is no greater force, no greater organization, no greater entity than the church in the world today.  The world needs the church now maybe more than ever.  It is time for the church to rise up and be the light and the hope this world so desperately needs. But more importantly it is time for the church to be what God intended her to be.
  • Thirdly, we can be grateful for the strides that the church has made in being culturally relevant.  There is a lot of good there.  However, it is time to move on to more important things.  The world is not that impressed with colored robotic lights, smoke and cool videos.  They need real answers.  They need something far bigger than they are.

What if for the last 40 years we have focused on the wrong thing?  Did some of those things need to change?  Of course they did.  But in focusing on the felt needs of people, in many cases we have lost the true urgency of the gospel and the vastness of an infinite God. In focusing on the style of music we have lost the meaning of true worship.  In creating a seeker driven environment we have literally redefined “church”.  And in focusing on being relevant to the world we have lost what matters most.

The church is both the beautiful bride of Jesus and His hands and feet to those around. The church has the opportunity to demonstrate God’s love to a world that is aimlessly searching for some sense of hope and meaning. More than the government, more than an economic system more than any other entity in this earth, the church has the opportunity to bring peace, to bring hope, to bring love and justice with truth.  The church has the single answer that will last for all eternity.

I think it is time to move on to Relevant church 2.0 but first we need to define what the church really is.

Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle