Uncategorized – Tim Lehmann

November 1, 2024November 1, 2024

Why Every Christian Needs to Vote in this Election

Every election season we hear, “this is the most important election of our lifetime.” That may or may not be true. I happen to think it is this time around but let’s put that on the table for now. There are practical and patriotic reasons every Christian needs to vote but let’s put those on the table right now as well. Let’s first look at the most important reason.

We are standing at a crossroads. We are standing at an election that could not be more clear. Yes, we are facing two candidates, people who are deeply flawed individuals but the individuals are all but irrelevant. Their individual flaws essentially cancel each other out so what are the issues of this election. In many cases they are crystal clear and diametrically opposed. Slavery could have been stopped at the Declaration of Independence except for 2 colonies opposed. Death and suffering in Germany in the 1930’s could have been stopped if Christians stood and chose wisely.

The question to be asked is what will you stand for? What issues will you simply stand by and allow to happen? What will you have to give an account for in eternity? We have the easiest opportunity to stand for God’s truth we could possibly have. What could be easier than voting? And what could have more consequential significance. When you stand before God and give an account, will you be able to say you stood for His Truth and His virtues, you stood against Him or you just stood by and didn’t even cast a vote. The issues are plain.

One side stands for the killing of unborn children, the other side stands for life.

One side stands for gender confusion, chemical and surgical mutilation even of children, the other side knows God created them male and female.

One side stands for stealing with no penalty, releasing criminals with no bail and bailing out criminals to walk the streets. The other side stands for upholding the law and for an orderly society.

One side opens the borders to hundreds of thousands of criminals and millions of people we don’t know. Drug and human trafficking are at unfathomable numbers. The other side says immigration must be legal, controlled and for those benefiting the country.

One side advocates taking from one group of people to give to another. The other side advocates for personal responsibility.

One side believes religious freedom is limited to what government believes is acceptable. The other side believes your right is given by God, not defined by government.

One side accuses the other of wanting to imprison political opponents while they are actually pursuing and implementing that very thing.

The list could go much longer. And unfortunately there has been a lot of gaslighting, lies and misinformation but the choice really is very clear if you simply look at the choices in front of you.

The other choice you face beside what is right and what is wrong is what will you do? What will you decide to do with your responsibility as a Christian? How will you give an account to God at this juncture in history? What will you decide to do with your responsibility as a citizen? What will you decide to do with your responsibility as a parent, aunt, uncle or grandparent? What will you decide to do as an individual for your own peace and your legacy? It has never been more consequential regardless of where you live or what you think the vote will be. What will you stand for?

Want more? Listen to Pastor Josh McPherson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErFNeHWJqUQ

May 24, 2023July 30, 2024

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

June 8, 2017July 30, 2024

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