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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. \u00a0We have lost our true purpose. 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. \u00a0We really honestly don’t know why we exist. \u00a0In order to be relevant, we not only need to know who we are, we need to know why we are. \u00a0What if for the last several decades we have been looking in the wrong direction?<\/p>\n
Many churches developed a list after Rick Warren talked about the Purpose Driven Church. \u00a0Often 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. \u00a0They may be along these lines:<\/p>\n
Churches will often include most of these values to some degree but most often a church falls into one of three models. \u00a0Think about it for your church. \u00a0If push came to shove, there is likely one model that would rise to the top. \u00a0Churches are either:<\/p>\n
This is why we exist. \u00a0We 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:<\/p>\n
Seeker Motivated – Evangelism driven:\u00a0<\/strong>You will usually see a strong emphasis in making people feel welcome and comfortable in church. \u00a0Emphasis is placed on greeting people as soon as they hit the parking lot and making sure that the service has something for everyone. \u00a0Though people may be challenged, we do not want to offend anyone. \u00a0There 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. \u00a0This church will also usually be very program driven in an attempt to draw people in from the community.<\/p>\n Discipleship Driven:\u00a0<\/strong>In this model you will often hear the pastor teach expositionally or exegetically through the Bible. \u00a0There is emphasis on learning the Bible and growing people up spiritually. \u00a0Often there will be a missions emphasis as well. \u00a0Growth is not only for growth sake but to lead others in to a relationship with Jesus. Less emphasis is placed on production technology and \u00a0guest services and timing of the service. \u00a0These things are ignored but they are just not as high a priority.<\/p>\n Community Driven:\u00a0<\/strong>This is generally a church that has been around for a while. \u00a0The pastor shepherds the current congregation and preaches for life as it is in the current group. \u00a0Most people know each other and they often do life together outside of church as well. \u00a0This is a very familial feel in the church.<\/p>\n Do your recognize your church in any of these models? \u00a0Likely 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. \u00a0Another attribute you may recognize in any church is a consumer mentality. \u00a0People 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.<\/p>\n But what if we have this all wrong? \u00a0Seriously, what if none of these models is what the church was intended to be or at least not HOW it is intended to be. \u00a0Of 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. \u00a0Each of the models above is quite different yet there is one thing in common in all of them. \u00a0In each model, the focus of the church is on people. \u00a0It is a horizontal focus.<\/p>\n I have lived in a couple sports towns. \u00a0These cities are insanely (I might even say pathologically) enthusiastic about their sports teams. \u00a0In one of these towns it was a regular occurrence to fill a stadium with nearly 93,000 people for a football game. \u00a0But that was only the culmination of the town completely transforming for the entire day. \u00a0In the other city, basketball arenas were consistently sold out and fierce rivalries were the normal way of daily life. \u00a0Yet I have never met an apologist for a sports team that has tried to recruit me to be a fan. \u00a0Their focus is on the team and they could not care less about my thoughts. \u00a0However, their enthusiasm is contagious. \u00a0They are evangelists for their team simply by their loyalty and their passion. \u00a0They live their passion. Their praise for their team says it all. \u00a0There 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 me or anyone else, its about the team.<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0Parking 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. \u00a0The rest is just tangential. What is happening is team worship.<\/p>\n Remember in Revelation 2 what Jesus says about the church at Ephesus?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, . . .<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up\u00a0for my name’s sake, and you\u00a0have not grown weary.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>But I have this against you, that you have abandoned\u00a0the love you had at first<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent,<\/strong> and do\u00a0the works you did at first. If not,\u00a0I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n What if we as Christians worshiped Jesus as enthusiastically as sports fans “worship” their sports teams? \u00a0What 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? \u00a0What if our praise to Jesus carried the passion and excitement of a red zone drive with 20 seconds left in the game 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. \u00a0Athletic directors know that focusing on parking or concessions or even graphic design on the program is not of primary importance. \u00a0What is of supreme value is the team. \u00a0Lest there be any confusion, the team I am speaking of is not the church staff. \u00a0There are only 3 members of this team. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n Unless our sole focus is on our God, we will miss what the church was designed to be. \u00a0And I don’t mean that we mention Him in our songs or tie Him into our sermons of how to be a good parent or how to live financially responsible. \u00a0I mean that He is the bright, shiny object in the room and everything else is just a passing thought.<\/p>\n You see, so often we have made our cause an attractional service that will draw people in. \u00a0We’ve made our cause to be a sermon series that will help marriages thrive or will help people cope with stress in their daily lives. \u00a0Our intentions are good, that the effect will be that people see God and they are drawn to Him. \u00a0Unfortunately that does not work. \u00a0What we end up with is a deeply entrenched consumer mentality in where if someone’s felt needs are not reached they simply go somewhere else. \u00a0However, if our cause was Jesus and He was the sole focus of our gathering time, well the effect would then be improved marriages, people with proper priorities and healthy, sacrificial families all around. \u00a0When we get our get our cause and effects in proper alignment, it is no longer we who are working on hearts, it is the Holy Spirit in the environment of holy focus on God.<\/p>\n When God is our cause, the effects will be more people coming to Him, more people growing in Him and people growing in community. \u00a0When 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. \u00a0When 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. \u00a0When we focus horizontally on people we encounter God less and have less to share with others.<\/p>\n From another angle, imagine a new wife who loved her husband. \u00a0In fact she loved him so much that she wanted to tell everyone about him. \u00a0Whenever she was with her friends she talked about him and built him up. \u00a0Her social media was full of posts about her husband and how great he was. \u00a0In fact, this wife became obsessed with telling people about her husband. \u00a0She would travel and tell people about him. \u00a0She even wrote a book about him. \u00a0However, the result of all this praise and adulation was that she spent less and less time with the man she loved. \u00a0They even began having separate lives and they became distant. \u00a0What she knew about this man became shallow because she simply lost touch with him. \u00a0While 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. \u00a0Can you imagine a husband ever being honored by such actions? \u00a0Of 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. \u00a0He wants to be with her and do life together with her.<\/p>\n The church is the bride of Christ. \u00a0As ridiculous as the example above sounds, it is how we behave as the church. \u00a0How 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. \u00a0All 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. \u00a0That example is far more powerful than a hollow spoken tribute.\u00a0What 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. \u00a0This is who we as a church were intended to be. \u00a0If our true worship of God takes first place and center stage, the rest will fall into place. \u00a0If we get it backwards, the house will crumble on shifting sands.<\/p>\n But that leaves us with a problem. \u00a0We have to truly believe. We have to be 100% convinced and committed. \u00a0We have to be all in, not distracted by the things around us. We must be completely and unalterably transformed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (This is the second in a series of thoughts on 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. \u00a0We have lost our true purpose. Ironically we often tell those in our congregations that faith is … <\/p>\n