The church...as defined in this discussion as the place we gather each weekend...has limits that have been ignored for many years. For this reason the Church...defined as the Body of Christ...has struggled to be as effective as it could be in our Western culture.
So here, in my opinion, is what church should be limited to so that the Church can be more effective. Weekend services should be gatherings of believers focused on a very narrow set of goals:
- Praising God
- Confessing sin
- Discussing God's Word
- Encouraging believers to take on the rigorous challenge of being Christ to the world
- Celebrating what God has done in the ways He has given us
In short, the gathering of believers is a family affair that will always seem odd and off putting to strangers.
What has happened is that we have disregarded the limits of these gatherings and added so many other agendas so as to make the whole thing practically worthless to anyone. Here's what we've added and the problems that come with them...
- Teaching (appropriate teaching includes conversation, questions, and lively interaction)
- Outreach (requires sensitivity, discussion, relationship and eliminating 'insider' language)
- Discipleship (requires mentoring, correction, challenge and practice)
- Mission (reflected in the laudable but flawed 'Church has left the building' activities some have undertaken on Sunday mornings)
I'm sure there are other things we've tried to cram in on Sunday morning that could be added to this list. In so doing we have accidentally created an expectation that all of our Christian living can be captured in a couple of hours a week inside a building. We try to reach seekers, teach believers, exercise discipline, worship God, study the Word, accomplish mission, challenge life long Christians and nurture the newly faithful all in the same sixty to ninety minutes.
Is there any other endeavor you're aware of that attempts to be all things to all people simultaneously and does it successfully? Me either! Yet the church keeps making a valiant attempt each week to do just that. All the while ignoring the massive evidence that they're failing miserably. Non-believers aren't showing up, believers aren't being challenged, everyone is frustrated and a crippling malaise has settled over the entire enterprise.
So why don't we start understanding the limits of Sunday morning. Let's make a clear statement that on Sunday the family gathers for family business. We use a common language non-family members won't understand. We follow a format that makes sense to us (and that can vary based on which branch of the family to which you happen to belong). We don't necessarily shun seekers or unbelievers but we don't make accommodations for them, either.
Then let's get serious about setting unwavering expectations that those who do believe will submit to being equipped for ministry and take seriously God's call on their lives to be the hands and feet of Jesus every day in every place they go. By cramming everything into Sunday morning we have let those who claim to be Christian off the hook for actually living that out. Our life in Christ cannot be contained.
Having attempted to do so we have crippled the Body of Christ. Pretending that worship, evangelism, teaching, discipleship, and the whole of Christian living can be packaged into a well orchestrated few minutes on a weekly basis has rendered the church irrelevant to our society.
What would it look like if we restored worship to its rightful place in the overall scope of faithful living? What if we very publicly apologized for trying to cram everything into Sunday morning and started expecting believers to be fully engaged in worship/service/outreach/relationships every day, all the time? And then got about rethinking how we do everything so as to make it possible for people to be engaged at that level.
It seems this conversation could go on for many more posts...but I'm curious to hear what you think about what I've just shared here.
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