No Longer a Church Centric World
When I was a child, businesses shut down on Wednesday evening because everyone was at Church and if you happened to drive into town on Sunday, it was a ghost town. Now, Wednesdays are just as busy as any other day of the week and Sunday is hardly thought of as a day of worship. Speak to many young couples and they will tell you that Sunday is the only day that they have to be with family. Children’s sports events are often scheduled on Sunday mornings and even families that belong to a church decide on Sunday morning whether or not they will go to worship as part of their day together. Before we suck on our teeth, shake our heads, or make some disparaging comment about this “new normal”, let’s consider that this may not be “their fault.”
The world didn’t just wake up one morning and decide it would no longer be Christocentric. This happened over your lifetime and it happened in your church and it happened in your family. Little by little, week after week, year after year, small changes in our lifestyle and in our culture occurred…but what changed? I am afraid that the Church has been assuming the wrong answer. We tend to look outward for blame; especially when facing something that scares us.
“It is the younger generation’s fault.”
“People don’t have the same moral integrity that we have.”
“They took religion out of the schools.”
And the most dangerous of all…” My pastor hasn’t done enough to reach young people.”
Could it be that we are the reason why this is no longer a Church centered world? Keep this question in mind over the week ahead.
Could it be that the Church has had incremental changes over the last generation?
Could it be that the neighborhood has changed around us, but we remained the same?
Could it be that the culture has changed around us, and we didn’t change to meet it?
Could it be that we have been too comfortable for too long?
Could it be that we ceased to exist for the world and have focused primarily on ourselves?
These are tough questions, prickly questions, but they are questions that we must ask, because the power of the Gospel to be Good News for the world…this has not changed. Jesus as a real presence in the world….this has not changed. The desire to know Jesus and to be transformed by a life of faith….I propose that this has not changed.
Perhaps the world came and sat in our pews for a while. Perhaps the world looked to us in their time of need. Perhaps the world cared about the social changes that we ignored. Perhaps the world is deeply passionate about grace and hope and love, but we never asked it to share such passion. Perhaps the world cares about more than Sunday attendance and giving to a church budget. The people who are not in our pews want the world to be a better place. They seek hope and justice and peace. They seek to have God in their lives. They seek a faith that moves about in the community during the week. They are not satisfied with a faith that consists of Sunday morning gatherings and nothing more. They seek the Jesus who left the synagogues to engage those whom religious institutions abandoned. In short, the world is searching deeply for Jesus and there is a desire to have Jesus at the center of their world. They are knocking on the door of the Church waiting for the bridegroom to appear. Have we been singing to loudly to hear them.
So, if you agree that the Gospel is just as relevant today as ever…
if you agree that Jesus is in the world working to turn hearts towards his love…
if you agree that people still seek to know God and to have him in their lives…
if you agree that the Church has a voice, a place in this world and a place in God’s plan for it…
then how does this change your vision and mission and ministry as a community of faith? That in short is the focus of out time together in the week ahead. May God bless you as you wade through the challenge of being the Church in the 21st century.
Reflection by Pastor Philip Bouknight
Questions for Reflection:
- Identify one change in society you have experience across your lifetime.
- Name one practice or activity in the life of your congregation that would be hard for someone new to understand.
- What is one change you have experienced in the church in the last year?
- How do you see God active in the community in this time?