Tag Archives: church

Them and us

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us-themI’ve had us and them on my mind lately. Trying to figure out a bit who is “us” and who is “them.”

There’s a line between who is my family and who isn’t, although I find that line can really blur at times. (I have relatives I’ve never seen, for example)

There’s a line between who is a Christian and who isn’t. Even those lines get blurry at times.

I guess things like disasters make me think about this, why a disaster in West, Texas, seems to impact us so much more than a tragedy in Mexico, for example. Or why the Boston bombings touch us in a way that Baghdad bombings don’t.

Days like Memorial Day do that, too. We remember those who have been killed as American servicemen. What about civilians killed in war? They’re usually foreigners, but sometimes they’re Americans as well. What about soldiers from other countries? Do we just suppose that their countries will honor them?

All of this gets tricky when you start including the church. Off the top of my head, I can think of people in my home church who are from Germany, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, China, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and Costa Rica. I know there are more countries represented; those are just the ones that come to mind. As the church talks about “our soldiers,” how are they supposed to respond? How do they fit into the “us” and “them”? Which takes precedence when we are at church, the “us” as Christians or the “them” as natives of other countries?

No solutions offered here today. Just questions. Maybe “they” can tell me how I should think of “us.”

Didn’t we say that the building wasn’t the church?

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cathedralSome final thoughts (for now) about buildings and the future of the church. In churches of Christ, we have traditionally fought about the identification of a building as “the church.” In my experience, we don’t emphasize that in our language as we once did, but we have tried to hold onto the concept.

That being said, it’s hard for a church to separate its identity from a physical location. Some of it has to do with memories and tradition, a bit like a house that’s belonged to your family for years. That house is not your family, but you have a lot of emotions invested in that house, lots of memories of who was born there, who died there, all the things that happened there.

The same happens with a church building, but on a larger scale. More memorable things happen in any given church building. You have multiple families with memories of weddings and funerals, baptisms and special days. It’s hard to separate that physical location from the identity of the church.

Older generations feel it even more. Besides the special memories, there’s the investment of money and effort that has gone into a building. There’s a since of pride and accomplishment in what the building represents, and there’s a deep sense of hurt when younger generations don’t share the feeling.

Of course, it’s not just the building that evokes that feeling. As younger generations reject doctrinal stances, question the structure of the church, and seek to develop their own liturgy, previous generations feel that they themselves are being judged along with everything else.

Randy Mayeux once pointed out that generational struggles come from the fact that one generation has built something, while the next generation wants to build their own projects. It takes great sensitivity on both sides to keep from exacerbating those differences. It takes a real focus on the Kingdom and the good of the Kingdom, getting beyond personal feelings and pride.

 

photo from MorgueFile.com

Why do we worry about buildings?

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cathedralOK, so I’m talking about church buildings becoming less prominent in the future as Christians move to smaller gatherings. Then Ed Stetzer publishes research showing that megachurches continue to grow in number. The annoying thing about Ed is that he doesn’t just make assertions; he has statistics to back it up.

Even so, I think we need to remember something very important: most human organizations lose their original purpose. Some quickly, some not so quickly, but most change their initial goals for one common to such groups: survival. It’s easy for our focus to be on continuing existence of our group. That’s especially true for a congregation.

We need to be careful that we want to reach younger generations so that they will come to a saving relationship with God. It’s not about keeping our lights turned on. It’s not about having a place for us to meet when we get old. We want to reach out (be it to young people, Hispanics, or bank presidents) so that people will hear the good news of salvation.

If we’re not careful, the fact that “this congregation has been here for over 70 years” takes precedence over the question of whether the congregation is serving the Kingdom or not. If the congregation’s focus becomes survival, maybe it’s time to let others take its place.

So why do we have a building? There can be a number of reasons: having a place where a large number of us can worship together, having a place for outreach effort, having space for educational activities for our kids, having a unifying location. But our continuing as a congregation and maintaining a common piece of property have to be secondary to the good of the Kingdom. We need to seek his Kingdom and righteousness. When that’s our goal, the rest will be worked out, be it in a large building or in scattered house churches.

 

photo from MorgueFile.com

No Edifice Complex Here

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cathedralWhy do I think that younger generations won’t continue the tradition of large church buildings? I have several generalizations to offer that lead me to that opinion. (Remember that generalizations are nothing more than that. I have a dog that climbs trees and sometimes purrs when she’s happy. She’s still a dog, just doesn’t always act like one)

  • Younger generations don’t like to give money to abstractions. What I mean is, they are generous, at times (though some studies suggest that each successive generation is less generous). But they want to give their money to specific things. Build a house. Dig a well. Buy some medicine. And they want to choose exactly how their money is used. Dropping it into a collection plate so that the electric bill can be paid doesn’t motivate them.
  • Younger generations don’t tend to be joiners. At least not of traditional organizations. They don’t want to be a member of an association; they want to be part of a posse. A posse forms, does its thing and disbands. No long time obligations. No hierarchy. Join, function, leave.
  • Younger generations don’t trust the recent past. What they see around them is evidence of failure: economic disparities, hunger, sickness, war. They respect the ancient past, but not what modernism has done with it. As the saying goes, they want Jesus, but not the church.
  • Younger generations tend to be pragmatic. A big building is wasteful. It’s much more practical to use the homes that we already own, or to use coffee shops, restaurants and bars, rather than construct a monument to inefficiency.

Those are some of the things that I see. Help me expand the list, or point out to me where I missed the boat. What attitudes do you see among people under 40 that will affect the future of the church building as we know it?

 

photo from MorgueFile.com

Not as you envisioned it

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unityChurch is never going to be exactly the way you envision it. And that’s a good thing.

In the midst of this discussion of churches making an effort to include more Latinos in their congregation, I thought about that hard fact. Church is never going to be precisely how you want it to be.

Frankly, church is messy. It’s made up of flawed humans who are struggling with spiritual desires and human desires. Someone rightly said that if you get two adult Christians together, they aren’t going to agree on every point of doctrine. And they aren’t going to agree on how to “do church,” be it doctrinal points or not.

Not long ago, I read an article where someone mentioned that, in ministry, their goal was to have everyone happy about 80% of the time. Seems like a good rule of thumb, especially if you’re willing to include yourself. 20% of the time, things won’t be done the way you think they should be.

But the fact is, if everything were done the way you think it should be done, it still wouldn’t be as you envisioned. Because you are one of those flawed people struggling with human and spiritual desires. Your vision for the church isn’t perfect.

So recognize that your congregation will take on its own form. Allow the Holy Spirit to do the shaping. You can dream and plan, but be willing to change those dreams and plans to mold them to the reality that comes.

Church is never going to be exactly the way you envision it. If you let it, it’s going to be much, much better.

photo source: MorgueFile.com