One In Jesus

After 9 posts on the same topic, it’s time to draw some conclusions. But this will all have to be taken as very preliminary. After all, Willow Creek hasn’t finished their study of 500 additional churches.

Nonetheless, while I wouldn’t presume to know all that’s wrong with how we do church, I think we can put our finger on some serious problems typical of American evangelicalism.

Of course, many writers have written many, many books on how to do church better. Here, in response to Willow Creek’s “Reveal” study, we’re focusing just on the problems that trouble the most mature of the church’s members.

(And none of this is pointed particularly at Willow Creek. Rather, I’m speaking very generally. I don’t know all that much about how they do church.) Continue reading →

Let’s start with what the Bible says about what the church is all about. I’ve already quoted Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 saying we’ll be judged by how we treat the poor and needy. The lesson is found in lots of other places. For our purposes, let’s just consider what Paul writes in Ephesians–

(Eph. 2:8-10) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2 speak of the work God did through Jesus to save us. The terms are powerful. God’s been planning for our salvation since before the foundations of the earth! And this is the climax: serve others!

Why did Jesus die for us? So we’d be saved? Yes–and more. So we’d “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” The cosmic plan–older than the earth itself–is for people to believe in Jesus, be saved, and do good works. Continue reading →

As I’ve been pondering the problem the Willow Creek Community Church is struggling with, as described in their Reveal study, I’ve begun reading Robert Lewis’s The Church of Irresistible Influence. I happened across this quote in this 2001 book–

We saw more clearly than ever before that our church members were unchallenged and stifled because they were cut off from the divine mandate of bridge building [to the community]. It was easy to understand why many evangelical Christians sound strange, while looking so much like everyone else. Trapped in the small and mirrored room of introspection, reduced to the size of his or her own appetite, the average Christian has precious little motivation for real, radical change. With the Great Chasm [between church and community] uncrossed, the focus inevitably shifts from the transformed and compelling life–the necessity of becoming salt and light in a needy and searching world–to a much more superficial desire to “look Christian” to other Christians.

(p. 30) Wow! I wish I could write like that!

So, there it is. The reason so many evangelical Christian feel unfulfilled is that the church has focused on everything but being salt and light to the world. It does make sense. Continue reading →