Hi! So today was the VLI intensive on church growth. Basically, my fellow students and I got together and watched 6 hours of lecture together all in one sitting. It certainly was an interesting intensive that had a lot of good points on the cultural stumbling blocks the church is against today and what today's average, non-Jesusy person thinks about the church. I have to say though that I felt a quite beaten down by the end of it all. Much of the 6 hours were quite honestly spent on where the church has gone wrong in the modern age with specific statistics of the "decline" and wavering influence of church institutions. American culture today is experiencing a "rapid" loss of moral standards, church attendance, and christian influence. Yay...
Well, you know what? I'M NOT THAT WORRIED!
We do not serve a God who is dead or uninterested. We do not serve a God who is scared of empty church buildings or changing political opinions. And we are not sleazy salespeople who are peddling a cheap religion on the road side.
WE SERVE A LIVING GOD! We serve the God of love who is the creator and above all things. When we share the gospel, we are sharing the truth that is good news for EVERYBODY. Everyone needs Jesus, whether they are aware or not, and therefore the good news of Jesus can never be lost or die because of a culture change.
So what if people are changing their attitudes toward organized religion, Jesus said to love each other and the world, the rest is just details. I look at American culture today and I see a place that is more open to spirituality and faith than ever. People want to be connected with more than themselves. They don't see that love and connectedness coming from the "Christians" on TV and at political protests, so they turn to Oprah, new age philosophy, and others to try and fill that need. I think some Jesus-followers see that and give up hope that they could make a difference because it's hard to fight something bad when it's coming from your side of the battle. Well, so what?!
Jesus actually saved and connected a lot of people without the use of TV, when the whole culture seemed against him. He did this by loving people and curing their illnesses.
It's easy to see what we're up against and feel like giving up, to focus on the bad things and just talk about them all day long without ever coming up with solutions or actions. But those kinds of thoughts and feelings come from a place of fear, and Jesus came to cast out all fear.
The hardest part for me about this intensive on church growth was that after the presentation of all the problems, there was very little said in the way of solutions. I don't have the answers either, but it seems to me that being relevant and real (because Jesus is relevant and real) is the only way to save the church in America.
For too long, the religion of Christianity has sat high above the lives and problems of the people they were meant to serve. Surprise, surprise, that attitude is finally coming back to bit the church in the ass. Well, good. Because no one needs a high and lofty religion anyway, and Jesus has a lot more to offer than that. Sometimes things go downhill, because they need to in order for the people to wake up and get real. God is much bigger than any problem, and because of that, I'm not worried. Jesus is good news for everyone, even today.
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