The Elephant in the Church
From Dallas Willard:
“Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church. It is not the much discussed moral failures, financial abuses, or the amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only effects of the underlying problem. The fundamental negative reality among Christian believers now is their failure to be constantly learning how to live their lives in The Kingdom Among Us. And it is an accepted reality. The division of Christians into those from whom it is a matter of whole-life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer, or client, relationship to the church has now been an accepted reality for over fifteen hundred years.”
And then this:
“Consumer Christianity is now normative. The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens. Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it.”
(From The Divine Conspiracy, pp. 301, 342)
Couldn’t agree more. We have been so busy trying to “restore” the church, we forgot to simply be disciples.
“The Divine Conspiracy” is a book I need to read every few months. Thanks for the reminder!
DU
So true–and so hard to break through the consumerism mindset–I think this is what most turns off our children–unfortunately, many times they either leave in disgust or conform to consumerism. They know something is not right. What is the most effective way or first step to breaking out of the Christian consumer mindset?
I Need to read it every few months too….but it takes me a few months to read it….So Rich, but so deep.
Thanks for the reminder of all that it was about.
this is a hard teaching, i wonder if many will leave? I’m in Fredericksburg TX living it up, i’m so glad this teaching does not apply to me.
Great quotes – thank you!
I often wonder how many church leaders are really against consumerism versus those who are just upset when the loyalty isn’t to their “brand”.
It seems that wherever I turn, I am running over–tripping over, really–Dallas Willard.
I completed Divine Conspiracy not long ago. The book of the common sense. The book that made so much sense to me that I was kicking myself for not being able to express what Willard had to say sooner. A book from a modern that is completely post-modern in thinking. Bravo!
Willard put me on a path lurching toward a “there’s gotta’ be something more” that I have been looking for. That something more is Jesus and true discipleship, apprenticeship, to Him.
khill – I think that’s a terrific insight. That’s a gut-check for every church leader!
He would be the first to deny it, but Willard’s time in the sun, which began in earnest only a couple of short years ago despite his long and faithful toil in these matters, is little short of miraculous. Somehow – one supposes it is a result of his long walk in the same direction, to coin Peterson’s (Nietszche’s) phrase – he is able to wield a devastatingly sharp diagnosis of the modern church while maintaining an exemplary, pastoral sincerity, humility, optimism and good cheer. I have to wonder if God has specifically ordained that His good news should be brought to this age afresh through Willard’s prophetic voice.
qb
So, how does the paradigm shift? I was having a conversation just the other day with my wife and dad about this very idea. How can we create motivation in our members? Rather, I think the question should be, how do we soften our hearts enough to let God’s motivation transform what we do day in and day out? Mabye I’m off my rocker, but I don’t think Christ lived a life of consumption. So, how do we challenge the body of Christ not to simply come warm a seat on sunday mornings? Christ calls us to more than that, to a higher place. So, how do we get there?
Mike -
These cutting, insightful paragraphs this morning remind me very much of something our dear brother, minister and Katrina victim, John Dobbs said yesterday in his daily post “Caution: God at Work” to his blog “Out Here Hope Remains”.
John has been ministering and toiling endlessly these past 8 months over in Pascagoula, Mississippi after the church building and his home both had over 5 feet of water in them and I encourage each and every one of you to not only start reading John’s blog every day, but to read back through it until the time of the hurricane last August forward. You will be, as I have been and all of his regular readers, astounded, amazing, inspired and transformed by the work this small group has done and is still doing in God’s service. Hundreds of the poorest, most destitute, homeless, Godless people have been reached, served bountifully and brought to Jesus.
Hundreds more volunteers from all across the nation have come down to help, many of them coming many times over because their hearts have been so touched.
John calls this work God’s “revolution” and it truly is.
Yet – in the midst of this mighty work that is so exciting, stimulating, uplifting, heartwarming, engaging – a work it would seem impossible to reject or not be part of – here is the briefly (or maybe I should say “chiefly”) sad news John included yesterday in his daily report:
“[Blank] and I talked tonight about the families that are being affected positively through service here in the community. [But] it is also true that there are a number of our members who choose not to be involved in the outreach. It really is hard to believe, when we have been given so much. I would like to report that our church has experienced a revival and all of the members are just on fire for God! However, it is still those faithful few that we have always counted on who are making things happen. I’m so thankful for these servant hearts. They are heroes who deserve to be honored and recognized, but they never search for that kind of acknowledgment.”
What can be said for these people? These “nominal,” “occasional,” “consumer oriented” children (?) of God? What hope is there for such I wonder?
I don’t know. Maybe I am too critical and too unrealistic about how people can and should be. And I don’t mean that in any way in a judgmental way. I am most aware of my own sometimes miserable failings and do not claim to know or always understand the deep hearts of others. Only God does.
But there is so much work to be done, at least down here in Katrina Zone. The field is overly ripe unto harvest, the workers are too few. John Dobbs says that there are literally 100s of contacts and Bible studies needing to be followed up on but not enough Christians or visiting ministers and elders to go out to work with these lost lambs.
May God help us to see our inward hearts for what they truly and and to change in the face of this desperate falling world where so many are, at least around here, actively seeking and begging for help in a Godly way. May God help us.
To Logan…I believe our present church setting is much to blame for this. The average person in the pew is not exposed to the gory effects of sin. We generally do not see the symptoms of sin firsthand, but only read about it in the papers or see it on TV. As a result, a world without Christ is an impersonal world with only faces, but no names, personalities, etc. and a “we/them” mentality takes over. Church leaders (elders, preachers, etc.) do their members no good to allow this isolation to continue. I so wish church leaders would begin leading their members out into the world, to neighborhoods where the effects of lostness can not be missed, encounters with hungry, poor and totally disenfranchised people. Have you ever heard an elder encourage the church to take up residence in an impoverished area? Have you known of a preacher who deliberately moved into a depressed area away from the church building? There are too many things blocking our view of the way things really are. Seems to me that consumerism is an attemp to cover up the reality of life. Unfortunately, “discipleship” for many (most?) in the church means having to get up on Sunday mornings to go to church or attending Sun/Wed PM or digging a little deeper when it comes time to add on to the building, or occasionally taking time to work at a soup kitchen or maybe even taking that 3, 5 or 7 day trip down to Belize for mission work…all good things, but not exactly discipleship. IMHO the church has created generations of weak, lazy, short-sighted members (me included) saved by the generous grace of the Father but with little intention of doing much more than what we’ve always done and called discipleship. Perhaps a persecution or travisty will take place to drive us out of our church buildings. I just don’t see how we can “be constantly learning how to live (our) lives in The Kingdom” from the barracades of santuaries we call churches.
Mike,
Please, make this into a 7-part series. The Bible is great and all, but unless it draws us more deeply into the way of Christ, what good is it?
Lee Camp is my hero.
It really means getting back to the missional conversation doesn’t it. About being church outside the walls. For a group or individual to do such and invite others to join will mean people not being consumers. Maybe they will learn to walk in the way, to make it a whole life thing.
And maybe the “church” will be made up of some unsuspecting folks who care about helping but don’t care about talking about it.
Excellent, Mike. Thanks …
And thanks to Dee – my dear sister whom i have only met electronically – we’re only 2 hours away, got to fix that. Anyway, thank you Dee … your works encourage my spirit and knowing what you have been through and are still going through makes that encouragement so much richer.
Consumer Christianity. Could it be that is the basis of 99% of all church problems?
You’re right, TCS.
Our congregation recently concluded a 13-week series/study on the missional church, using “Treasure In Clay Jars” as resource material. We were blessed to have David Wray come in and launch our study as a resource speaker.
One thing we determined, the missional church is NOT a 13-week topic. It’s not something you study, say, “That was inspiring”, then move on to the next topic. It shapes everything you do from then on.
I really like the idea of the church outside the walls. It seems to me soooo… Biblical. I appreciate the call against consumerism but are we actually helping to promote that within our worship with our praise team, theatrics, power point flashiness where most people are free to sit back and observe even more?
About seven months ago my wife Kaelea and I started talking about discipleship; discussing the question: in light of good news, what does it mean for us to be serious students, ministry apprentices, and passionate followers of Jesus? A few months later we had some sabbatical time in Africa with missionaries Jeff and Cheryl Cash. That’s when Kaelea was reading Mother Theresa’s A Simple Path and I read The Divine Conspiracy, and that added some big sharp teeth to the developing answer of our discipleship question.
In the subsequent months we have made some notable (for us at least) life changes in order to free ourselves to embrace God more passionately; we feel we have been given a glimpse of what abundant life in the kingdom looks like and we are inspired.
I don’t think the “Organization Church” will ever negotiate a culture-change away from the addiction to consumerism. God’s grace abounds all the same! Start a discussion with your spouse, your best friend, your small group about what it means for you/them to be a serious student, ministry apprentice, and passionate follower of Jesus. Everyone’s answer may be different, but I imagine any Christian would benefit from the discussion.
Just a suggestion.
Good point, Jane. I would like some specific suggestions. I work 40 hours a week besides taking care of my family
When Jesus prayed, your kingdom come, your will be done, he was not praying, “Hurry up and get the church established so we can get in it and understand your will.” Rather he was requesting of God what is needed in all generations, “Lord, bring what’s up there down here.” Help what’s in heaven to become a breathing, living reality here on this earth.
Incarnational theology (Jesus, in us, in the world) is the core of it all, after all.
Peace.
Chris, as for the “church outside the walls” I think of that in several ways including helping others for the glory of God, modeling Jesus to those around us, worshipping everyday and not just in the corporate setting, just to name a few. I don’t think that being the church outside the walls excludes family. Some of the most memorable times my family members and I share are those times where we, as a family, volunteered at the local “soup kitchen,” prayed with others who were in grief, and other times when we shared in the work of the Lord together. Is that what you were asking or did I miss the point?
I think it would be nice if we truly believed in the priest hood of all believers, that way we could take the money we give to “church” and start doing “church” with it.
The church building would be our homes and the staff would be living in them. The staff would go to work in the mission field of the workplace and earn their living.
What if we took the money we gave Sunday morning to support our infrastructure and hierachy and committed this money to helping out our neighbor. That is my idea of incarnational living.
Leland–
I like the way you think. I know a professor at one of our CofC colleges who made a break from the institutional church and started doing home church in the late 80s. It almost cost him his job (and were it not for the hue and cry of many of his students, it might have).
Since that time, he and his family have committed their money, that otherwise would have gone to support “infrastructure and heirarchy,” to helping out their “neighbor.” This has taken the form of contributing to specific financial needs such as paying utility bills, buying groceries, and in one instance, contributing substantially to help some friends adopt a child.
Of course, if we all did that, there wouldn’t be enough money left over Powerpoint projectors and audio equipment. Oh, that’s right, if we all did that, we wouldn’t need Powerpoint projectors and audio equipment!
Steve — GREAT synopsis of thought: Jesus wasn’t saying
“Hurry up and get the church established so we can get in it and understand your will.” Rather he was requesting of God what is needed in all generations, “Lord, bring what’s up there down here.” Help what’s in heaven to become a breathing, living reality here on this earth.”
God wants more than anything for things to be done on earth as they are done in heaven. That means caring for the things God cares about — such as justice and love.
I am reminded of something from a previous post that has stuck with me — “The Church Has Left the Building” — (accompanied by jazz music of course). Such a profound thought worth serious meditation!! BUT, is it really possible to give up the “consumerism” and to “simplify?” We’ve been trying to do it for 4 years now — and “life” keeps getting in the way.
Thanks, Mike!
Thanks VTC. There’s so much to be said here and Mike has a unique way of stimulating our thinking.
I’ve worked for a long time here with the church, but also had an active life in the public school community and I’ve noticed that the church tends to be like education, very faddish. I was a product of the new math and transformational grammer as a high schooler.
When I reached my junior year in high school I had two teachers that changed my educational future because they taught the basics of Math and English and gave me a solid paradigm that has served me well as I’ve studied several ancient and modern languages.
I met a now dear friend as a student in a small Christian college who gave me a solid paradigm for thinking openly philosophically and theologically that has made my life in some ways far more difficlut, but only because as a preacher and prophet you are often called to lead against the faddishness that pulls us off of true north and pushes us only the road of the next great thing.
I’m hoping our watchword will become what it should have always been.
Luke 4:18-19, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Peace.
My general impression is very clost to KHill’s insights earlier…I think there is a real problem with churches becoming more active in what could be called a “therapeutic culture”. Churches get caught up in helping people’s lives change and often forget what the purpose of the change was for in the first place. This may be a bit of an overstatement, but when I browse the shelves of my local Barnes and Noble I’m finding it harder to tell the difference in the books on “Christian Living” and “Self-Help/Psychology”.
Another Mike,
“…but when I browse the shelves of my local Barnes and Noble I’m finding it harder to tell the difference in the books on “Christian Living” and “Self-Help/Psychology”
Why should these two be mutually exclusive?
I remember when discipleship was discussed quite often. It seems that since the “Boston Movement,” churches are afraid to talk about what it means to be a disciple.
Leland- That’s a fair question and requires some thought to respond. A long answer would include a discussion about self-help/psychology’s secular and humanist histories with a primary focus on meeting the needs of the individual in a group/family/social setting. Now, this is an entirely reasonable mission and there is rather significant overlap with writings on Christian-living and inspiration. My primary issue with it, however, rests on the question of authority. Most self-help/psychology books stop short of attaching any meaningful change to a loving, compassionate and merciful creator. This approach actually has some merit, but it should also be decidedly different than the approach of a Christian-living book, which, presumably, points readers to Christ as the answer/guide/example etc. for living. To wrap up, what one notices in the Christian-living section these days are books that are packaged, marketed & designed to look like a self-help manual. The reality of the Christian life (read: discipleship) includes a denial of self and a long-suffering and painful acceptance that our deepest aches were not meant to be satisfied on this earth. That is not something many people want to read about.
Another Mike,
So we should throw all our anti depressants away, tell abused children living as adults to get over it, tell the single mother so frazzled to suck it up all in the name of discipleship? This would meet the suffering criteria.
Or should we incur our suffering in the service of others as Christ did? If we can’t make the world a little more liveable and people feel better about themselves because of unconditional love, then our message is pretty thin.
Can I share something with you all that blessed me today? This is a quote from C.S. Lewis. I read it in his book on the 11/2 hour drive home from Otter Creek today, which by the way was a vessel for God’s Spirit poured upon me again yet another week. How humbled I was as three different ministers from the Baptist, Methodist, and Bible churches (their neighbors on Franklin Rd?) came to pray with the members there as they transition into their new building. I was humbled because I was starkly reminded of who I have been as I sat there and listened to Godly men pray for that community of believers. The legalistic sinner got a glimpse of herself, and praise God I no longer walk in my righteousness. I am honored to be able to call out the name of Jesus with those men who are not of my Church of Christ community. Enough of that, and on to Lewis’s quote which God obviously led me to after today’s service.
How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with PRIDE can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how HE approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to HIM and get out of it a POUNDSWORTH OF PRIDE to wards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world He had never known them. And any of us at any moment may be in this death trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good-above all, we are better than someone else-I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
Today is my 33rd birthday. This, perhaps is one the best birthday gifts I have ever received. Insight. Insight into myself. Good night everyone.
Melissa Royster.
Melissa, if you happen to read this or anyone else knows, from which C.S. Lewis’ book was this quoted from?
So there I was this morning, minding my own business in the jury room waiting for the triage to take place, reading The Divine Conspiracy…and I happened again upon the quotes with which Mike started this thread, somewhere in the pp. 290-305 range. And what’s remarkable to me is that Willard does not just scratch some self-indulgent, self-righteous itch to diagnose the church’s problems – he offers the framework for their solution in apprenticeship to Jesus. That chapter, “On Being a Disciple of Jesus” (or something close to that), is worth the price of the book by itself. qb
Glenn, it is from MERE CHRISTIANITY. What are your impressions, if any, about this? Please tell me you agree with him! Have a nice day.
Melissa Royster
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