What do growing churches do that
stagnant or declining churches fail to do?
Pastors’ bookshelves are lined with volumes giving the definitive
approach to church growth. Pastors’
email in-boxes are overrun with advertisements promising to “grow your church.” Sometimes techniques in one program directly
contradict the ideas put forth by another author. What leads to church growth? There’s no simple answer.
We
don’t want growth for growth’s sake. We
want our church to be a place where people are drawn closer to God through
their relationship with Jesus. If we are
that kind of church, we think growth will happen. Our elders and deacons have prayed that God
will help us grow as we help people become disciples of Jesus.
The
writers of the Growing Young study
researched 100’s of churches that successfully help people aged 10-25 learn to
follow Jesus. One of the top findings of
their research is a set of six core commitments. Every growing young church exhibited at least
four and in most cases all six.
This
week we look at the third core commitment: “Take Jesus Seriously.” Don’t all churches do that? Maybe not.
In the lingo of Growing Young
“take Jesus seriously” means teens and young adults prefer to deal with what
Jesus really said and did. He died a
bloody, violent death on the cross. He
told any who would follow him that they had to die to self, and take up their
cross. Following Jesus means he is first
in our lives. He comes before our
ambitions, our most important relationships, everything.
Not
all young people (and not all older Christians either) are ready to put Jesus
first. We have academic goals. We have career ambitions. Some kids’ lives are all about their sports
careers. Some young adults are wrapped
up with dating. Maybe some hope for marriage. These and other good things can be all
consuming. Jesus says, no, these things
have to fall in line behind the
commitment to and relationship with him.
Young people don’t always make that radical commitment, but the research
shows that churches that grow young present robust Gospel challenges rather than
a non-descript, easy sounding Gospel.
Pop
culture, unfortunately, too often promotes that easy, non-descript gospel,
sometimes called as moralistic therapeutic deism. The National Study of Youth and Religion
concluded that “American young people are, theoretically, fine with religious
faith – but it does not concern them very much.”[i] The sense is that faith leads to being a
good, moral person. Moralistic. Religion helps
you feel better. Therapeutic. And God exists,
somewhere, up there, out there, but He’s not involved in life here. That’s Deism.
It’s
fine to be moral, feel good, and say God exists. The Bible says much more. In 2 Corinthians 1:3, “The God and father of
our Lord Jesus Christ … consoles us in all our affliction. … The sufferings of Christ are abundant for
us.” Some God of some kind somewhere out
there in some way helps us feel better?
No. God is revealed in Jesus, a
first century Jewish man. This Jesus died
on a Roman cross around 33 AD. The God revealed in him consoles us through the
love shown to us in the death of Jesus.
He suffered this violence suffered because sin leads to death. We all
sin. He took our place in death.
Moral
Therapeutic Deism, feel-good religion, has as its partner, Golden-rule
Christianity. Based on Luke 6:31, do to
others as you would have them do to you, this approach to faith is
effort-based. Advocates of Golden Rule
Christianity skip over the instructions Jesus gives just a couple of verses previous
to this one. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. When struck, turn the other cheek. Feel-good religion (Moral Therapeutic Deism)
and Do-good religion (Golden Rule Christianity) both live out very positive
ideas. But they are individualistic and
based on our behavior, not our confession of faith in Jesus and a growing
relationship in which we follow Jesus’ lead in all the places of our
lives.
I
was in a bizarre conversation about politics with a friend in my
neighborhood. She and I feel the same
way about the issue we were discussing: health care. Yet she started going off on me, railing
against Christians who disagree with her point of view. “How can someone be a Christian and not take
my view on ‘Obama care’?” She was in a
pretty worked up state of agitation, so I decided it wasn’t the right time to
tell her someone’ Christianity is not tied to their opinion of ‘Obama
care.’ Our Christianity is tied to our
faith in Jesus. Who am I in Christ? That’s what defines my Christianity, not my
politics or moral code. Feel-good
religion and do-good religion, only vaguely interested in Jesus, think life is
about an individual’s story. Life is all
about me. Followers Jesus know life is
about God and God’s kingdom. Our
individual stories are part of God’s larger story.
I
started this message asking “What makes the church grow?” It’s a question I hope you’ll consider, but
even more, I hope you’ll deeply ponder a bigger question. What is the Gospel? Is it feel-good, do-good? Or is it God’s story, and how God’s story is
central to your experience and your life?
Paul
writes in 2 Corinthians 1, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death
so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead; He who
rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us” (v.9-10). He’s referring to an experience he had while
sharing about Jesus in Greece. However,
though his words mention a specific instance from his life, those words speak
to our lives once we decide to be totally sold out in following Jesus. In Christ, God rescues us and we live as
saved people here and now, today. We
live dependent on God because he who raised Christ can be trusted.
This
way of living is seen in three shifts described in the Growing Young approach.
First, we talk less about abstract ideas and more about the specifics of
Jesus’ life and teachings. We’ve already
addressed this. We choose radical
discipleship, following Jesus and receiving the blessings he gives, instead of
anemic, vague feel-good, do-good religion.
The
second shift is a move away from religious formulas and a move toward a
redemptive narrative. Our faith is part
of a real, messy story full of twists and turns but ending in resurrection, first
Jesus’ and then ours. It can’t be
reduced to a pithy statement on coffee mug.
It is a lived relationship, a full-fledged, epic narrative.
Shift
1, from abstract ideas to specific teaching from and about Jesus. Shift 2, from formula to salvation story. The third shift is a move away from talk
about heaven in the distant future and a move toward life lived following Jesus
in our day-to-day, here and now.
Paul
had a stormy relationship with the Corinthian church. He probably wrote four letters to that
church. Second Corinthians is either one
of those four, or it is a composite of parts of letters 2, 3, and 4. Paul wrote to them so much, with such force
and emotion because he loved these people and wanted them to find redemption in
Jesus and they were having trouble doing that.
Even though he was an itinerant minister and away from them more than
with them, he didn’t abandon them.
In
the passage read earlier, he tries to explain why he hasn’t arrived when he
said he would. If his “yes” I’ll come became
a “no,” I can’t come it was because God led him to change plans. He appeals to his Corinthians friends to
trust that he loves them even if they don’t see him. He’s trying to obey God. Obedience: that’s how we live our salvation
here and now.
Imagine
the teenager. She likes her boyfriend
and she wants to follow Jesus. She wants
both, badly. She wants to be in love
with this boy. And she wants to grow in Christ.
She and that boy are healthy, their bodies are mature, and the hormones
are raging. He wants to have sex with
her. She wants that too, but she
believes Jesus wants her to wait. Save
sex for marriage. She is sure Jesus is leading her that way, just as she is
sure the boyfriend is ready at a moment’s notice. The decision to follow Jesus means she’s not
going to have sex before marriage. Even
if the boyfriend she thinks she loves gives the ultimatum – sex or break-up –
she won’t budge. That’s one example of taking Jesus seriously. That’s one way she is living her salvation
here and now.
In
that example, sex is not an evil. It’s a
beautiful aspect of God’s creation, but like all things, it is submitted to
Jesus. A disciple submits fully when he
or she takes Jesus seriously. Young
people and everyone, when we do that, we live differently than the people
around us. The way we make decisions
will not always make sense to our friends who don’t follow Jesus, but our
stories are entwined with God’s story.
We
also discover that life in Christ is the most blessed of lives to be
lived. In Jesus Christ, Paul writes,
“every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes’”.
That teenager may not ever get married, may not ever have sexual union
with a man. She has spiritual union with
God in Christ, a union she grows into throughout her life. She’s part of the church family. She experiences joy that builds throughout
life and continues building in eternity. And if she does get married, then her
marriage is submitted to Christ as well.
I’ve
talked about a teen’s decision to abstain from premarital sex as a discipleship
decision. We could say the same about
who we are in our work. Our work ethic
and our personal morals come as a result of Jesus at work in us. In feel-good and do-good religion, people
call themselves Christians because they think their morals are good. And the pay-off is religion makes them feel
happy and fulfilled. When our lives are
in Christ, any good we do is a result of the Holy Spirit expressing God’s will
through us. We don’t settle for fleeting
happiness. We are filled with divine joy
that remains no matter how well life is or isn’t going at any particular
moment. We sense God’s presence smiling
with us in the highs and consoling us, to use Paul’s word, in the lows.
The
final words from the passage are “It is God who establishes us with you in
Christ and [who] has anointed us, but putting his seal on us and giving us his
Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor. 1:21-22). No program or book can guarantee our church
will grow. The good news is, Jesus has
died for us, is with us, and offers us forgiveness and new life as his
disciples, sons and daughters of God.
Young
people aged 10-25 can handle all that this Gospel entails. When they meet Jesus, they become on-fire
disciples ready to follow Him to the ends of the earth. And by the way, that’s true for people of all
ages and it is never too late to take that first step toward him in faith.
AMEN
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