Jeff, I join with Gerry in thanking you for posting the Hawkins video.
An even scarier thought than that we are not meeting deeply felt needs is that American Christians seem themselves as little more than weekend church consumers.
Here is a book review of "Shopping for God" in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal that may reinforce our worst fears--that we are pastoring consumers rather than transformed transformers.
Here is further discussion on getreligion.org.
2 comments:
Paul, I think Barna comes closer with his Revolution book to pinpointing the problem. You have also touched on it when you spoke about the need for mobilizing the vast glut of leaders you saw in your own church a year or two ago. They are looking for more, but we just feed them into more classes or opportunities for service.
Folks do grow spiritually in our churches, but we are not effective at bringing them into a deep and mature relationship with Jesus over the long haul. Once they get their fill of our production and whiz-bang teaching, they draw less and less nourishment from being in church.
Dallas Willard dealt with this in The Spirit of the Disciplines when he spoke about the lack of people in our churches who actually live like Jesus- because we fail to do the things Jesus did.
The effective church of the next decade will thrive in simplicity, community and good works rooted in a deep and intimate relationship as a disciple of Jesus.
It is kind of knee jerk reaction - thinking of sheep as consumers. "Of course not" they are sheep. I also don't like the expression - they are tranformers - leads me to think Megatron & Octomus Prime. Sheep are people & people are people. A church attendee is no more a "consumer" than a patient is a "consumer" at a Doctor's office. But they are people & they do vote with their feet. In any given town there may be a half dozen A/G churches one may attend. Not to mention the hordes of other non-A/G churches. Just because we pastors may "study", prepare a 3 point expository sermon & open up the doors does NOT mean they will come in. You have to make your ATMOSPHERE condusive to growth. And I'm talking BOTH spiritual atmosphere & physical atmosphere. The "mood" has to be right. Because let's face it - there is a LOT OF COMPETION out there for you parishoners. And by competition I'm not even talking churchs. I'm talking 1)sleeping in 2)going out for breakfast 3)watching church on TV 4)watching secular TV. It's not 1955 any more. The majority of Americans do not go to church. There is a reason for that. With everything we see on TV, we as pastors need to step it up a notch. There is a reason why NON-PENTECOSTAL churches grow into mega-churches. (And it's not because they are filled with the Holy Ghost). It's because they have young, fresh, dynamic atmospheres that captures the hearts & minds of the people. Why should we as Pentecostals not be in on that. Because we DON'T LIKE CHANGE. We are in to preserving the status quo. Shame on us. Those Babist brothers can teach us a think or two if we are simply willing to just LOOK outside the box (let alone operate outside it.)
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