"Faith Yes, Church Maybe"

An article on the CT online site for Leadership Journal reports the findings after "more than 1,000 self-identified Christians 18 years of age and older were surveyed on their religious beliefs and practices."
The study reveals the wide diversity of self-identity amongst Christians brokenly down into 5 pretty evenly distributed groups which they labeled as "5 Kinds of Christians" (which seemed to me like a nice play on and slight critique of McClaren's idea of "A New Kind of Christian").   

While I would like to, in future posts, offer some responses and reflections about the diversity of Christians in our culture,  I will start with offering up CT's own synopsis of "three critical issues" that emerged:

• The local church is no longer considered the only outlet for spiritual growth.
• Churches must develop relational- and community-oriented outreach.
• Lay people have to be better equipped to be God's ambassadors.

There is no surprise in here for me.  Indeed, I see this as an opportunity for the church.  Even more, I just finished teaching a course for Fuller Theological Seminary called Contemporary Challenges and Evangelism and these issues emerged from our discussions with NON-Christians, too.

In the final segment of the class I posed this question to the future ministers seeking their Master's degrees to be better equipped to lead in churches:  How should we  respond to a world that says: "God is interesting, but the church is  irrelevant"? 

According to the study, the answer of at least 3/5ths of Christians today, is "But, of course. That is the way we Christians feel, too." 

So, what do we make of that? 

But before I offer up my own thoughts, I figured I would let this sit here to see what it stimulates in your own mind.

Comments

[Mark Goodyear]

You're just trying to wrestle a confession from me! I won't confess how often I have a bad attitude about my church! I won't do it!

I really wonder what it means to have a truly relevant church, though. It's easy to get philosophical about the priesthood of all believers: We don't go to church, we are church everywhere we go. All that kind of talk.

But how do you organize a community around those ideas?

[Timmy C]

My one thought is that each type of Christian could really use to learn from the others.

Each group seems a bit off balance in some ways, and on the mark in some ways...each in their own different ways...

[Steve Norris]

Well, you probably know much of my thinking on this, as one of the 7 readers of my blog.

This is perhaps the most significant idea you have had on your blog in about, oh well, just a really long time. So then, go with this. A long time.

[Jill D.]

I think I've passed through all 5 of these stages and I'm so grateful to be where I am today.

[George]

This is another significant topic you've broached, and I think Steve hit on something. And that something has two sides.

On both sides, some (many?) Christians have a narrow range of interest and have no patience for a church that doesn't address that interest, or doesn't address it exclusively.

It shows up in the attendees when they say, You're always talking about money," or "I don't like to sing that much," or "You're taking your eyes off Christ when you talk about the poor," or "I want to know more about doctrine before I hear about missions," or "What I really need is less preaching and more fellowship."

It shows up in pastors when they focus on just what they've been trained to know and don't get out of their comfort zones to relate Christian concepts/examples to real life in the daily worlds of their congregations.

Ideally, both the congregation and the pastor would broaden their appreciations, but it might be more realistic for us all to accept our limitations by networking our specialties. Hypothetically, I will sing, study, and small-group under Tod's leadership, Tod will serve within my homeless ministry, and we'll both belong to Kiwanis.

[real live preacher]

Hmm, none of those categories do much for me. I think they left a lot of people out of the mix. contemplatives, for example.

[Brian]

Right now I am really struggling with my attitude toward church and would definitely "amen" the thought that the church is irrelevant. But I'm also not content to leave it at that, so I've been doing a lot of studying in the Bible and reading things like Bonhoeffer's "Life Together" in an effort to figure out where things got off track. In light of all that, I am really looking forward to hear what you have to say on things.