The Irrelevancy of the Church

Colossians 3:1-2 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

It is my conviction that local churches hold the key to world evangelization. The early apostles, told to go and make disciples, instinctively went and planted churches where discipleship could take place in a community of love cared for by called and gifted elders. The promised out pouring of the Holy Spirit galvanized them into action. Soon they gained the reputation that they were turning the world upside down!

The world view of the average man or woman in the West has been radically transformed in the past century, making the modern mission field look very similar to the one which Paul and the early apostles encountered as they travelled among the nations. Christendom, with all its vague endorsement of Christian values, has gone. Secularism rules, some times urged on by aggressive atheism. The church has to rediscover its early zeal, power and gospel clarity. Local churches will need to be seen as relevant to this generation, providing genuine answers, not merely religious platitudes.

A fragmented society, characterized by individualism and loneliness, needs to discover churches in which groups of people have discovered genuine answers, know how to relate in love and trust, and have found God in terms that can be understood and embraced with joy.

Can God be known? Can He be experienced? Are there people on the planet who are genuinely experiencing Him? Few enquirers into Christianity anticipate that they will meet such people. They tend to regard us as merely religious types who have opted out from the real world and embraced a pre-set formula of rules and regulations. Most are unaware of churches filled with people who themselves were formerly unbelievers but who have encountered God, experienced the lavish out pouring of His Spirit and been built into loving communities.

The biblical marks of the church universally and its expressions locally are many (for example, the Word, sacraments, discipline, discipleship, mission/evangelism, love), but their overarching purpose is to reflect, or mirror, the glory of God to the cultures of the earth. Or, to put it another way, the purpose of the church is to serve as an outpost of Jesus’ kingdom that makes the invisible kingdom visible by the grace of God and power of the Holy Spirit. The church belongs to God as his self-chosen means by which to serve and save the world through the gospel message to the glory of God.

Religious idolatry uses God for health, wealth, success, and the like. In this grotesque inversion of the gospel, God is used for our glory, as if not only are we supposed to worship ourselves, but God is also to be a worshiper of us. This kind of false gospel preaching is evident whenever Jesus is presented as the means by which an idolater can obtain his idol. Examples include Jesus being presented as the one who promises to make you rich, happy, healed, joyfully married, and parentally successful.

The trouble always begins with the erosion of confidence in the inerrancy, authority, sufficiency, and cross-cultural timelessness of Scripture. Once that dam is breached, there is no way to determine where the ensuing flood of error will surge. Still, for many younger people who comprise the next generation of Christianity, the early indicators are that we will see an ongoing increase of support for sex outside of marriage in all forms (gay, straight, and bisexual) as an acceptable Christian practice, with the endorsement of pastors who put cool before Christ. In the name of “love” and “community,” there is a trend away from preaching and practicing personal repentance of one’s own sin while only addressing institutional sin of others. This is what happens when we think too little of Scripture and too much of our own reason, as with Rob Bell's teachings.

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.