This is a question I've been asking myself lately.
It's clear to me that what the church has become in America today is not a Jesus thing.
In the life and teaching of Jesus, there were no pastors, no laity, no budgets and no buildings--all realities essential to what creates the core on institutionalized American Christianity these days, that is, the Christianity that seems to be in the throes of death.
That church is dying. The number of pastors increases while attenders decline, budgets dwindle and buildings empty out, crumble and are sold off to compensate for the loss of money.
Institutional Christianity in America may very well be, as the sixties song sang, "on the eve of destruction."
My question lately has been:
What about the Church Jesus said He would build, the one early Christians formed, the one that spread like a wild fire throughout the Roman world and beyond it?
It certainly does still exist. Even in America. So...
...How is that church doing?
My guess is that it is doing well but that it will probably take the death, or, at least, the serious decline of institutional Christianity to free it for its next revival.
I hope and pray for the repentance of the people who love and serve the institutional church, but I don't despair over the death of institutional Christianity in America.
The Lord Who builds the church is not dead, even if He appears to be through the frame of the organized, institutional church in America.
Amen and amen! I've been wondering for years why we were lamenting the failing of the modern "Constantinian" church. In fact, I think I remember stating this at an Impact seminar you and Brian Miller led on Reggie' s book 'Missional Rennaisance.'
ReplyDeleteYes, it is sad to see anything die. But isn't it somewhat encouraging when it is cancer cells that are dying?
Good post, Bill
I remember that seminar, Dan.
DeleteDidn't it seem that, under the conversation Wayne Boyer empowered, much of which happened on Brian's blog but was encouraged by the gatherings at IMPACT, that there was once a community in the CGGC willing to repent of Constantinian, institutional ways and return to the Kingdom focus Jesus announced in the Gospels?
I had such hope in those days.
Since Wayne's retirement, the emphasis has been on church--and pastor/parish priest leadership--even to the point that the PA campus of the seminary boasted of holding Anglican Advent masses on its campus several years.
Two words seem to characterize us since those days you describe:
DE-pentance, and,
Decline.
Sad.
Last year, I left the institutional church I had been a part of for 14 years. Since then, I have grown closer to God, have seen His working more in my life, have been studying the Bible more, and have been having more genuine fellowship with other believers.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear of your experience. What you report is typical. As we all know, the institutionized church is declining. But I'm not convinced that the Body of Christ is doing all that poorly.
The institutional church is in bad shape but the Lord of the actual church is as glorious as ever.