So, Now What?

FYI, coming to Menlo Park this Feb. 29 & Mar. 1 (that’s Friday-Saturday):
http://alphana.org/Group/Group.aspx?id=100001944...

1. Pursue deeper relationships with my neighbors and our house church while looking to the house church as a place of worship, prayer, and mutual support.
2. Attend conferences and concerts for the “big event” worship experiences and “big picture” prophetic input.
3. Seek out the poorest of the poor in Nicaragua and look for ways to bring the kingdom to them and ease their hunger and poverty.

I read this article online at MSNBC.

Survey: U.S. religious landscape in flux
Poll finds Protestant churches in decline, unaffiliated ranks growing

The link is
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23337807

The article reports on a survey about American’s religious affiliations.
I thought some of the facts were pretty interesting and might be significant to what we have been discussing the last couple of weeks.

What are you going to do to personally live out what you learned?
What are we going to do as a community?

Weigh in on either question…

Dr. Kent Leinberger: _Why Go To Church?_

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• If you’re spiritually alive, you’re going to love this! If you’re spiritually dead, you won’t want to read it. If you’re spiritually curious, there is still hope! *

• Why Go To Church?*

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• A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.(or Saturday) ‘I’ve gone for 30 years now,’ he wrote, ‘and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.’ *

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• This started a real controversy in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: *

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• ‘I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!’ When you are DOWN to nothing… God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment! *

• All right, now that you’re done reading, if you’re of a mind, send it on! I think everyone should read this! ‘When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, ‘Jesus, could you get that for me?*

This series was supposed to be the Great Initiative to bring us back to What Really Matters to the Journey, the retooling of the so-called 2.0 relaunch. Like Journey 2.1 or 2.5.

I’m not seeing it. (And I don’t just mean activity on this website.)

Hugh Halter (author of The Tangible Kingdom) blogs: “IT AIN’T ABOUT WHAT FORM OF CHURCH YOU DO! To try to reproduce mega-churches is as dumb a notion as trying to reproduce house churches. Why? Because people outside of our churchdom aren’t looking a for ANY type of church.” (emphasis mine)

Sometimes, we really hit something amazing with a particular Sunday, or with a whole series. But I do not observe any follow-up. Instead, in total ADD fashion it’s “on to the next thing” as if the sexiness of the next thing will surely do the trick.

What we do shows what we really value, right?

Personally, I am finding a lot more satisfaction with hanging out with neighbors and helping the poor in Nicaragua than hanging out in any church these days. Our house church is a great place to fellowship but we all agree that neighbors and the mission field has to be the real focus.

Jim if I may extrapolate: Whether we’re talking megachurch or home church, the size, structure, and programs of a church do not make it missional.

But I want to hear from the leaders of the Journey, those who shape its direction and guide its practices. Where is the missional vision?

This is not an attempt to bait you. If you do not have a missional vision, that’s OK — I would rather have an honest assessment than an attempt to satisfy me. I am simply continuing to advocate for those who are not looking for any kind of church. They are my friends, neighbors and coworkers.

But the surprise you hear in my tone is that in this church of all churches, I didn’t expect to have to keep beating this drum by myself.

I would welcome the chance to discuss this in person, as well as here.

Still waiting…

Putting up the survey results, Jeff said something like, “We all have neighbors and coworkers who say they are Christian…”

We do? I can think of one household in our cul-de-sac, and one coworker on my floor. Among my friends who are not already Christ-followers, it’s zero. They aren’t even nominal Christians!

This is not the future; this is my present reality. Unless you take seriously the missional mandate that was issued to us at our joint service with the Church of the Chimes, The Journey will continue to attract church-goers (both followers and curious seekers) but make no headway in extending the Kingdom to the unchurched.

Am I the only one who was at that 50th anniversary service?

Dr. Kent,

Thank you for your encouraging comments. I will reply over here just to keep things grouped by topic.

First, you are right to point out that the “big C” Church is making some impact. God’s kingdom continues to move forward — with or without us.

But I believe that, flowing from worship (and as an act of worship) an outward missional focus is essential. I want it to be prayerfully intentional, not accidental. I’m sure there are inspiring stories within our church of, as you say, individuals making an impact; I want these to be our central defining stories, not stay behind the scenes. I want us to go to those outside the church, not try to get them to come to us. (That is, after all, what Jesus did for us.) And to reach our post-Christian society, in which the church is starting from a position of distrust and resentment, it will take more than lone disciples to soften their hearts toward Jesus — it will take groups praying and creatively reaching out, giving visible witness to the gospel as a communal reality, not just a personal preference.

I do not expect the Journey to suddenly say, “This is our new defining center.” But I do hope for some receptivity, especially in light of the strong declarations that Jeff made at the time about the now-forgotten “church, why bother” series and in light of the strategic initiative that the Journey’s denomination is attempting, the effort to turn its churches outward. I feel a bit of a pest, but I cannot avoid this call of God and the need to be an advocate for my non-church friends, who are representative of a larger world. God is inviting us!

Thank you again for responding to me. I hope that some in leadership in the Journey would do the same. As I said, I would welcome the chance to do so face-to-face.

Sincerely His,
Jon