There is a tragically interesting situation in western Christian culture right now, and it is this: an increasing number of people who are not only leaving the church, but who are leaving behind any religious affiliation whatsoever. They have grown tired of religion in general (at least as they understand it) and they no longer want to be connected to it or with it in anyway. And so they are departing. This group has come to be labelled as the nones; those who belong to nothing; those who are no longer identified with any organized religion.
The nones are on a staggering rise. Today, for every one person that had no religious affiliation and now does, four people leave the church and become a none. Just between 2007 and 2014, while Christianity in America was declining, the number of nones rose literally by millions. The largest portion of them were millennials (22–37-year-olds), but it wasn’t limited to just that demographic. The rise also included baby boomers and those in generation X. In other words, the nones were and are crossing all generational boundaries.
At the same time that this exodus of nones is occurring, there is also this group who wants to continue to embrace Jesus and to identify as Christians but like the nones, they don’t want the church. They argue, and maybe rightly at times, that the Christian church has become politicized by agendas and sides and has been infiltrated by televangelist like preachers seeking to make gains off the backs of religion and religious people. The only way forward is to liberate themselves from the church and get back to the simplicity of Jesus and His Word. No creeds; no traditions; no buildings; no religiously infused positions; just Jesus.
Add to that this group as well: those who identify as Christians and who are remaining as participants in and of the church but who don’t see it is as a primary priority or necessity for the Christian life. They are the products of an individualistic age and culture, where there is a primacy of the individual over and above the corporate, where everything is about personal freedoms, personal experiences, self-interest and self-help. To them (which is probably all of us to some degree), church is great if you want it, but it’s a voluntary choice. In the list of priorities, church comes after one’s personal experience and relationship with Jesus.
Don’t we see this priority of the individual even in our evangelism? We say everything about making a decision for Jesus and almost nothing about being incorporated into a church, because that’s secondary to the personal experience and ultimately optional.
The Situation
So here we are then. We have professing nones leaving the church; professing Christians leaving the church and professing Christians staying in the church but not seeing its importance. All of that tells me that we need not to develop more strategic programs to attract people and keep them, but rather to develop and share a right theological understanding of the church. We need people who understand what they are apart, or what they are being invited into. I am convinced that if we could see the church even a sliver of how God sees it, we wouldn’t run from it no matter how hurt or offended we got.
Did you know that in all the areas of theological study over the last two-thousand years, one of the least studied areas or subjects has been the church? Scholars speak of ecclesiology (the study of the church) as being in its “pre-theological phase.” And it shows, doesn’t it? We don’t know if the church is a building, a service or a group of people. We are not sure where a bible study stops being a bible study and becomes a church. We don’t want to be members of the church because that doesn’t seem right to us. Still, many of us are dedicated Sunday attenders, unless there is a special event. On snowy days many make statements like, “Church for is on the ski hill.” One group says the primary function of the church is worship, while another group says its social justice. When it comes to understanding the church, we are so confused!
If you go to a Christian bookstore today you will find lots of writing on the church, but almost all of it will be practical: how to plant a church; how to attract people to church; how to lead a church; how to be a missional church. There is a big concern for how to do church and a seemingly little concern for understanding it biblically. That means for the average Christian and maybe even the average pastor, there is little biblical knowledge of who and what the church truly is according to God’s Word. This makes it very easy to not care about the church, and very hard to promote the church. It makes it very easy for the church to become whatever humans think it should be, and very hard to see when it has actually stopped being a biblical church.
The Hope
All of that to say, in this short series I want to ask the theological questions: What is the church? What is its mission? What is its structure? Etc. And I want to look to the Bible for the answers to those questions. My hope is that, God willing, by the end of this little mini-series you will not simply have more knowledge about the church but will have a new and invigorating love for God and His church, as well as an unrelenting desire and conviction to be a part of it. Whatever category you land in right now in your relationship with and opinion of the Christian church, I pray that you will come to see it as Christ sees it, as something beautiful and essential.