The "Out of Business" Church

If you are living in a Trailer somewhere in the middle of Nebraska and still have the rabbit ears on your 8 inch tube t.v you bought at a garage sale, then you may not have noticed that we are living in a Financial crisis. You cant help hear about it on T.V, Internet, radio and most of all your IPhone.  In the midst of our Global Crisis, where does that leave the church. The progressive church leaders who are living in the "Here and now" culture would say that churches that don't get with the times and start relating to the culture of today will be shutting their church doors permanently. On the flip side, the Traditional 1950's culture church would say that if we do not get back to our heritage and repent for our future culture then we are doomed for disaster.  Being on multiple church staffs over the years you see these two sides duke it out behind the scenes for control. They haven't full on declared  war on each other, but you can definitely feel the tensions as they speak to their groups that understand their points of view. Romans 12 says, live in this world but do not conform to it. So in a sense, both of the culture sides raise some good points. Where have we gone wrong. We have Democrats and Republicans fighting this very day for control to fight for a better economy. We as a church are no different. I think people are a little fed up with it. At least I am. 

Where do I fall in this situation. I think that churches will close their doors the moment we let ourselves get distracted by our goal. What is our Goal? I have just finished reading "Confessions of a Reformission Rev" by Mark Driscoll. In this book it talks about Marks journey on trying to reach the greater Seattle area for Christ. He talks about his shortcomings and his victories, but he focuses on becoming a MISSIONAL CHURCH. You can walk into thousands of churches and somewhere on their walls you can read there mission statements, but their are few churches that if you asked someone who calls that church , their church, what their missions statement is, they would look at you with a blank stare and try to give some sense of an answer. "God has called us to win the lost" "To go out and make disciples" 

Why do we make it so hard? Why cant it be a little simpler? Is that even possible? 

In his book, Reformission, therefore, begins with a simple return to Jesus, who, by grace saves us and sends us into reformission.  Jesus has called us to 1. the gospel (Loving our Lord) 2. the culture (loving our neighbor) 3. the church (loving our Christian brothers and sisters) One of the causes of lack of reformission in the American church is that various Christian traditions are prone to faithfulness on only one or two of these counts. Consequently, when we fail to love the Lord, our culture, and our church simultaneously, reformission ceases, leaving one of three holes: The para church, liberalism, and fundamentalism.

Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch

Some people are so frustrated with the church that they bring the gospel into culture without it. 

Culture + Church - Gospel = Liberalism 

Some churches are so concerned with being culturally relevant that, though they are deeply involved in the culture, they neglect the gospel. 

Church + Gospel -Culture = Fundamentalism

Some churches are more into their church and its traditions, buildings, and politics than they are the gospel. Though they know the gospel theologically, they rarely take it out of their church.

Gospel + Culture + Church = Reformission

Reformission combines the best aspects of each of these types of Christianity : Living in the tension of being culturally liberal yet theologically conservative Christians and churches who are absolutely driven by the gospel of grace to love their Lord, their neighbors, and their fellow Christians.

In this economic crisis, I see the church growing in size, not shrinking. But we have to take a painful look at how we have been doing church, running church and playing church. Are we going to just be the fundamentalist church that rejects people who are struggling with sin, or are we going to be the Liberal christian that although we can relate to peoples sin, we might be belittling the scriptures in the process, or are we going to be the church that is able to run the race long term. Have a church that has multi cultured and has all the ages brackets with all backgrounds in it. We need to get back to the mission that God has called us to do. To love one another as Christ Loves us. 

I do not know about you but I want to remain in the business of winning souls for Jesus and not go out of business as the next big flavor comes our way.