Tag Archives: church growth

Evangelism has become passe.  Only 52% of born-again Christians report witnessing to someone at least once in the past year.  And 47% of Millennials feel it’s wrong to share one’s religious beliefs with someone of a different faith.  A Lifeway study found of eight biblical attributes most evident in the lives of American churchgoers, “Sharing Christ” had the lowest average score.

Today’s culture is not less in need of the Gospel, but Christians are more reticent to talk about it.  That reluctance to evangelize has (ironically) made America less fertile soil for evangelism.  The longer difficult conversations are avoided, the more uncomfortable they become.  It’s easier to criticize from afar than engage challenging topics at close range.  A vicious cycle ensues where the less we talk about Jesus the less important non-believers feel He must be – to us and them.

Church leaders understand and hesitate to pressure congregants to endure too much discomfort, offering to alleviate that Great Commission burden.  Rather than train disciples to be itinerate “preachers” in their workplaces and de facto “pastors” of their neighborhoods, churches encourage sharing personal testimonies and extending invitations to a weekend service.  Of those 52% reportedly making Gospel presentations, how many were simply a testimony or directions to the church?

Few acts could be considered more selfish and inhumane than withholding a known cure from the terminally ill.  Yet church leaders withhold evangelism training and intensive discipleship for fear of losing members.  Churchgoers withhold the remedy for sin, fearing a loss of social status.  The urgency, methods and message of evangelism have been reshaped around self-centered interests.  It’s no coincidence secular society now sees selfishness as Christianity’s principal characteristic.

Urgency

Christians have contributed to our divisive culture by segmenting into “us” versus “them”, alternating between playing “offense” or “defense” depending on which President is in office.  Being offensive during the term of a church-friendly administration has Christians on the defensive today.  Focus has shifted from winning people to Christ to fending off a barrage of attacks.  The tone of comments on this blog’s social media pages have turned dark and aggressive, insulting and deriding anyone who dares to speak positively about Jesus.  Honest debates about the need for God’s grace and forgiveness have evolved into angry, name-calling rants.  Admittedly, leading someone toward faith in that environment seems a more daunting uphill climb today, fraught with abuse along the way.

However, Scripture doesn’t exempt any Christ-follower from imitating Jesus’ Prayer/Care/Share lifestyle.  Our excuses for abdicating personal evangelism don’t hold water, even in the face of hostility:

• “Faith is a private matter” – yet we talk about what we love (e.g. our spouse and children)
• “Imposing my beliefs on others isn’t loving” – yet it’s love that should compel us to share our beliefs
• “It’s not my gifting” – not all are a “hand” or “foot”, yet all should be His “hands and feet”
• “God has already chosen the elect” – yet we should consider it a privilege to be part of God’s plan
• “I’m not around many non-believers” – yet churches adopt growth models that unintentionally encourage “social distancing”
• “Speaking up could cost me my job” – yet the Great Calling says we should not draw lines between work and ministry, separating sacred from secular
• “My pastor can do it better than I can” – yet we can reach many people that he can’t
• “If I don’t someone else will” – yet you may be the only glimpse of Jesus they see
• “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” – yet this adage containing a modicum of truth conceals a cop out
• “I don’t know what to say” – yet all believers should be able to adeptly explain the gospel and have biblical responses to typical objections

Church is not a destination for attracting and retaining but a vehicle for equipping and sending.  If more pastors had the audacity to teach that the Great Commission isn’t optional, society would be more convinced to listen.  But as it stands, our lack of urgency to evangelize comes across as uncertainty that we truly believe the Gospel is a matter of life and death – or as further evidence Christians are primarily concerned about themselves.

Methods

Even if we drum up the courage to broach the topic of faith, the ways we’ve been coached by most American churches to evangelize are designed around self-interest, not selfless urgency:

• Efficient – Just tell your story and let pastors do the rest
• Egocentric – Focus on what God did for you, and what He could do for them
• Convenient – No need to get your hands dirty caring before sharing, like Jesus did
• Transactional – If they don’t respond to your story or invitation, you’ve done your part
• Easy – Evangelism training isn’t necessary; we’ll answer their tough questions for you
• Comfortable – No one can argue with your personal story so that route carries little risk
• Non-Committal – There are no requirements or timelines; just speak up when you feel “led”
• Indirect – Get to know people, show them who Jesus is by how you live, and see if they bring Him up
• Arms-Length – Take a stand for moral issues, virtue signal, and keep a safe distance
• Worldly – Tell how God got you through tough situations, the theme of most Christian songs
• Attractional – Convince those who don’t worship Jesus to come to a holy worship service
• Non-Controversial – Don’t bring up sin even though its resolution is the basis for your faith
• Liberating – Cheap grace frees you from the obligation to align your words and behaviors
• Lighthearted – Don’t be a downer, making anyone feel guilty even though suppressed guilt is driving rampant medication (escapism) and self-justification (cancelling others)

God’s justification in Jesus is the only viable alternative to self-justification.  But learning how to present and contrast those options requires more time, effort, and risk than most churchgoers are willing to endure.  Statistics and the evening news confirm that designing evangelism to suit the schedules and preferences of cultural Christians isn’t effective in leading people to Jesus or growing churches.  In fact, it is validating society’s caricatures of Christians as uncaring.

Message

Assuming a Christ-follower senses the urgency of evangelism and understands biblical methods for sharing our faith, it’s unlikely he or she was taught by a church how to communicate the Gospel in ways that will resonate in Post-Christian America:

• “All roads lead to God” – Since Adam and Eve, creation has tried 1,000s of ways to make things right with the Creator. All world religions except for Christianity go down the same path – telling mankind how to fix what we broke.  Christianity alone contends that our “good” works or “enlightenment” can never do what only God can.  We cannot raise ourselves up or bring God down, trying to earn a “wage” (salvation) we feel we’re due – that’s why Jesus came down, to offer a “gift” we don’t deserve.
• “I’m living my truth” – Being your “authentic self” is impossible if your identity is not as a child of our Father.  However, America’s fastest growing religion, Selfism, places its faith in mankind rather than God, believing human nature is good with the capacity to define “truth” and no need for redemption.  Evangelism today requires proving that we are not innocent and therefore it’s unwise to bet our eternal lives on our goodness rather than God’s.  Only Jesus satisfied the requirements of the law (works), qualified to graciously gift us His righteousness.
• “I’m not religious” – The ranks of “Dones” and “Nones” have grown so rapidly because they rejected church growth models that appeared self-serving, and/or the self-centered Christians it produced.  Getting through to them starts with humble confession and by encouraging them not to blame God for man’s mistakes.
• “There is no God” – When entering into conversations with someone who claims God does not exist, it’s important to understand that there’s no such thing as an Atheist.  While listening and respecting their views, it should give us courage to know deep down everyone understands something didn’t come from nothing and has an innate desire to reconnect with our Father.  For most, unbelief emerged from belief – at some point consciously walking away from God when He didn’t give them what they wanted or allowed something to happen they didn’t want.
• “Christians are nothing like Jesus” – As churches have lowered expectations for following Jesus’ model for evangelism, His emphasis on (and example of) demonstrating His love before telling people who He is also went by the wayside.  Jesus served the poor and solved real-world problems, but compassion is now a low priority for most churches.

Pitting our story, our Scripture, our God, our world view, or our philosophies against someone else’s is just our truth against theirs (from their perspective).  Christians won’t often win those arguments in today’s culture, but can disrupt the self-confidence of non-believers by making them question its underpinnings – the enormous wager they’re making on their “goodness”, capabilities, intellect, identity, and spirituality that obviates their perceived need for God’s descent into our decadence.

It’s Your Turn

What methods and messages for conveying the love of Jesus have you seen most effective in breaking down the walls of self-determination and self-actualization?

In 1999, on a drive home to Atlanta from Jacksonville, the consultant in me wondered whether the burgeoning Internet could provide answers to a question I had asked our church a few weeks earlier.  “How could my skills and experiences be used to bless others in our city?”  It was their hesitation and eventual referral to a local charity that got me thinking…

• “Is this the only church that doesn’t know the needs in its community or assets in its pews?”
• “Wasn’t Jesus’ model to feed and heal to demonstrate His love before telling them who He is?”
• “When did the body of Christ become so fragmented, disconnecting ‘church’ from ‘parachurch’?”

As a strategic planner for aspiring dot-com executives, I was developing business plans leveraging the Web to sell products and connect channel partners.  On that long drive home, the Lord put a thought in my head – “If you can shop online for something to buy, why can’t you ‘shop’ for someone who needs the skills and resources you have to offer?”  That light bulb moment nearly made me swerve off the road, but I managed to get to the next exit and began writing the business plan for Meet The Need.

Back then, there were no technologies that showed needs to those who could help.  It didn’t take long to recognize the incredible opportunity to (re)unite and mobilize churches and ministries around critical causes like hunger, homelessness, and child neglect.  So 20 years ago, at a time when the Internet was better known for the harm it was doing than the good it could do, we launched Meet The Need and built the first collaborative Volunteer Management, Case Management, Event Management, and Drive Scheduling tools – rallying the body of Christ around families desperately in need of help and hope.

While the passion I felt in the car that day remains two decades later, there were discoveries and realizations along the way I never anticipated.  Yet our heavenly Father is never caught by surprise and can use all things for good.  As Meet The Need celebrates its 20^th anniversary, it’s worth taking inventory of lessons learned from our work with thousands of churches across the country.  Thinking back on my transition from for-profit business to non-profit ministry reminds me of all the preconceived, flawed notions I had about church, discipleship, and poverty.  However, the disillusionment that normally accompanies unmet, unrealistic expectations didn’t squelch my enthusiasm because it soon became clear the Lord had prepared us “for such a time as this”.

Church Reform

Meet The Need’s mission has always been, “To mobilize and equip the Church to lead millions more to Christ by following Jesus’ example of meeting those in need exactly where they are.”  Since we wrote that mission statement our ministry’s objectives have never changed, but our understanding of what a church is certainly has.

1. I didn’t realize church is not a place – Like most Americans, I naively saw “church” primarily as a weekend activity where choirs sang and pastors preached.  I misspoke often, saying I’m “going to church” or “look at that church” when no one was in the building.  The Bible never referred to “church” in terms of events, experiences, staff, or structures, but Christians gathered anywhere for worship, teaching, fellowship, and discipleship.
2. I didn’t realize churchgoers were “employees” – Businesses can’t require customers learn corporate manuals, make referrals, and conduct trainings.  However, church members are vastly underutilized because most pastors treat them as customers, not Kingdom workers, afraid to push them too hard to study, obey, witness, serve, and disciple.
3. I didn’t realize pastors had assumed most responsibilities of members – Pastors are burning out in record numbers because “consumers” have largely outsourced the Great Commission to church staff.  To reach those who wouldn’t darken the door of a church, we should decentralize, empower and deploy members to serve as “pastors” of their neighborhoods and workplaces.
4. I didn’t realize worship services were intended for believers – Church is a holy gathering of the faithful, not designed for (or around) those who don’t worship Jesus.  Members should be (re)assigned accountability for leading people to Christ and defer invitations to church until after they’ve become Christ-followers.
5. I didn’t realize giving shouldn’t be spent just on the givers – Watchdogs rate charities based on the proportion of donations that reach those they serve.  Churches historically plowed 40%+ back into their communities, following Jesus’ example of demonstrating His love and seeing the “lost” as “customers”.  It’s no wonder per capita giving has declined to match the average church’s investment in serving those who don’t know the Lord (< 2%).

It wasn’t until recently that I understood Jesus concluded Scripture with revelations calling for church reform and repentance.  Once again, it’s time for reform to stem the decline of the Church in growth, impact, influence, and perception.  The issue is essentially a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) problem – churches have defined the wrong “customer”.  My years spent as a CRM consultant were not wasted, but all part of the Lord’s providential plan.

Discipleship Reform

Without church reform, outsourcing discipleship (to pastors) and compassion (to parachurch ministries) are likely to continue.  It took years of work with churches of all sizes across the nation to understand discipleship was the key to church growth – that multiplication is the Lord’s math.

1. I didn’t realize what the Great Commission really meant and who it was commissioning – Making disciples who make disciples is the Church’s mission, and each of us is the personification of “church”, expected to carry out that objective all week long, not leaving it to “professionals” on Sundays.
2. I didn’t realize most churches were doing addition – When churches are asked how they disciple, most reference small groups, which involve far less personal responsibility, commitment, and accountability than 1-on-1 or triads but don’t foster multiplication.
3. I didn’t realize discipleship largely boils down to obedience – Walking in Jesus’ footsteps requires studying, internalizing and following His ways by the power of the Holy Spirit, but in many churches “tolerance” trumps obedience to appear welcoming and “accepting”.
4. I didn’t realize how critical church discipline is to God – Discipleship connotes discipline, which is explicitly expected in Scripture but not practiced often in America’s churches.
5. I didn’t realize most churches had stopped evangelism training – Few churchgoers are taught effective ways to share the Gospel and answers to typical questions.  That was evident during Covid when fields were ripe for harvest but church buildings were closed.

Not surprisingly, the root cause behind those dramatic shifts is also a CRM issue.  The commitment needed to become a disciple and to make disciples are both too time consuming to demand of believers conditioned to feel like “customers” and too presumptuous to propose to non-believers that pastors have asked members to invite to church.

Compassion Reform

When I asked my church in 1999 what I could do to serve the poor, I didn’t understand what poverty was or how to address it.  Nor did I have any idea of the inextricable connection between compassion and discipleship – it’s impossible to do one (well) without doing the other.

1. I didn’t realize churches had played such a key role in compassion – It didn’t take much studying to discover that churches were where people traditionally looked first for help, whereas they now turn to government, parachurch ministries, and secular charities.
2. I didn’t realize most poverty alleviation efforts perpetuate it – Transactional handouts and occasional events may make volunteers feel good but create dependence and shame.  Walking alongside families as they work through challenges involves more time and effort, but is far more dignifying and effective.
3. I didn’t realize we are all in some form of poverty – A lack of material goods does not define anyone.  Our goal should never be to make the “poor” like us when in God’s economy the (materially) poor are often (spiritually) wealthier than those who are rich.
4. I didn’t realize how significant the challenges faced by the poor can be – Broken relationships and destructive formative practices make it difficult to overcome generational cycles of poverty and complicate efforts to help (progress is rarely linear).
5. I didn’t realize why the Church’s role in helping the poor was so critical – Government cannot provide what struggling families need most, a supportive community where Jesus and not politicians are positioned as Savior.

After leaving my final business consulting client to go full-time with Meet The Need, I was caught off guard in my first few meetings with churches.  It was hard to reconcile the limited resources most churches dedicated to poverty alleviation with the high priority Jesus placed on it, until I discovered that my consulting background in CRM largely explained that disconnect.

It’s Your Turn

Have you had other realizations or revelations from your experience with churches that could provide options and opportunities for reform at this critical time in the history of the Church?

What is life like without a dad in the home?  One fourth of America’s children know that reality all too well.  They are at four times greater risk of poverty and twice as likely to drop out of high school.  Prisons and addiction recovery programs are filled with the fatherless.  A child’s social, emotional, behavioral and academic development hinge largely on the support and guidance of a dad.

Jesus characterized those who do not know His Father similarly – harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Sheep lack direction – they don’t have a lion’s defenses against predators or a salmon’s GPS to find their way home.  Without a Father to serve as Shepherd, we should not be surprised when non-believers fall into the world’s traps, following the prevailing voices in our culture celebrating the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment.  In the (presumed) absence of God, there’s no one to warn them about secularism’s empty, self-centered philosophies and pursuits.  Looking for acceptance, youth gravitate to whatever group is most welcoming, which is often those likewise devoid of a moral compass imbued by the Father.  The fatherless are also easy prey for politicians, corporations and activists who feign concern but do not have their best interests at heart, seeking profit and power.

What they miss out on is a Father who looks on spiritual orphans compassionately, not opportunistically.  They trade in the unconditional love of a perfect Dad for the deceptive lures of temptations that always hide a hook, like the invitation to invent personal “truths” that aren’t actually true.  Moral relativism is the expected outcome of an identity crisis associated with lacking a sense of direction, purpose, and belonging.  Freedom from “house” rules isn’t worth separation from the Father and His family.  Christ-followers have the firm foundation of identity rooted in knowing nothing can separate us from the Father’s love.  True freedom doesn’t come from setting our own standards, but in the security of being children of a King and therefore heirs of His household, not disowned when we violate His rules and endure His punishment.

Jesus provided detailed directions to the Father.  In that same passage about lost sheep, He provided explicit instructions to “workers” to lead the fatherless toward the Lord.  Yet, many Christians in America today do not believe giving out directions is in their job description and many churches fail to equip members with accurate roadmaps.  In fact, many mistakenly feel the appropriate response to lost sheep is anger rather than Jesus’ attitude of compassion.  Of course sheep separated from the identity of their flock and the guidance of a Shepherd will run toward the most enticing voice, soon ensnared and hopeless.  They need help, not judgment.

What Directions Did God Provide?

A common excuse for rejecting God is that He condemns anyone to Hell.  Yet ironically rejection of the Father is that individual’s choice of Hell – voluntary separation from God in this life and the next.  Non-believers opt out, not wanting Him to be their Father or to be part of the family.  Unlike the prodigal son, they have no intention of coming home or leaving the life or fate they have willingly chosen.  Therefore, leading them toward Jesus is no small endeavor, possible only through the tools, resources and incentives the Father has provided:

• Prayer – “…apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
• Holy Spirit – ”…the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15)
• Emptiness – “He has also set eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
• Human Nature – “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
• Conscience – “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation…” (2 Corinthians 7:10)
• Death – “…free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:15)

To combat those powerful forces, Satan mobilizes his army to remove the word “sin” from mankind’s vernacular, just as he attempted in the Garden of Eden.  He then redefines the word “love” to mean “tolerance” of sin rather than the Agape love of our Father.  Christ died for sins and God is love so it is a brilliant strategy to twist truth to paint humans as good and Jesus as unnecessary.  As a result, people who buy Satan’s lies wander aimlessly, processing nearly every decision incorrectly through a filter based on the flawed perception of self-sufficiency as an “adult” rather than humility as a child.

What Directions are Christians Giving Out?

Because relationship with the Father is due north, shepherding lost people toward other destinations is spiritual malpractice.  It’s also a dereliction of discipleship duties to conceal the path to the Father from those we see wandering in the wilderness.

Christians today tend to interpret the “workers” Jesus said were few in Matthew 9:37-38 as pastors and missionaries.  Jesus asks us to pray for more “workers” because there simply aren’t enough pastors and missionaries to reach so many lost sheep.  All churchgoers should be considered (Kingdom) “employees”, trained to disseminate directions to the Father.  However, the high costs associated with Western church growth models incent and enable those “paying” to abdicate shepherding responsibilities to the “paid”.  As long as “church” revolves around buildings, leaders and weekly events, members will feel more like “customers” to attract and retain rather than “workers” to equip and send.  In other words, paying consumers will expect excellent service from paid professionals.  Yet Jesus expects unpaid” churchgoers to be among those active in sharing the Gospel with the fatherless in their neighborhoods and workplaces.

“Church as we know it” in America also influences the messages and methods Christians use to reach lost sheep in their circles of influence.  Rather than discipling “workers” to provide directions straight to the Father, most churches instruct members to steer sheep toward…

• Religion – Through Jesus the veil was torn and all have access to the Father, but countless “Dones” (with church) say the hierarchy and hypocrisy of religion impeded relationship
• Spiritual “Fathers” – The primary ask of churchgoers is to invite friends to hear from pastors or youth group leaders, who often disappoint compared to other “role models”
• Buildings – To simplify evangelism for church consumers, they’re told to share their testimony and give out the physical address of the church for next Sunday’s service
• Experiences – Church should be a holy gathering of those united in worshipping Jesus, but many entertain and cater to non-believers to compensate for their failure to disciple
• Morality – Christians are rightfully accused of expecting the fatherless to obey rules of a household they don’t belong to rather than first leading them toward the Father
• Conformity – The unchurched believe Christianity means conformity to a way of life they don’t envy, not seeing love but division and condemnation of those who don’t live like us
• Fellowship – We emphasize joining a church family more than becoming a child of a loving Father yet they’re already connected to others they find more “accepting” (i.e. with no rules)

The Great Commission is not optional, reserved for paid “workers”.  It’s a mandate for every believer, empowered with the tools and resources the Father gives to all His children to lead harassed and helpless sheep toward His flock (eternally), not necessarily ours (temporarily).

Wanted: More Workers Giving Good Directions

Our culture is losing faith in institutions, particularly churches, putting their trust in self and a shrinking number of close relationships.  Directing non-believers to a church building or a leader was never the intended roadmap to the Father and doesn’t work well in post-Christian America.  Also, decades ago the average American believed in absolute truth, God and Christian values, but now the fatherless know little and want little to do with what they think they know.  That environment requires all hands on deck, calling every Christ-follower to assume responsibility for forming intentional relationships and gently refuting society’s disinformation campaign leading sheep away from the Father.

Equipping churchgoers to give personalized guided tours directly to a loving Father and not just to a local church will require a level discipleship found in few congregations today.  It would redefine “church”, “workers” and “customers” in such a way as to disrupt the lives of millions of comfortable Christians.  It would mean adopting an entirely new approach to fighting the culture war, compelling a ground war of compassion instead of an air war of dropping verbal bombs on fatherless sheep living in a self-centered house of cards.  It would involve a depth of relationships reflecting how much the Good Shepherd loves them, not running away when threats and difficult times come.  It would entail stepping into the darkest crevices of people’s lives and responding to their most challenging questions in order to shine the light of Christ.

It’s Your Turn…

Are there additional guideposts or mile markers missing from the directions Christians are providing, causing a growing number of fatherless sheep to stray further from Jesus?

Part 3 (of 3)

Jesus modeled a framework for understanding the nature and extent of God’s love – as our Father.  The term “love” is misconstrued today, thrown around to justify sin and manipulate behaviors, because it has been detached from its source.  Seeing God as a Father grounds “love” in the foundation of a dad’s relationship with his child.  Our Lord embodies the perfect Father in countless ways.  No matter how badly we mess up, God’s love for His children never diminishes.  Conveying God’s love in that context would also lead more non-believers to Christ, accurately depicting how He feels about us and how we should relate to Him.

Christians and churches bear some responsibility for disconnecting “love” from its biblical roots.  We begin the Lord’s prayer with “Our Father” but compartmentalize His character, not teaching that all aspects fit perfectly within a fatherly framework.  Society could not judge God according to its standards of right and wrong if we debunked perceptions of God’s “intolerance” in the Old Testament, explaining that He’s a loving Father who protects and disciplines His children.  Culture would be less inclined to dismiss Christians as “haters” if we better reflected the Father’s love to the world.  “Atheists” would envy our security if we had more faith, not doubting our Father’s love when things don’t go our way.

How Religion Undermines Relationship

To the extent that religion is a man-made construct, it blocks relationship with the Father.  Throughout history, religions across the globe have replaced God with human beings who serve as spiritual “fathers”.  They relegate deities to various, more distant, positions that dictate the obligations followers owe to them, such as:

• Servants of a benevolent dictator
• Criminals facing a demanding judge
• Workers earning wages from a taskmaster
• Enlightened searching for inner divinity
• Disciples pursuing a glorious spiritual state
• Adherents selecting their preferred god(s)
• Converts forming their own conception of god

Whether abstract or concrete, none of those religious perspectives involve a close relationship with a loving Father.  They either elevate humans, empowering them to determine their eternal fate by their actions, or marginalize god(s) by making their level attainable.  Both scenarios give spiritual “fathers” the latitude to prescribe paths for achieving ultimate glory.  By inserting themselves in between the Father and spiritual “orphans”, religious leaders claim favored status, closer to their deity than other followers.  Assuming a preferred position means everyone else has to go through those spiritual “fathers” to get to their god(s).

That’s precisely what other religions resent most about Christianity.  The concept of direct access to a loving Father eliminates the opportunity for leaders to maintain parental authority over people.  Politicians and theocrats wage campaigns to eradicate Christianity from their borders because Jesus tore a veil (between the Father and His children) that they desperately want to stitch back up.  Therefore, Christians bear the brunt of religious persecution internationally in the form of intolerance and discrimination.  Ironically, Christians are also the ones most often accused of intolerance and oppression by the media in America.  Our culture fears a relationship with the Father because in addition to experiencing His love, being a child also involves rules and accountability.  For non-Christians both here and abroad, keeping God at arms-length means maintaining control – over their own lives and the lives of others.  What they all miss out on is the chance to get to know the consummate Father on a deeply personal level.

How Christians and Churches Often Miss It Too

Christ-followers have no excuse for misunderstanding the relationship God has with His children.  Jesus’ example and emphasis consistently pointed to God’s fatherhood.  He went so far as to say, “do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and He is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9)  That role is reserved solely for the Lord.  Yet in churches and Christian social circles, the word “father” is used frequently either as a religious title or honorary designation.  The implicit presumption is that spiritual “fathers” have more direct line to God for speaking to and hearing from Him.  Accepting a “father” label carries with it assumption of God’s fatherly responsibilities as well as the scrutiny due anyone who aspires to such heights.  Failure to live out the Father’s love will reflect poorly on Him.

In fact, the inability of Christians who have been put on a pedestal to live up to that billing has enabled society to play fast and loose with the word “love”.  When role models for the Father’s love are not loving, society dismisses God’s love as well.  When pastors do not adequately connect God’s love to that of a Father, churchgoers who never wonder about their dad’s (unconditional) love often question the heavenly Father’s (Agape) love when things go wrong.  They do not grasp and therefore do not convey the concept of God as a perfect Father.  God is love, so love without God is not truly love.  He is the gold standard.  And “whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)  If many Christians don’t recognize the fatherly nature of God and His love, what chance do non-believers have?

No other description of who God is captures the full extent of God’s character.  His love and justice seem on opposite ends of a spectrum until they convene around His fatherhood.  Ask most Christians to describe God and their relationship with Him – you’re likely to hear “almighty”, “omniscient” and “follower”, “worshipper”.  All of those carry some truth, but anything other than Father” and “child” inserts a wedge between God and His children.  Christian leaders typically speak in more general terms about God’s love so churchgoers miss its fatherly context.  We’re left to wonder whether the lack of emphasis on God’s fatherhood relates at all to the reasons why other religions add access layers between mankind and God.

Overplaying hierarchy within churches rather than empowering disciples encourages approaching “fathers” rather than the “Father” for guidance.  Discipleship passes down responsibility to individuals to study, learn and teach others about Jesus.  Recognition that all Christians regardless of the religious label thrust upon them are not “fathers” but children of the one true Father is a more biblical church growth model.  Jesus bucked attempts by the religious establishment to erect walls impeding direct relationships with His Father.  He continues to resist efforts to make church about pastors, buildings and a weekly event – “pray, pay and stay out of the way”.  Like the Father in the prodigal son parable, Jesus welcomed with open arms all who bypassed relational roadblocks and ran straight to Him, like little children.

Churches focusing too heavily on growing congregations and not disciples divert attention away from the Father.  They can inadvertently encourage members to make the church, pastor or fellowship their first love.  The first love for most children is a dad and mom.  When we are born, dad is our protector and provider, exactly what God is as our Father when we are reborn.  Revelation 2 warned the Church at Ephesus and churches today to put nothing or no one between the “first love” of a Father and His children.

Reestablishing God’s Love as the Gold Standard

Church is culture’s only defense, but we’ve let our guard down.  It’s clear to most pastors and ministry leaders, particularly those who work with troubled youth, that fatherhood determines the course of culture.  Crime, poverty and education are highly correlated to the presence and involvement of dads.  Churches have an opportunity to introduce communities filled with the fatherless (who therefore have no idea what true love looks like) to the most loving Father they could ever have.  Yet many don’t speak or teach about God in those terms, nor do they actively demonstrate the Father’s love to a waiting, watching world.

Understanding, acting out and presenting God as a loving Father would change nearly every aspect of how we “do” church in America today…

1. TEACHING – Explain all facets of God’s character and actions, both in people’s lives and in Scripture, in terms of the fatherly framework Jesus modeled for viewing our relationship with Him.  Give all glory to the Father, refusing to accept parental status.
2. MERCY – Reflect the love of our Father in how He would manage His house, like accountability for obedience but grace for repentance.  Follow the Father’s lead outside the church as well, choosing love over condemnation and mercy over self-righteousness.
3. HOPE – Churches prove they worship a loving Father, the only hope for spiritual orphans and a fraying social fabric, when they participate in bringing His Kingdom to earth as the Lord’s prayer prescribes (e.g. offering daily bread, forgiveness, and delivery from evil).
4. COMPASSION – Act as only a Father would, who loves His children even when no one else will, no matter how unattractive or impoverished they may be.  Look past exteriors to show those who feel unworthy of love that our Father would welcome them home.
5. FAITH – Speak out as boldly for our Father as we would for our dad if he were being maligned.  What society hears from Christians today is not children who love a Father, but a special interest group defending its morals, churches, religion, rights and privileges.
6. MISSION – We fulfill our identity as the Father’s children by making disciples through His Holy Spirit.  Bringing people into life-changing relationships with our Father is how we carry on the family’s generations and work, our Great Calling and Great Commission.
7. UNITY – We bond as sons and daugthers of the same Father, not just as members of the same church or life group.  Cliques form within churches and across the body of Christ because leaders don’t emphasize enough that God is a Father and we are all His children.

Until churches shift the paradigm – embracing and conveying God as a Father – the world will continue to reject His love in favor of “loves” of their own conception and convenience.

It’s Your Turn…

Please share other ideas for how churches can help steer society back toward the concept of God as Father to help them better understand His love…

Part 2 (of 3)

Any plot to eradicate Christianity must involve a single, crucial step.  Restricting freedom of worship won’t work.  Persecution always backfires.  Exerting pressure may weed out cultural Christians but strengthens the resolve of true disciples.  All that’s needed is to redefine “love”.  Simply shift social consciousness from the word’s source and foundation – the unconditional love of our heavenly Father.  Associate sharing the Gospel with “imposing” beliefs.  Equate moral standards with intolerance.  Attribute natural disasters and childhood cancer to God.  Lavish praise on heroes for cleaning up the mess – disaster relief and miraculous healings.  Brand the exclusivity of Jesus bigotry.  Label speaking His name in public (spiritual) harassment   Credit secular activists with rescuing innocent victims from Christian “extremists”.

Any counter offensive must involve a return of the word to its rightful owner – and repentance for enabling its abduction.  However, the world is not likely to relinquish its hold on a term with such tremendous power.  In the name of love, any lifestyle or personal choice is shielded from criticism.  Politicians purchase votes.  Media condemns non-conformance.  Corporations generate profits.  Thankfully, those powers are no match for Jesus, who reassures us, “…take heart! I have overcome the world.”  And it was Jesus who modeled a framework for understanding the nature and context of love in its intended, purest form – that of a perfect Father.  Failure to follow our Savior’s lead, to understand and convey that image of His Father’s character, has led to rampant misconceptions of who God – and what love – is.

The Essence and Entirety of the Father’s Character

Anyone who comes to Christ becomes a child of the ultimate Father.  Viewing God’s love in light of how a fantastic dad loves his children reminds us that nothing can separate us from His love.  Adults who had a good dad look back in their childhoods and know he loved them even when he gave them the freedom to fail, when he occasionally let them suffer consequences of mistakes, or when he disciplined them for doing wrong.  We retrospectively judge dads based on how they treated us, how they made us feel, how much time they spent with us, and how they helped us grow up – not what they did or didn’t give us.  Yet many avowed atheists rejected Christianity and former Christians “deconstructed” because God didn’t do something they wanted or allowed them to endure hardship when they were younger.  If we realized God is a loving Father, we wouldn’t be so quick to discount or dismiss Him when things don’t go our way.  Instead, we would live more like a faithful child, thankful for the Father’s provision and guidance through good times and bad.

Every aspect of God’s character is contained within the framework of God as our loving Father.  We understand that all His attributes fall under the umbrella of love only when we see Him as a Father.  Many argue that God is not just a God of love, but also of holiness and justice – viewing each component as independent.  Their point is that accepting the Bible’s contention that “God is love” conveniently ignores His intolerance of sin to appease a society demanding tolerance.  However, when viewed through the prism of fatherhood, we acquiesce to the truth of Scripture – that God’s patience, goodness and mercy as well as His justice, anger and discipline are entirely wrapped up in His role as a loving Father.  Yes, He is fiercely protective of His children – but isn’t that true of any great dad?  Yes, He punishes his children when they disobey – but isn’t that true of any great dad?  Yet non-believers shun God and pastors focus on the New Testament because they do not associate God’s “intolerant” actions in the Old Testament with fatherly inclinations.  They are more accepting of Jesus than His Father, not grasping that They are One, meaning Jesus is completely consistent with every facet of His Father’s nature – all of which are encapsulated in His love.  We can’t forget that it was the Father who sent His Son Jesus to rescue His children.

An important disclaimer is not to view God through the lens of our earthly dads.  Some of us had difficult experiences with our dads that cloud our image of a flawless Father.  Dads are not fair representations of who God is or role models for how God should be.  His ways are not our ways.  The Lord operates in a realm we cannot fathom so we cannot project onto God our feelings, expectations or standards related to our dads.  How can we pass judgment on God for His decisions when we can’t comprehend His omniscient and omnipotent perspective?  His understanding of what needs to happen for the most good to be done for the most people far exceeds our own.  What we do so imperfectly and temporally as dads for the good of our kids, the Lord does perfectly and eternally on a global scale for all His children.

The Many Ways We’re Children of a Heavenly Father

Correlating God’s love to that of an amazing dad explains and illuminates so much about how the Lord feels about us and how we should relate to Him.  God is fatherly in his approach toward those who follow His Son’s lead of being a faithful child.  Kids with great dads, like children of a heavenly Father, experience unconditional love, confident in the knowledge that they…

1. …have a special place in the family (1 Peter 2:9) – A child from different household doesn’t call a friend’s parent “dad”. Youth today search aimlessly for a sense of belonging, finding acceptance from other spiritual orphans rather than in the waiting arms of a Father.
2. …can always come home (Luke 15:17-24) – Jesus tells the prodigal son parable to reassure us that no matter how badly we mess up, it’s never too late to repent and return to the Father with full privileges as His child.
3. …are part of something far bigger than themselves (1 Corinthians 12:12-27) – God loves the whole world, but only Christians have dual citizenship in a democracy and a Kingdom, brothers and sisters of the same Father.
4. …are heirs (Romans 8:17) – Children inherit a dad’s wealth and our Father is a King who owns the cattle on 1,000 hills so all He has is ours, including eternal life.
5. …understand where they came from (Genesis 1:27) – Most of us know who our dad is, just as we all inherently know who created us because we carry God’s image, even “atheists”.
6. …are completely dependent (Matthew 18:3) – Infants are helpless and Scripture tells us we must enter the Kingdom as little children of our Father, humble and poor in spirit.  Governments and businesses try to divert that dependence for power and profit.
7. …never want to disappoint their dad (Matthew 25:21) – The worst words a dutiful son can ever hear from dad are “I’m disappointed in you” as opposed to the Father’s words “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
8. …want to make dad proud (Isaiah 49:8) – Some grown-ups still seek approval from a dad they could never please whereas God’s acceptance hinges simply on restoration of our broken relationship with the Father through His Son Jesus.
9. …appreciate advice from dad (2 Timothy 3:16) – Since God is our Father, the Bible is His words of wisdom spoken directly to you as His child, bringing back fond memories of a life-changing conversation with dad when you were young.
10. …have rules to follow (Matthew 22:37-38) – At someone’s house, it’s “their roof, their rules”.  We’re living in a world God created so if we’re legitimate children then we are subject to His laws, including Jesus’ example and commandment to love His Father.
11. …may disobey but can be forgiven (Romans 8:32-39) – Nothing can separate us from the love of our Father just as breaking a dad’s rules does not sever that relationship.
12. …will face discipline (Proverbs 3:12) – A loving dad punishes to teach valuable lessons, not as retribution, which is the same spirit in which our Father corrects His children.
13. …will be provided for (Acts 14:17) – Consider replacing the distant “God as Owner, you as steward” generosity mandate with a loving “God as Father, you as child” paradigm.
14. …can implicitly trust dad (Proverbs 3:5-6) – Knowing a caring dad would never intentionally harm his children illustrates how our Father ultimately wants what’s best for us regardless of our current circumstances.
15. …can count on dad to always be there (1 Corinthians 6:19) – Picture the Holy Spirit as a houseguest we often rudely ignore.  If you had a devoted dad during your childhood and he is your houseguest, could you imagine hardly spending any time with him?
16. …will get bailed out if they’re in real trouble (Luke 1:67-79) – A dad rescues his child from life-threatening situations just as our Father sacrificed to save us from ourselves.
17. …occupy a subordinate place in the pecking order (John 3:30) – Childlike faith in a dad looks up to him with a reverence that everyone should direct toward their Holy Father.
18. …imitate their dad (John 15:4) – As we walk in the footsteps of our dads, even more so should we abide in the loving guidance of our Father and follow the path of His Son.
19. …love what dad loves (John 13:34-35) – Children share dad’s interests.  Discipleship reveals our Father’s interests, like serving the poor and urging reconciliation with Him.
20. …teach others what dad taught them (Matthew 28:18-20) – We pass along lessons learned from dad and also have an opportunity to lead others toward our eternal Father.
21. …defend the family’s honor and good name (1 Peter 3:15) – A child gets upset when people speak ill of dad, so when non-believers disparage God we need to be prepared to show how He is a wonderful Father.
22. …look forward to seeing dad (Philippians 1:21-23) – The excitement about dad getting home after a long trip should reflect how we feel about one day seeing our Father in Heaven.

We may not have a solid relationship with our dads – and possibly never will.  If we don’t have a relationship with our heavenly Father during this life, we can be certain we will not have one with Him after our death.  However, if we understand our intended role as God’s children, we will see Him in His true, fatherly light and follow Him faithfully now and forever.

It’s Your Turn…

In the next (and final) post in this series, we’ll unpack how Christians and churches have contributed to the world’s redefinitions of “love” by not adequately couching and conveying God’s love as that of a Father.  Please share any additional thoughts about how Christians could steer society back toward a Father whose love far surpasses any lesser “loves” we may pursue.

Part 1 (of 3)

God is love.  Because love is often misunderstood, so is God.  There are powerful incentives on this side of heaven for misinterpreting and miscommunicating the intended meaning of “love”.  Decoupling the word from its source removes constraints around the most compelling concept God ever designed.  Usurping ownership of “love” and the right to redefine it frees mankind to leverage the ultimate others-centered term for self-centered purposes.  In the name of “love” (and often in the name of “god”), governments manipulate and control entire populations.  Leaders compel conformance by conspiring with media to turn public opinion against those not “loving” enough to comply with edicts deemed to be in the nation’s “best interest”.  With no reference point back to its Originator, activists invoke their conceptions of “love” to move culture in directions that suit their personal interests.  For example, our society today conflates love with tolerance, disingenuously applauding others for the passionate pursuit of pleasure to justify their own indulgence.

Those who don’t know Jesus as Savior struggle to grasp love’s true meaning because Jesus is its greatest ambassador and example.  Some look elsewhere for role models, deferring to whatever celebrities, teachers and politicians consider “loving” (as if love were relativistic and not an absolute).  Others wonder, “how could a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?”, reflecting a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and who humans are.  Questioning God’s goodness and presuming man’s goodness implies love came from us and not Him.  Likewise, dig deep into an avowed atheist’s or agnostic’s past and you’re apt to find they once believed in God but rejected Him out of disappointment that (at some point) He didn’t do what they wanted or did something they didn’t want.  In other words, they thought they knew God but didn’t have a proper frame of reference for understanding His love.  Since God is love, it turns out they didn’t know Him at all.

Even in some Christian circles, God’s love has been taken out of its biblical context, calling into question how well many believers actually know God…

• A recent study found that 60% of professed “born-again” Christians between 18 and 39 no longer believe a loving God would provide only one path to eternal life
• A pervasive message dominating Christian media airwaves and American pulpits rewrites John 3:16 to say God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to give us an abundant, fulfilling life
• A prevailing view of “faith” today is a firm belief that God’s love guarantees a particular outcome; however, Jesus modeled expressing a preference yet deferring to the Lord’s will no matter what it entails
• Many well-known pastors have succumbed to social pressure, deemphasizing the Old Testament for fear God wasn’t politically correct enough then for today’s PC culture
• We frequently speak of how “blessed” (code for loved) people are based on how many good things happen to them
• Contemporary Christian songs seem to require somewhere in the lyrics a reference to how our (loving) God will rescue us in this life from “storms”, “valleys” or “chains”

Perhaps churchgoers have heard popular passages about love so many times they’ve become desensitized, losing sight of the full context of God’s love.  Some facets of His character are less palatable to consumers, but every dimension is rooted and grounded in His love.  Common misapplications of verses like Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11 imply a linkage between God’s love and expectations that He will give us our heart’s desires and keep us from harm.  But His love isn’t diminished when the Lord does whatever is necessary (from His eternal, omniscient perspective) to bring us closer to Him and lead people to Jesus.  Nor was Christ’s love for His disciples compromised when they suffered and died martyr’s deaths.

The Old Testament prophet Malachi stressed that Jesus was coming because so few on earth, even in Israel, knew who God was.  The next book in the Bible, Matthew, set that record straight – leaving no doubt that every aspect of God’s nature, encapsulated in Jesus, is about love.  Today, as the world’s definitions of love infiltrate churches and many Christians lose touch with who God is, the day of the Lord’s next and final intervention (the return of Jesus), draws nearer.  Before that second advent, we pray as many people as possible come to know the love of Jesus intimately.  Toward that end, believers and non-believers alike need a framework for better understanding and communicating about God’s love to stem the tide of secularization in our nation.  The Old and New Testaments repeatedly give us that framework, but somehow many of us didn’t get the memo.  As result, some have left the faith while others have been led astray within the faith.

Couching Love in the Context Jesus Modeled

As a disclaimer and preface, no example or picture of God’s love can enable us to comprehend or live out the Great Commandment except by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Having said that, the Holy Spirit implores us to experience that love by seeing God as Jesus saw Him – as a Father.  Not only that, but the Spirit urges us to see ourselves as our Father sees us – as His children.  The spiritual identity crisis faced by all human beings can only be resolved by becoming a child of an infallible, infinitely loving Father.  That transformative sense of belonging completely alters how we treat others, how we react to circumstances, how we respond to opportunities, and how we make difficult decisions.

Jesus showed us what it means to live with absolute assurance that His Father is almighty God, the maker of Heaven and earth.  Jesus modeled what we should emulate – a love commensurate with a level of faith only possible in a Father who can be completely trusted because He is unaffected by worldly worries, fears and temptations.  In every way, Jesus was clearly His Father’s Son – in prioritizing prayer above all else to spend time with His Father, in His imitation of all facets of His Father’s character, and in reflecting His Father’s mercy on all those humble enough to identify as a child (rather than a father figure).  To remove any doubt, Jesus almost always referred to God as His Father and welcomed being called His Son.  He was unflinchingly secure in His identity, boasting only in His Father and position as His Child.  Jesus went so far as to issue a dire warning to follow His lead – “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 18:3)

Picturing God as He truly is (our Father) and us as we truly are (His children) serves as guardrails, inhibiting misuse of the term “love” and keeping worldly definitions from invading the Church’s vernacular.  It also gives Christians a context for sharing about God’s love that will resonate with non-believers.  We might as well be speaking Greek trying to explain the difference between Agape (unconditional), Eros (sexual) and Phileo (brotherly) forms of love.  However, if non-believers consider the lengths an exceptional dad would go to to defend and protect his children, the inextricable linkage between our Father and Agape love would become imminently clear.  It was that purest form of (fatherly) love, not cruelty (as many non-Christians assume), that led God repeatedly to discipline Israel and rebuff its enemies.  In addition, if the world saw God as a Father who loves us enough to pay the highest price to spend eternity with Him, they would be less inclined to dismiss Him as distant or callous for “allowing” disease and disasters.  Without that fatherly frame of reference, modern society is applying untethered definitions of “love” to rationalize repudiating Christianity by labeling God as intolerant or harsh by their standards.

Until people know Jesus as Savior and God as Father, they remain spiritual orphans.  An earthly dad cannot substitute for a heavenly Father.  Feeble attempts to fill the “Father-shaped hole” end in what we’re witnessing today – rising rates of drug addiction, anti-depressant usage and suicide.  America’s fastest growing religion, Selfism, inflates a fragile identity bubble around our nation’s youth that eventually pops because conditional self-love can never replace the unconditional love of a Father.  Statistics estimate 85% of incarcerated youth come from fatherless homes.  My fear is a larger percentage of Fatherless youth are imprisoned in sin and hopelessness.  Personally, when my mom chose alcohol and prescription drugs over her children when I was 13, I counted on my dad to save the day only to realize I’d stepped “out of the frying pan and into the fire”.  But divine providence soon led me to a Father who would never let me down and the rest – praise the Lord – is history.

It’s Your Turn…

In the next post we’ll delve into the many ways seeing God as our Father sheds light on the nature and depth of His love.  Please share how adopting a Father/child perspective has impacted your relationship with the Lord and helped you share Christ with others.

Christians prove they personally know the one true God only when they undergo a transformation reflecting that life-altering, seemingly unimaginable possibility.  Likewise, churches persuade non-believers that they know the infinite Creator only when they reflect that miraculous reality by taking an “otherworldly” approach to conducting their affairs.

Unchurched observers aren’t convinced anything supernatural is going on inside of churches whose principles and practices look much like what people see within their personal social circles and workplaces.  The foundations for the belief systems of churches (Spirit) and the world (flesh) are diametrically opposed, so when efforts to attract and accommodate non-believers blur those lines, society doubts our connection to the Divine.

It’s even conceivable that atheists secretly or subconsciously once wished churches operated atypically to provide a ray of hope, an alternative to the emptiness of a life about power, position and possessions.  Attempts to conform church to cultural norms has dissuaded many from seeking answers there because they ironically, inadvertently became too indistinguishable to clearly convey His image.  According to surveys, the primary difference the unchurched notice between Christian and secular organizations is in their criticism of culture.  Conformance nor criticism provide the path to standing out from the crowd in ways that prove we worship the one true Lord and Savior.

Society Would Believe Churches Worship the Creator If…

Our nation would stop drifting from the Lord and gravitate toward Christ if churches had less in common with secular organizations that people encounter every day.  Persuading the world that churches know the promised Messiah who offers forgiveness, reconciliation and salvation would require looking as different as Jesus did.  For example…

1. If the love churchgoers had for one another exceeded what people saw anywhere else – Scripture says people will recognize Jesus’ disciples by the love they share.  Yes, prevailing definitions of “love” diminish society’s ability to distinguish our love from theirs, but church splits and factions over tradition, leadership, doctrine and even vaccines are apparent to those outside our “4 walls”.
2. If the metrics churches used to measure success looked nothing like those businesses track – Revenues, headcount and footprint are corporate terms that unfortunately correspond to the primary ways pastors gauge progress – nickels, noses and (multi) sites.  Income, employment and expansion should be byproducts of discipleship, evangelism and compassion – not worldly goals that fuel cynicism about the Church.
3. If church planters didn’t follow the typical entrepreneurial lifecycle – Companies begin with a mission and engage the community to understand local needs.  That outward focus leads to growth, which spurs a transition to managing and retaining those customers.  Once the entrepreneur has something to lose, turning attention inward can take their eyes off the initial mission, evolving needs, and community engagement.  Sound familiar?
4. If church leaders stopped treating members like customers – Equipping and multiplying disciples is a longer yet far more certain and biblical path to church growth.  Becoming and making disciples is also more time-consuming than busy, cultural Christians are willing to endure.  So churches invest the vast majority of their resources into providing what Americans enjoy – exciting, educational yet not too challenging “fast food” experiences.
5. If churches didn’t outsource critical functions like compassion to government, charities and ministries – When corporations outsource manufacturing or customer service overseas to underpaid workers in undemocratic nations it angers Americans concerned about jobs and justice.  Americans also notice that churches have outsourced costly compassion to other organizations for similar reasons – to focus on more engaging, lucrative activities.
6. If denominations were more united than the world around them – Churches should be an oasis, offering a respite from this highly divisive period in our nation’s history.  If our God were big enough to overshadow our stark differences, non-believers would certainly take notice.  If churches collaborated frequently to move the needle on real social issues (e.g. grade level literacy), they would bridge the sacred/secular divide that defines our culture.
7. If churches were less political than today’s average citizen or corporation – Most churches find themselves on either end of the Politically Correct or Politically Incorrect spectrum…rarely in the middle.  Both extremes repel large swaths of people, providing progressives with ample examples of churches that arrogantly condemn and conservatives with ammo against churches that cave to convention.
8. If churches were more forthright than post-modern society about the depravity of all humans, including members – The culture war raging in our nation is centered around one fundamental disagreement…whether human nature is inherently good or bad.  Media drives home the message that every individual is a demi-god while mocking Christians for presumably thinking they’re better than everyone else.
9. If Christians presented absolute truth with greater abandon than our relativistic culture – Churches can be just as guilty of “living my own truth” when they are selective about what they teach from God’s Word.  Scripture doesn’t leave a tremendous amount of room for omission or interpretation, yet most pastors tend to underemphasize Jesus’ less palatable commands like serving the poor, making disciples, and truly repenting of sin.
10. If churches were more welcoming but less accommodating than the average social club – Country clubs are exclusive, but then go over the top to cater to those who make the cut.  Places of worship should be holy, designed for those who worship Jesus, and should rally the congregation to meet the needs of other members.  However, churches must be demanding, not offering “cheap grace” (simply attending, joining, and tithing), but challenging members to bear the costs of discipleship rather than outsourcing those responsibilities to pastors.
11. If churches trusted God enough not to plan and program as meticulously as businesses – Many of the Nones and Dones once attended church regularly but are firm in their resolve never to return because they see it as no different than any other human institution.  They waited for years to witness the inexplicable but instead discovered only carefully scripted choreography of music, sermons and programming behind the curtain.
12. If we were less anxious than society to return to “normal” post-pandemic – A world clamoring for safety and security watched to see how churches and Christians responded to adversity.  The Church’s impact, influence, growth and public perception were suffering before COVID-19, so society believes it must be desperation to avoid bankruptcy (much like retailers) driving them to want to get back to a “business as usual” that wasn’t working.
13. If churches were less transactional than our promotional, short attention span culture – Events, commercials, sound bites and Tweets resonate with Americans.  In an attempt to navigate society’s attention deficit, we’ve not only compacted worship services but church activities and outreach as well.  Since poverty is about broken relationships, our seasonal community service events actually do more harm than good, producing dependency, cynicism and shame in those unable to make ends meet.
14. If churches did a better job than other organizations of responsibly utilizing their capacity – Investors and consumers reward companies for maximizing utilization of their facilities.  Yet churches possess a tremendous amount of square footage that sits largely idle most days of the week.  That waste of space which could be leveraged to serve and engage the community year-round is akin to a wealthy family who rarely visits a second home.
15. If church leaders and business leaders took a less self-interested view of one another – Many walk away from church with a bad taste in their mouths due to underutilization of their skills.  They hoped to make a significant impact in the lives of others yet felt taken advantage of doing “church chores” beneath their capabilities.  Rather than equipping members for Kingdom work in their circles of influence, members were encouraged to abdicate ministry roles by inviting friends to come to church to hear from “professionals”.

The body of Christ should bear little resemblance to man-made constructs.  Our philosophies, purposes and priorities should be radically transformed because an omniscient, omnipotent God is guiding our every move.  To the naked eye, it’s hard to believe pews are filled with people possessed with power from an indwelling Holy Spirit if we operate much like for-profit organizations.  We’re responsible for miscommunicating the truth of who God is if we compromise to conform to the world’s image rather than His.

It’s Your Turn

How can churches offer a shining alternative to culture by differentiating in ways that reflect the truth about the love and grace of almighty God?

Christians anxiously await the return of Jesus.  But none want to hasten the next advent by repeating what prompted the Lord’s first two earth-shattering interventions.  Malachi, the book immediately preceding the New Testament, reveals that it was mankind’s ignorance of who God is that led to Christ’s first advent.  Jesus cleared up the confusion that had gradually pervaded all of humanity since the flood, even among God’s chosen people, about His true nature.

No one knows the Lord’s timing but seeing how rapidly our world is turning from Him, it would not be surprising if the second coming happens on our watch.  If so and if history is any guide, then many of those who profess to know Jesus intimately will discover they have been either misrepresenting or misunderstanding who He is.

Although non-believers don’t worship Jesus, they observe Christians and churches to see if our actions and behaviors align with what they have heard of Jesus and what they imagine an infinite Creator would be like.  Even avowed atheists and agnostics have a conception of who God, if He existed, would be.  Many rejected Christianity at least in part because their conclusion (based on our misalignment with their expectations) is that we must not know God.

If There Really Were a God, Then…

Persuading the world that Jesus is Lord is largely contingent on Christians living as if we truly believed God is as loving, omniscient, omnipotent, and holy as non-believers would envision Him to be.

1. If there really were a God, His interests would supersede ours – The will of a God capable of speaking the universe into existence would be much more important than the desires of those who follow Him.  Our indebtedness to a God so loving that He forgives all our offenses by paying our penalty Himself would be so overwhelming that we would pursue only His glory, not our own.  Instead, studies show non-believers don’t feel Christians are less self-interested than their non-Christian neighbors and coworkers.
2. If there really were a God, we would seek to please Him at all costs – Our thankfulness for the generosity of an unconditionally loving Savior would convince Christians to forego creature comforts to serve Him and sacrifice popularity to lead people toward Him.  However, churchgoers are generally reserved about vocalizing their beliefs in social and professional settings, careful not to offend anyone, content to be kind and well-liked by only bringing up “religion” if someone asks.
3. If there really were a God, Heaven and Hell, we would be active in sharing our faith – Ironically, although our culture say it is wrong to push personal faith on others, the fact that few Christians do convinces them we don’t actually buy what we’re (not) selling.  If we fully grasped the gravity of eternal life or damnation, it would heighten our sense of urgency to share the Gospel, not just our views on politics and morality, with friends and family.
4. If there really were a God, He would be perfect but merciful toward those who aren’t – A holy, almighty God would have a standard of performance and perfection that humans could not possibly attain.  Non-Christians cannot fathom how an omniscient God who sees the whole person, not just their sin, could be as judgmental as many of His followers appear to be.  And if Jesus had no sin, they know we have even less reason to be judgmental.  So they assume there is no God, and therefore no standard against which to disprove their presumed “goodness”, obviating their need for Jesus.
5. If there really were a God, Christians would love everyone, including one another – Existence of an everlasting God would mean humans have an everlasting soul.  Non-Christians wonder why Christ-followers focus so much on outward words and actions when they preach that those who don’t know Jesus are (inwardly) lost souls made in God’s image.  Even more so, they watch the body of Christ divide over what appears to be petty disagreements as if our God wasn’t big enough to be worth uniting around a common mission.
6. If there really were a God, we would know more about His Word – If the Bible were truly words spoken by the Creator directly to us (which it is) then how can Christians know so few Bible verses, read it so infrequently, study it so casually, and be unable to adeptly defend its authenticity?  Our biblical illiteracy has caused countless people to doubt our faith and turn elsewhere (e.g. to professors, politicians and the Internet) for “truth”.
7. If there really were a God, Christians would cling relentlessly to their beliefs – Non-believers enjoy tempting Christians to join the crowd in doing wrong, hoping we’ll give in, but secretly they admire us and are attracted to Christianity when we refuse to relent.  When Christians change their viewpoints, adopt worldly perspectives and compromise biblical truths, society breathes a sigh of relief, now having validation that the beliefs we once held must not have been true.
8. If there really were a God, He would not adapt to suit our preferences – Although modern society says Christianity has failed to keep up with the times, deep down non-believers know that a God powerful enough to form the cosmos would not evolve with the vagaries of culture.  So when they see Christians and churches influenced by culture more than they influence culture, it doesn’t pull them toward faith but pushes them away.
9. If there really were a God, He would care deeply about poverty and justice – Although non-Christians deny that Jesus was God, nearly all agree that He was caring and compassionate.  They also question whether there can be a loving God if so many bad things happen to “good” people.  A God they would consider worshipping would have a keen sense of fairness and heart for those less fortunate.  They see those qualities in Jesus but not always in Christians, who too often fail to live and love like Him.
10. If there really were a God, we would trust Him for our provision – Christians claim the Lord of all has a plan for our lives and far greater insight about the future.  Yet when challenges like a pandemic come, society sees most take matters into their own hands, choosing self-preservation over self-sacrifice for others.  We cite Scripture promising the Lord will give us all we need in this life and hope for the next one, but non-believers dismiss our faith when Christians insert their own plans in place of God’s.

None of those principles are about conforming to culture’s expectations of who God should be but aligning ourselves with the Lord’s expectations of His children.  What we say and do as Christians reflect and exhibit characteristics of God that are either true or not true of Him.  If we do not live in accordance with who God truly is, which Jesus modeled in the flesh, then we prove we do not actually know God and inhibit others from coming to know Him as well.

It’s Your Turn

Which of those 10 do you find most challenging?  How have contemporary church growth models contributed to the growing perception in America that God must not be real if most Christians are so casual about their faith? (the subject of our next blog post)

Scripture points to a pattern of world-changing interventions whenever humanity arrives at a seemingly inevitable, yet intolerable destination – that of no longer knowing, except for a remnant, who God is.  Genesis 6 says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time…but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”  We all know what happened next.

Eventually the world once again reached the point where nearly everyone was worshipping false gods and idols.  Even God’s chosen people had adopted a distorted image of Him, despite countless demonstrations of His character throughout their history.  Malachi, the final book of the Old Testament and thought to be one of the last written before Jesus’ arrival, portrays Israel as confused and misguided…

• “’I have loved you’, says the Lord.  But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’” (Malachi 1:2)
• “’If I am a father, where is the honor due me?  If I am a master, where is the respect due me?’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Malachi 1:6)
• “It is you priests who show contempt for my name.  But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’” (Malachi 1:6)
• “You have wearied the Lord with your words.  ‘How have we wearied him?’ you ask.“ (Malachi 2:17)

Malachi (3:1) prophesied what the Lord’s next extraordinary intervention would be in response to such utter confusion about who God is.  “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come.”  By God’s grace, rather than save only a remnant, He chose to make Himself fully known to the world and offer redemption to all mankind.  God in His infinite mercy brought torrents of love rather than water at the incarnation.  Through Jesus, the Father left no room for doubt about exactly who He is.  “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.” (John 1:18)

Yet like the flood, our Father’s intent to clear up any misconceptions about His character still promised to be a demanding, painful process.  “But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.  He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.” (Malachi 3:2-3)  Jesus was unreserved in His criticism of the Pharisees who were largely responsible for leading His people astray.  Jesus refuted their self-serving teachings at every turn and put His righteous anger on full display over their misrepresentation of His Father, designed to elevate themselves and condemn others.

Ironically it was often those who the religious leaders condemned most harshly that wound up being the remnant Jesus preserved during God’s second grand intervention.  Malachi (3:16-18) prophesied, “A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.  ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession.  I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.  And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.’”  Jesus fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy by confirming, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)

Today, we are left to wonder whether humanity is edging closer to the precipice where once again only a remnant of authentic disciples truly know who God is and recognize how high His expectations are of Christ-followers.  If so, then perhaps the Lord’s next (and final) earth-shattering intervention, the return of Jesus, is not as far off as some imagine.  False religions are proliferating across the globe.  Atheism and agnosticism are on the rise in America and other developed, “educated” nations where faith has turned to human intellect and science.  Cultural Christians no longer subscribe to a holistic picture of God’s character and expectations because it conflicts with their personal view of who God should be and their preferred level of commitment to living out their beliefs.  Most churches fear that challenging “consumers” with the unabridged truth of who God is and the actual costs of following Jesus would send them running for the exits.  Through books, videos and trainings, America then exports its attractional church growth models, teaching pastors how to build viable institutions, not sold-out disciples.

Only the Father knows His timetable, but if history is any guide then we can be certain Jesus’ next advent will once again be difficult for many churchgoers and leaders.  Like the Pharisees, many pastors withhold the “key to knowledge”, a full depiction of God’s demands for repentance, discipleship, accountability, surrender, sanctification and compassion.  Malachi (2:7) recorded God’s disappointment with teachers who selectively conceal truths – “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.  But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble.”  In an effort to appease “customers”, churches tend to emphasize God’s love but not His hatred of sin, offering “cheap grace” without expectation of transformation.  According to Malachi (2:17), priests in his day had wearied the Lord “by saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them.’”  When churches today point out sin in society yet do not confront sin within the body, it wearies the Lord and fuels the popular notion that Christians are hypocrites.  That label is accurate to the extent believers choose not to accept what they do not like about God or only obey His commands that suit their lifestyles.

It’s Your Turn

Do you see the connection between the last book in the Old Testament and the first books in the New Testament – Malachi’s disappointment that God’s chosen people no longer knew who He was, and Jesus’ appearance to clear up any misunderstanding?  As our world drifts further from God every year, the day is approaching when Jesus will reappear to set the record straight about His identity and to rescue the remnant of authentic disciples who persevere until that time.

The escalating clash of sacred and secular in America is not only testing the authenticity of Christians, but exposing the logical fallacies of trying to construct a world without God.  As the voices of atheists and agnostics slowly begin to prevail, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the irreconcilable inconsistencies of secular humanism.  A victory in media’s campaign against Christianity will reveal for all eyes to see the entropy that ensues when we follow “one nation without God” to its logical conclusions.  Failure risks revival, a return to Jesus, when that grand experiment culminates in chaos – alienating and cannibalizing its own as the rights of one interest group tramples those of others it had originally intended to advance.

The Futility of Life Without the Lord

Expunging any vestige of Christian influence hinges largely on convincing America’s youth that secularism’s guiding principles are superior to those espoused throughout most of our nation’s history.  Indoctrinating youth also requires concealing as long as possible the inherent contradictions and inevitable pitfalls of a godless society:

Hypocrisy of…Trusting Science

Science reportedly obviates the need for belief in God, yet reliance on science ceases when it conflicts with other secular objectives, like authorization for immorality.

• Despite physician assessments at birth and the presence of reproductive organs, a person’s gender today is officially whatever “they” declare it to be
• Despite heartbeats and brainwaves, infants in the womb are not considered human beings so that inconvenient lives can be taken

Hypocrisy of…Professing Tolerance

Freedom from the shackles of religion and its public expression is the ultimate goal, yet non-Christians relentlessly evangelize Selfism, a man-deifying “religion” with a strict moral code.

• Believers no longer have the freedom to profess biblical viewpoints in conflict with prevailing standards for sex, marriage or social justice without repercussion
• In this zero-sum game, where one gains freedoms as the other loses them, Christians aren’t at liberty to tell anyone what they should (or shouldn’t) say or do, but may be told what they can (or cannot) say or do

Hypocrisy of…Redefining Decency

Reasonable standards of behavior gradually decline, seemingly innocuous at first but evolving into decadence, as society grapples with how to make sense of a world God created without acknowledging His existence.

• My son has attended the same public school for 3 years, but is now referred to as “they” in communications by teachers and administrators, sacrificing reason for rudeness
• Inclusiveness in the popular “sex positivity” movement defines prostitution and pornography as essential services that should be revered and applauded

Hypocrisy of…Proclaiming Goodness

Inherently sinful by nature, most of us privately do what we feel compelled to publicly condemn.  We post and like messages on social media conveying how disturbed we are by those who “judge” others, pretending we’re never guilty of that ourselves.

• Non-believers accuse Christians of self-righteousness but assume an air of moral superiority in this cancel culture filled with anger and hostility toward non-conformists
• Seeking utopia, secularism touts decriminalization and wide open borders but quickly calls for regulation and law enforcement when personally impacted by those policies

Hypocrisy of…Commandeering Compassion

To replace Jesus as Savior, government prints money to fund subsidies and stimulus, and portrays Christians as callous for not supporting social programs that build dependence and perpetuate poverty.

• The real question is not who cares more about the poor, but how compassion is best delivered to help them – and what motives are behind the methods (e.g. buying votes)
• It isn’t compassionate to burden future generations with excessive debt; however, believing this life is all there is encourages myopic thinking

Labeling Christians closed-minded deflects attention from the stringent requirements of Selfism, which mandates absolute adherence to its central, hypocritical tenet – the inalienable right of everyone (except for Christians) to pursue whatever makes them happy (so long as it doesn’t make anyone else, except for Christians, unhappy).  In fact, social norms are moving in the direction of considering the most civil and enlightened those who lavish the highest praise on those most decadent.

A public relations “race” is taking place among businesses, universities and politicians bent on outdoing each other in proclaiming support for issues they cared little about until it became financially and politically expedient.  In that game, points are awarded for mocking those who purportedly corrupted young minds by teaching them “arcane” views on subjects like marriage, gender and purity – namely, Christians.

Only Life with the Lord Makes Sense

Yet it’s traditional, biblical values that resolve the logical contradictions that are already surfacing in our culture as it increasingly adopts the premise that there is no God:

• Science – Beginning with the fact that God created man and woman reveals His intentions and ensures personal preferences do not overturn the science behind the definitions of gender at birth and life at conception.
• Tolerance – Jesus permitted everyone to choose belief or unbelief, offered forgiveness for offenses, practiced unconditional love, and enforced justice equitably understanding that we’re all made in God’s image.
• Morality – We need guideposts, and not of our own construction for our convenience, because doing whatever makes us happy, satisfying our desires at the moment they arise, doesn’t make them right.
• Human Nature – John Adams warned, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Compassion – Jesus demonstrated His love by serving those deemed least consequential with dignity, bringing glory to the Father.  Handouts glorify the giver and demean the recipient, not recognizing the eternal value of every individual.

God is not a cosmic killjoy, unnecessarily restricting freedoms.  His “arcane” rules are grounded in love because He knows defying them will harm us.  Pursuing happiness with no hope beyond tomorrow leads to depression, drugs and diseases trying to escape a road to nowhere.

Despite that hopelessness and hypocrisy, our post-Christian culture persists down the path toward self-determination because the battle is not about ideologies or logic.  It’s about Jesus, plain and simple.  Spiritual warfare is pitting God’s truth against man’s will, fueled by the same desires that prompted Adam and Eve to explore good and evil on their own terms.  Satan is dangling the apple again, tempting Americans to find out what society could look like without any constraints.  The only impediment is Christianity, so media discredits our faith by saying we are on the wrong side of every key issue today – politics, vaccines, justice, abortion and stimulus.

Responding When the Walls Cave In

Because the conflict is spiritual, reason and even religion will not prevail – but the Holy Spirit can.  Our job as believers is not to get in the Spirit’s way, working through His power to provide truth as the lies of secularism become readily apparent.

• Humility – avoid any hint of superiority that could rebuild the walls, showing that we’re in just as much need of a (true) Savior
• Love – remember that non-Christians are looking for any excuse not to believe, so don’t be one; instead be the last friend there when everyone else has ”left the building”
• Discipleship – learn how to respond to the few, rote objections non-believers always raise rather than simply inviting them to the next church service

According to studies, those three characteristics are not hallmarks of Christians in America today.

It’s Your Turn

What other logical impasses have you seen from defining personal and corporate “truth” apart from God?  Because society doesn’t work without Him, where is secular “wisdom” and professed kindness toward one group undermining years of progress in advancing the cause of another?