Welcome to Part 3 of the weekly release of my book, Unless God Builds It: A Proposal to Radically Rethink the Church.
In the last post, I shared what life has been like since transitioning to simple, organic house church gatherings and clarified that our pursuit of homes isn’t born out of elitism or church hurt.
Today, we begin Chapter 1, where I ask a hard question about the sheer amount of time, effort, and money we pour into making our church systems run—and whether all this activity is actually helping us reach the goal.
(Note: If you have already read the book and do not wish to receive these emails, simply click ‘Unsubscribe’ at the bottom of this email. It will only unsubscribe you from the Book section, and you will still receive my normal weekly newsletter!)
Let’s get to it!
Waiting on the Lord:
What’s Powering this Boat?
In case you haven’t noticed, we spend a lot of time, effort, and money on building the Church. You may or may not be involved in much of it, but take a moment to try to conceptualize and appreciate the magnitude of resources devoted to it throughout the course of a week, month, or year.
Think of everything it takes to make it “run”—kids and youth ministry, small groups and discipleship classes, food and childcare, conferences and retreats, outreach and social events, board meetings and leadership trainings, websites and marketing, constructing and maintaining buildings, local charity work and foreign missions, equipping volunteers and managing church staff, choirs and worship bands, sermon-writing and pastoral care, seminary training and denominational oversight, countless books being written (and read), podcasts and videos being recorded (and consumed), and so on. It’s a lot.
To start, let’s not assume that any of this is inherently bad. Instead, let’s ask the question: Is it working? After all our activity, does the Church look more and more like the Church that God promised to build? Are we, God’s people, bearing fruit like the Bible says we ought to? Is every believer being radically transformed into the image of Christ? Are we walking in unity, holiness, and love toward one another? Is Christ and his gospel being powerfully manifested to the world through our lives?
The answer to these questions is, of course, not a simple yes or no. But if we can at least agree about the goal, then how is all our activity helping us to reach that goal? Is the output worth the input?
Whenever I start poking around like this, someone invariably feels the need to defend the Church, arguing that God uses all of these activities, that he is at work in every church, and that it’s offensive to suggest anything otherwise. Allow me to clarify, then, that I agree. God does indeed use all of these activities.
However, God’s use of something doesn’t justify our use of it. To be sure, God uses all things to bring about good for his children (see Romans 8:28), including things like cancer, car accidents, and horrific sins, which he always finds a way to redeem for his purposes. Shall we then reinstate asbestos into our church’s ceiling tiles, drive the church van into oncoming traffic, or systematically train our youth to get drunk and have promiscuous sex, all on the sole basis that God uses these things to draw people to himself? Most certainly not. So, please—let us not be childish. The fact that God uses the preacher’s Sunday sermon, the talented band, or a million-dollar building to bless people and grow their faith doesn’t itself justify the use of those things. We can recognize that God uses something for good, all the while being free to discern whether it deserves a place in our ministry and is a part of his intended design. Therefore, we must ask not “Has God used it?” but “Has God inspired it?”
This is how I view the Church today. I sincerely give thanks to God for all that he has done and continues to do through the Body of Christ everywhere. I myself have been greatly blessed by the people and ministries of the church that I left before starting a church in my home. However, I have my doubts that the traditional way of doing things is the best way to achieve our common goal. It’s not that I don’t see any fruit, but that I believe the fruit is often in spite of all the hustle and bustle, and is the simple result of the fact that God is good and has poured his love into the hearts of many faithful servants—two things that will remain the same no matter how we proceed. If this is true, I argue that much of our activity and expenditure is actually in vain, or worse, counterproductive to our shared mission.
So then, can we have a family discussion without taking offense? Can we challenge each other’s ideas and ways without questioning each other’s hearts? We can and we must.
Do We Really Need More of the Same?
This is where a lot of books would recite to you some church statistics—like rates of divorce, addiction, and mental illness among Christians. They would paint a grim picture of the state of Christianity today, highlighting the high percentage of leaders who experience burnout or suffer some moral failure, of missionaries’/pastors’ kids who end up resenting God and turning away from the faith, of Christians who feel isolated or hurt by the Church, and so forth. And then they’d say, “Don’t you see we have a problem? Something needs to change.”
I don’t disagree, necessarily, but something I’ve always found interesting about the data is the fact that I’ve never needed it. I appreciate that it confirms what I already knew (more or less) to be true. But just as I don’t need numbers to prove that the sky is blue, I don’t need numbers to tell me that most Christians’ experience of Christianity is at least somewhat (if not very much) disappointing compared to the biblical vision for Christianity. It’s all but an observable fact.
If you know much at all about God’s desire for us to walk in love, holiness, power, and unity, then you know what I’m talking about at some level. You feel it deep within you, for the Spirit testifies that what we’re doing isn’t working exactly like it’s supposed to. If you’re a Christian—looking to the Spirit of God within you, reading your Bible, and humbly observing the Church as we know it—then I believe you will ultimately discover the same discomfort that I felt for years and the same earnestness I feel today for reform.
You may very well like your church and perceive that God is doing many good things through you and the people there. Again, I don’t doubt this, but this could just as well be in spite of all your activity and not the result of it, which is the point I’m trying to convey.
More importantly, this isn’t just about you being happy with what your church provides to you. It’s about every single person who becomes a part of your Christian community being radically conformed into the image of Christ. That’s the goal, and 2,000 years in, we’re nowhere near reaching it.
Then what’s the solution? Is it more teaching or more evangelism? Is it better sermons or better music? More employees or volunteers? Better marketing strategies? Better hospitality, better programs, or more outreach? Bigger buildings, renovated buildings, prettier buildings, simpler buildings? Is it more inspiration, more conferences, more training, more small groups? Do we need to plant more churches, learn new strategies, or start more ministries? Do we just need to get more people to do more of the same things?
I’m not convinced that we do, but most churches continue to operate as if these kinds of things will make the difference, just in greater measure or a slightly better variance. Again, none of these things is inherently wrong, but it’s becoming increasingly evident that our reliance on them is delusional. If “more” was the solution, I think we’d have seen a visible difference by now—not just in your life or your church but in the Church.
Therefore, however counterintuitive it may seem at first, I’d like to propose an alternative solution: We don’t actually need to do more; we need to begin by doing less.
< Previous Part | Table of Contents | Next Part >
Questions for the Comments:
When you reflect on the sheer amount of time, energy, and money spent to make a modern church “run,” do you ever find yourself asking if the output is worth the input?
What do you think it practically looks like to “do less” in our pursuit of building the Church?
Want to discuss these topics with other like-minded believers? We regularly explore the theology of the Church, discipleship, and spiritual growth in our monthly Community Calls. It’s a great place to connect—upgrade to a paid subscription today to get access!
Like what you’re reading? You don’t have to wait for the next part. You can read the entire book right now in paperback, ebook, or audiobook format on Amazon. Buy ‘Unless God Builds It’ Here
In Christ,
Jake