An honest look at the church

Last year, James Toews’s response to Philip Yancey’s book Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church (April 19) stimulated an active discussion in the Letters column of the Herald. Yancey reported that the local church of his childhood had proved more of a hindrance than a help to his Christian faith. Toews (whose article originated as an opinion column and was never intended to be a thorough book review) defended the church as God’s chosen people. I have to tell you that my gut instinct, as a church professional, was to agree with Toews and defend the church. At the least, what Yancey was talking about was not “How my faith survived the church” but “How my faith survived the particular, dysfunctional church I grew up in”. Unfortunately, as many of our letter writers argued, Yancey’s bad church experience was not all that unique. Far too often the church hinders people coming to faith in Christ. It may be true that “The best argument for Christianity is Christians”, but it is also sometimes true that “The worst argument for Christianity is Christians.”

Another book last year also stimulated my thinking about the same topic. In his excellent sociological study Restless Gods, Reginald Bibby reported that while about 20% of Canadians attend Christian churches regularly, another 30–40% of Canadians sporadically seek God through prayer, reading and other means. When asked, these people say that they stopped going to church, not because they doubt the essential doctrines of the Christian faith or because they are uncomfortable with the moral demands of Christianity, but primarily because the church is irrelevant to their search for God. Of course, this is what these people say, and other studies suggest that these non-attenders often do have doubts about essential Christian doctrines and they often do not live by Christian moral standards. Nevertheless, it is true that many of these people did attend a Christian church at one time and now do not. In one sense, it may be said that the church failed them.

I guess I resonate with these attitudes a bit because I can remember a few times in my life when I found Sunday morning church services largely irrelevant to my spiritual life. I still attended regularly, and I was being drawn to Christ through other means – a care group, Sunday school, interaction with Christian friends, reading Christian books and my personal devotional time – but the Sunday morning service itself seemed not very helpful. On the other hand, there have been times in my life when the Sunday morning service has been a great blessing to me and care group or Sunday school has seemed largely irrelevant, or my personal devotional times dry.

Given this reality, what can we say and do about the church?

1. We should be wary of defining “church” too narrowly. If we define church solely as the local church meeting for worship service on Sunday morning, then we may conclude that “the church” has failed. James Toews is right that “Christ’s church” did not fail Philip Yancey. It was a variety of Christian writers who brought Yancey to a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ, and these writers are every bit as much a part of Christ’s church as the local church which Yancey attended, perhaps even more so.
2. We should be as honest as we possibly can. If it is true that the church is failing in some areas, then we should be willing to face that reality squarely, no matter how uncomfortable that is.
3. Church attenders should take responsibility for their spiritual lives. If their Sunday morning church service is not bringing them closer to God, they should do something about it. This might mean nothing more than changing their own attitudes; if bitterness or anger or a rebellious spirit is preventing them from appreciating what God has prepared for them Sunday morning, they need to repent. It might mean making suggestions for changing the services, praying for the services or getting personally involved in the services. It might mean switching churches or switching to a different service in the same church. It might mean staying in the same church service but switching their primary spiritual focus to a care group, a Sunday school class, Christian reading, a retreat, renewed personal devotions, meeting deliberately with Christian friends, taking a course at a Bible school, going to a Christian camp – whatever it takes to connect to God. There is a real danger in flitting from church to church or place to place seeking a new experience. There is perhaps even greater danger in settling for a routine church practice that never brings us into the presence of God.
4. Those of us in professional ministry should also take a long hard look at what we are doing. If the Christian services we are providing are not making a difference in people’s lives, then we need to rethink what we are doing. If our ministry is not bringing people closer to God, then we need to change our ministry, change the way we are doing the ministry or change the spirit in which we are doing it. I am not talking here primarily about switching from a traditional church service to a contemporary service, or from a contemporary service to a traditional service. I am talking about something far more spiritual and profound. Ruben Zuniga, pastor of Bakerview Hispanic Church in Abbotsford, a while back told of going to have his hair cut. When the stylist found out he was a minister, he asked Ruben if he was a good preacher. Ruben replied that when the Holy Spirit spoke through his sermons, he was indeed a great preacher, but when the Holy Spirit did not speak through his sermons, he was not a good preacher at all. The question is not whether we are providing competent ministry but whether God is choosing to use our ministry as a channel of His grace.
5. Those of us in professional ministry should also practise humility. Surveys show that a primary reason people don’t attend church is that “the sermons are boring and irrelevant”. Therefore many church planters are tempted to proclaim to their communities: “It won’t be like that in our church!” Making such claims may backfire in the long run because producing interesting, relevant sermons is not that easy. After all, no pastor ever sets out to deliberately preach boring sermons. Those of us in professional ministry need to remember that the important thing is that people find God and that we are only servants to that greater end; if someone finds our own ministry boring or irrelevant but finds God through some other means, we should rejoice. While our ministries should serve God, we should remember that God is always greater than our institutions, programs and services.
6. We should also remember that Jesus created and loves the church, giving His life for it – which, I think, is the point James Toews was trying to make. As followers of Jesus, we also should love the church. While being honest about its faults, we should probably all be a little slower to criticize it and a little more eager to give our lives to redeem it. James Toews said recently, “Critiquing the church is like critiquing the family. There is no shortage of dysfunctional examples to choose from. But what other option do have than the church?”

NOTES: The feature articles in this issue take an honest look at what the church is and what it should be. As usual, the news sections of the Herald also contain a great deal of relevant information on the ministry of the church.