Re-Thinking Church

As a family we’ve owned a number of birds, but today I want to talk about just 2 of them. The first was a Rainbow Lorikeet and was given the very original name of ‘Birdie Bird’ by our kids. He was only young and obviously injured when we found him. We took him in, thinking when he learnt to fly in a few days we would let him go. But the days grew to weeks and then months. He never learnt to fly. He became part of the family, he could say the boys’ names, ring like the phone, beep like the microwave, and more.

Birdie Bird spent most of his day with the cage door open, cruising around our house. On the weekends, we would put his cage in the garden, open the door and walk away. He climbed in the trees and hung out with the other lorikeets. And the funny thing was you could even tell which one he was, he looked different to the other lorikeets and he also sounded different. While they were all screeching, he was saying, “Jesus loves you” and ringing like a telephone. But he also knew his limitations and never tried to run away. And if we forgot about him in the evening, he would put himself back inside his cage because he knew it was home.

Years later we found another injured Rainbow Lorrikeet. We nursed it and put it in a cage. We held it and fed it. But one day the door was left open and it flew away never to be seen again.

THE CAGE

I’ve been thinking about these 2 birds and how they form a good illustration of how some Christians view the church. Some Christians treat church like a cage that keeps people safe. But, if church is the cage keeping Christians safe from the wild, how will they respond when the door is left open?

Because one day the door will be open whether you want it to be or not. Some will head off to college, some will move to another town, some will get married or change jobs, some will have a disagreement with another Christian, and some will be hurt by the church that was meant to protect them. Will they fly off into the wild, never to be seen again? Or will they look different, sound different, and always come home of their own volition?

THE MYTH

I think I’ve heard that the church is the fuel of a Christian for as long as I remember. There’s that illustration of the fire, when one ember is removed it dies and goes cold. It is meant to show that Christians who aren’t in church will grow cold on their own. But I’ve always thought that there is a major fallacy with that picture: it assumes that the ember has no internal fire. If the ember illustration was true, Paul would have given up in prison, and John would have given up on Patmos. They would have gone cold on God, but they didn’t. Why? It’s because their fire had an internal source. And so does every Christian’s because we are in-dwelt with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). That’s a fire that never burns out, even when it's alone.

There’s that well-known saying "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.” You won’t keep Christians by making the cage stronger, and you won’t keep them by making the cage smaller, you’ll keep them by opening the door. For years, the church was presented to me as an invisible force field between me and chaos: without the church I would drift into darkness, discernment would vanish, who knows what I would end up believing. I was taught church made me a Christian. If I stopped going, it was guaranteed I would stop reading my Bible, stop praying, give up entirely.

THE WILD

But when we were in Niugini that all changed. We were both, with the help of the Holy Spirit, totally responsible for our own spiritual lives. There was no one checking in on us, and sadly we saw other missionaries taking advantage of this lack of accountability. To be a missionary you often have to rely solely on God’s word and the Holy Spirit. The pioneer missionary Adoniram Judson spent years in Burma before he had one convert. He didn’t have a church to stop him falling away, going into error, to keep him standing, or feed him. Are we still raising and training Christians capable of this kind of perseverance?

Will the Christians in your church read the Bible on their own, pray alone, worship alone, give, serve others, and share their faith without prompting? Would you be willing to tell the teenagers they can now choose whether they attend church? And what if they chose a church that looks a bit different to yours, would that be okay, or must it be your church?

Is the church the bulwark of truth or just an external control factor (1 Timothy 3:15)? Are we raising the next generation to trust in the infallible Holy Spirit to guide them (John 16:13)? Or are we raising the next generation to trust in a church full of fallible people to guide them? Are we teaching the next generation to go hunting for meat for themselves in God’s word with the Holy Spirit as a guide? Or are we keeping them dependent on what we dole out to them week by week? If the ember burns out alone, then it isn’t powered by its own internal source of fire.

And maybe, that’s why the next generation isn’t standing up as pastors and missionaries.

THE COMING CLIFF'S EDGE

Statistically, Western Christians are walking towards a cliff’s edge of retirements. The ‘aging clergy’ is well documented in America, and the coming years will bring an influx of pastors retiring, and there aren’t nearly enough men to take their place. And it’s not simply a population problem. There are more millennials in Western churches than Baby Boomers, just not qualified ones to take the reins. Current research already shows pastors staying past retirement age, simply because there isn’t anyone else to do the job.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Is it because the church didn’t teach the next generation to be adults, just perpetual babes crying for more milk (Hebrews 5:12-14, 1 Corinthians 3:1-2)? Perhaps it’s because the church told the next generation to stay on the sand, for fear of them being tossed about (Ephesians 4:14), but we can’t now be surprised none of them know how to swim. When helicopter parents took over the playground, did they also take over the pulpit?

BE STRONG HOODIE

THE INTERNAL FIRE

Christians need to know within themselves they are different. A life lived to God, means we do the right thing even when no one else is watching (Galatians 1:10). If persecution came tomorrow and you couldn’t attend church, what would happen to your Christian walk? Would you keep going, or would you falter?

Richard Wurmbrand spent 14 years in a Romanian prison for preaching the gospel, three of those years were in solitary confinement without a Bible. But his fire didn’t die, it grew. He spent the rest of his life telling his story, including returning to the house of his captivity and forgiving his captors. When Corrie ten Boom spent time in a German Concentration Camp, she secretly taught others in the camp and many women were saved. Her fire also didn’t die, it grew.

When Paul wrote, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13), his audience wasn’t a select few, he was addressing an entire church of people. Every Christian needs to be able to stand firm, to act like men, and be strong with the Holy Spirit’s help. Being around the wild birds didn’t make our pet Birdie Bird wild. He looked different, he sounded different, and he always came home, because he knew within himself, he was different.

And look I get it, church as a local body of believers that meets together is important (Hebrews 10:24-25), but it’s not everything.

Christ is.

Made for HIS Glory,