I'm Giving Up On "Church"

Interesting thing for an ordained elder in the Free Methodist Church to say...isn't it?

Things are finally starting to make some sense to me. About 10 months ago, while pastor of New Prairie Community of Faith in Carbondale, IL I began to descend into a crisis of faith. It wasn't a crisis of my faith in God. It was a crisis of my faith in this thing we call "the church." These words sum up how I was beginning to feel in early 2005.

"You are here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there is something wrong. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you here." ~Morpheus; The Matrix

Early in 2005 I began to feel that something was seriously wrong. Not something just specific to our church, but something was wrong with what we call "the church" and it was manifesting itself in the way I led the church and in the life of our church body. I began talking about it with various people, but like Morpheus says to Neo, "What you know, you can't explain." Every time I would talk about what I was feeling - whether it was with leaders in our church or other pastors - I would get blank stares and detached nods. I began to feel more and more like I had begun speaking in a foreign language that nobody else could understand. And more and more what I was feeling began to drive me mad like "a splinter in my mind."

Finally, I came to the place over the summer that I could no longer continue leading church in a way that didn't match up with what I was feeling in my soul. I had to walk away. This is when my crisis deepened.

Was I crazy? Had I just totally lost it? How could I hope to plant and pastor another church if I was finding myself believing less and less in church as we define and "do" it. What was happening to me?

Within the last two weeks I have bought and read two books that have blown all of my circuits...in a good way. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was as if these authors had invaded my brain, sucked out the contents, and put them on paper. These aren't just men on the fringes of churchianity teetering near the edge of insanity. One book is written by the pastor of one the country's leading churches; Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg Church. The other is Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Associates who has started over 700 new churches in 32 states and 23 nations in six years.

The two books I've read are "Unlearning Church" by Mike Slaughter and "Organic Church" by Neil Cole. The thoughts of these men have brought me to an incredible place of peace because I no longer feel as if I'm "losing it." Instead I feel like God has brought me to the brink of something amazing. I feel free...finally...to begin living out as a pastor what I've been feeling in my soul.

I will plant and pastor again, but I've given up on church the way it's done in most American churches today. Never again will I settle for anything less than raw, radical intimacy with Christ lived out through a community of believers who see themselves first and foremost as missionaries to a lost world.

I will never again accept as the norm for believers a life of sin punctuated with sporadic "church attendance." I will never again accept as the norm for believers a disregard for people who are dying without God's grace. I will never again accept as the norm for believers a way of life that spends thousands and thousands of dollars on pleasure, entertainment, and possessions while dropping a left-over dollar or two into an offering plate.

None of these things portray the church of the scripture or the lives of the Christians who radically impacted the world over the past 2000 years. Only men and women of radical love, commitment, and yes obedience have been used to bring radical revival to our world; the kind of revival Christ died for.

My life and ministry as a pastor will be consumed by three things: Intimacy (with God and others), Healing (emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical), and Purpose (discovering and unleashing ourselves to live out the mission for which God has created us.)

For the foreseeable future I am devoting these blog posts to the thoughts that God is giving me though his Word and these two books. Here are five initial statements. Four are from these books and one is from scripture.

"A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith." ~Reggie McNeil from The Present Future as quoted by Neil Cole in Organic Church.

"Ultimately, transformation is the product of the Gospel. It is not enough to fill our churches; we must transform our world. Society and culture should change if the church has been truly effective." ~Neil Cole; Organic Church

"Why must people wake up early on Sunday, get dressed up and drive to a specific location to sit in rows looking all morning at the back of some guys head while a person they don't know talks to them about the latest prescription of three steps to a better life? Is this experience really supposed to change their lives forever?" ~Neil Cole; Organic Church

"I don't want to lead a mega-church of people who come together to be inspired to live status-quo lives peppered with Judeo-Christian values. I want to empower radical followers of Jesus Christ." ~Mike Slaughter; Unlearning Church

"In that day ten men from every nation will take hold of the hem of one Jew's garment and say "Let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you." ~God; Zechariah 8:23

If we're going to give ourselves to being "the church" then let's be the read deal. Let's be the church that Jesus inaugurated; the one that will invade the world with God's grace and love and against which the gates of Hell will never prevail.