Why leave your church?
We’re picking up where we left off in this series about leaving the church. In this entry, we simply want to recognize the obvious: in order to leave your church, you have to have been a part of one.
One of the most-often quoted verses in the New Testament in regards to church attendance is Hebrews 10:25:
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
The only problem with using it to support church attendance is that it was not written primarily to 21st century American Christians. We must consider the original recipients of this message and seek to understand the verse and its context as they would have.
In the first century, they did not have large gatherings of Christians – for the most part. We know there were 1000s being added to the church in Jerusalem in the amazing days following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. You can see that the church experienced phenomenal numerical growth in those days as you read through Acts 3-4. Those days of growth were not without foreshadowing of tougher, leaner times to come as the apostles were jailed, beaten and criticized by the reigning religious leaders of the day.
In Acts 5, the growing church, still headquartered in Jerusalem saw that it wasn’t all fun and games and miracles. There was a holy expectation on its members and those who would claim Jesus. A married couple named Ananias and Saphira provide the first case study in deceitfulness within the church. One message we can walk away from that chapter is: “church” is not about me.
In Acts 6-7, things take a somber turn (if a couple being struck dead for an attempt at self-promotion isn’t somber enough). Deacons are selected. That’s not the somber part… One of the new deacons named Stephen is arrested by the Jewish religious leaders. At his hearing, his testimony pushes them past the breaking point, and his bold proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah that they have crucified results in his being rocked out of this world.
Chapter 8 of Acts begins with a whole lotta people leaving their church:
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. (v1-3)
These people weren’t leaving their church because it had failed to meet their needs. They weren’t unhappy with the preaching, and they didn’t feel like they weren’t being fed… These folks exited the Jerusalem gathering because if they stayed, they would be killed.
They weren’t just fearful of their life. They scattered because it was strategic and necessary for the gospel to be proclaimed every where. In this case, leaving their church was for the ultimate purpose of evangelism and missions.
That is certainly not one of the more common reasons for leaving churches today, is it? We are much too centered on “church” being a place where our needs are met. However, the perspective in the New Testament is much different.
What we see take place in the initial chapters of Acts begins the story of the rest of the New Testament. It was not easy to profess faith in Jesus Christ and renounce false religions and follow Him. You weren’t a member of a church, but you were a member of His church. And it was hard to belong. There was pretty steep entry fee called “dying to self.” Jesus said:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Back to Hebrew 10.25. “Let us not give up meeting together” was not a wimpy command pleading for people to show up on Sundays. Rather, it was a bold statement of faith urging believers to gather, encourage one another, and to demonstrate that faith in Christ is stronger than their fear of the world.
How does that compare to your own commitment to regularly meet with other believers?
Stay tuned for more in the series…
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Review: The Last Christian
Imagine a world in 2088 where everyone has neural implants enabling them to enter VR (virtual reality) and access the Grid (internet on steroids) at any moment. Because of the implants, a human can process information much faster than ever before. In this same world, Christianity – as well as other religions – is almost extinct. The endless pursuit of information, entertainment and sensory stimulation has choked out the spiritual.
That’s the world you’ll encounter in David Gregory’s The Last Christian. I read it after receiving it for free as part of Waterbook Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program. I honestly didn’t have high expectations for it. So often Christian fiction fails to compare in quality and imagination to the mass market. I was pleasantly surprised with this book.
I was hooked from the first chapter, and over the last three days, I’ve devoured the book. It’s imaginative – truly. On top of that, there’s a powerful message about the importance of living a full faith.
The protagonist attempts to re-evangelize America, but her attempts sound stale, trite and canned – much like many attempts at evangelism today. The author calls us to reexamine the New Testament and recover a thoroughly biblical – and dynamically compelling – way of leading people to faith in Jesus Christ.
If you’re looking for a summer thriller, look no further! Buy it here!
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Review: Radical
This little book can destroy your way of life as an American. If you’ve embraced “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness†as yours by right, then you should continue to do so without the message of David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, or you’ll be be forced to evaluate your citizenship.
In essence, Platt points out that the teachings of Jesus slay the American dream. The Christian does not have the right to selfish pursuit of self-satisfaction.
Platt’s actual writing style is curt and pointed, it may be that the message itself shapes the tone of the book. Platt takes American Christians to task for thoughtlessly ignoring the plain commands of the New Testament in relation to lifestyle, possessions and life purpose.
I see it as an uncomfortable followup to Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. Reading these two books back-to-back will most assuredly kick a comfortable Christian in their blessed assurance.
We have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all. In this way we choose to send off other people to carry out the global purpose of Christianity while the rest of us sit back because because we’re “just not called to do that.â€
Platt urges Christians to return to mission and embrace the purpose of God for their lives. It was not to accumulate and spend and ignore the needs of those around the world (or across the county).
He recounts the story of a friend who journeyed to a remote village in southeast Asia to share the love and truth of Jesus Christ. Upon entering the village in which not a single person had ever heard the name of “Jesus,†he was offered a Coca Cola by one of the tribesman. Platt comments,
A soft drink company in Atlanta has done a better job getting brown sugar water to those people than the church of Jesus Christ has done in getting the gospel to them.
Platt’s book is not unique. There have been identical voices over the past 100 years in American culture echoing the same message. Francis Schaeffer was one. Keith Green sang a similar message. Platt happens to be the latest young voice to this rising chorus. Perhaps a new generation will take the message seriously.
While I was challenged by the book, I think that it also needs the balanced corrective of God’s deep and majestic love for His people. Platt comes across many times as simply… angry. The book seems to need a great dose of the joy and love of God.
While the salvation of the nations is a mighty and preeminent goal of the church, we cannot allow ourselves to be motivated by guilt. This book comes across as heavy on that.
While guilt is an excellent motivator, it’s a poor sustainer. We must look our Father in the face, come to terms with the amazing grace that has made our own salvation possible, and then in humble gratitude and eager joy embrace God’s mission for us all in a way that magnifies Him and not the nations’ needs.
Platt calls for his readers to join him in a “radical experiment†over the course of a year. I’ll leave you to discover the five challenges of that experiment as you read the book. However, I can guarantee (as does Platt) that if you should accept the challenges, your life will never be the same, and you’ll discover the joy of waking up from your American snooze and experience the beauty of truly living.
This book was provided for review by the by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group. You can download a preview of Chapter 1: Someone Worth Losing Everything For here.
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Review: A Good & Beautiful God
Let’s be real clear at the outset. My three stars out of five are not for our good and beautiful God. It’s for the book called “The Good and Beautiful God†by author James Bryan Smith. King Solomon, at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, prayed, “But will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built!†(1 Kings 8.27) Even so, no book can contain His wonders. Perhaps the author should have acknowledged that in the beginning of his attempt.
The book is the first is a three-part series that seeks to be a resource for those wanting to grow in their Christian faith. The Good and Beautiful God attempts to introduce the reader to the “God Jesus knows.â€
Upon learning that the author was discipled by Dallas Willard, who has contributed the excellent resource for discipleship called The Spirit of the Disciplines, I was anxious to begin using Smith’s books in my own discipling relationships.
This past 6 months, I’ve met with seven different guys, taking each of them through the book. In addition, I’ve led our church to use the book in its one-on-one discipling relationships. All in all, we’ve had about 25 people using the resource as a tool to encourage one another in our love and service to Jesus Christ.
I think that may place me in a unique position to offer this review. I’ve not just read it. I’ve used it. Often. And I’ve led others to use it as well.
Here are a summation of my thoughts on the resource:
1. No resource is going to be perfect. It’s not about finding the perfect resource to use in a discipling relationship. It’s about doing discipleship. Find a resource, use it.
2. AGBG has some strong points. Here are a few:
- For starters, it offers some much-needed perspective in our “Type A†culture about performance-based religion. It urges the Christ follower to depend upon God’s love alone for acceptance, approval and strength.
- The first chapter called What Are You Seeking? gives the reader a wise perspective on transformation that helps one grasp the relationship between God’s Word, our own practices in relationship to it and the importance of practicing the Christian life in community with others.
- The three strongest chapters are God Is Holy, God Transforms, and How to Make a Pickle.
- He has “soul training exercises†at the end of each chapter that are extremely valuable spiritual disciplines for a Christ follower of any maturity level.
3. It has some weak points. The following are a few:
- I didn’t notice the perspective until one of the guys I met with pointed it out. However, it’s there. Couched within nearly every chapter are consistent negative references to and examples of pastors. Since I’m a pastor, I was surprised I didn’t catch it. However, it reads at times as a hidden diatribe against pastors because of these references. The only positive reference is a one-sentence mention of the Smith’s own pastor being his friend. I doubt that the author even realized the significance of this, but after having it brought to my attention, it was interesting to note the consistency of negativity throughout.
- Another weakness is the author’s unequivocal statements throughout the book that cannot be supported scripturally. Here are three particularly concerning ones:
“There is only thing that separates us from God, and it is not our sin. It is our self-righteousness.†He provides no scriptural context for this amazing statement that flies in the face of a mass of scriptural testimony to the contrary.
“God is never described by Paul as being angry. Anger is a human emotion.†These statements are in the middle of a wonderful description of how God’s wrath is actually an expression of His holiness. However, even if Paul doesn’t describe God as “being angry,†there is a wealth of other scriptures that do seem to demonstrate His anger. It may be that author’s definition of anger needs to be rethought.
4. As with any resource, it should be read with discernment, always being compared to the teachings of Scripture.
Smith’s initial installment in his series of three is recommendable. It’s not inspiring. I don’t know that it’s meant to be. However, it has some very bright spots. All the same, I would not recommend it to be read by a new Christian without the benefit of discussion with a mature Christian.
We live in a culture where biblical illiteracy is high. I would not encourage the use of this book in isolation. It needs to be read in the context of a discipling relationship or small group to provide shared wisdom and feedback.
However, for the Christian discipler who is looking for a resource to use, this book is a good tool and discussion generator. I found that it’s extremely helpful to teach people to read a book such as this and compare its teachings to scripture. It helps develop critical thinking skills and a biblically-centered, maturing believer.
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Innovate Conference: Refuel
This is my last conference for the year. In the past 10 months, I’ve been to Catalyst in Atlanta, Exponential in Orlando, and today and tomorrow, Cody and I are attending the Innovate Conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg. We weren’t really planning on attending Innovate until we learned it was only $50/person, and Chuck Swindoll was speaking.
We heard Swindoll back in October at Catalyst, and he was deeply encouraging. Somewhere along the way, my generation of Christian leaders jettisoned its heroes, in favor of independence and self-sustained creativity. I can’t speak for everyone, of course, but it seems like we were all tired of “church as usual” and were determined to start from scratch.
That spirit of renovation and resistance led to a few good things, but it disconnected us with the wisdom of our elders in a detrimental way. Today, it’s discomforting to see that same spirit of independence and entrepreneurialism displayed in the new stars of American Christian leadership.
Chuck Swindoll humbly and confidently spoke from God’s Word today, and somewhere in his message, I again found a hero – a man annointed by God that I can follow and emulate as he demonstrates continued faithfulness to the cross.
These are the notes from his message today:
“I know you’re there, but I hope you’re listening. Now and on into tomorrow.â€
THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SERVANT.
I Corinthians 3.22-4.2:
- All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
- Original term of “servant†means “underrower†– those who row in the under tier of the trireme – bottom level of large, ancient galley ships.
- “Stewards†– housekeeper, house manager, butler or maid.
A good part of every week for me is spent in the study. It always has been. Unless I miss my guess, many of you are cutting short your time with God in which you spend before God’s Word. You must row, and you must cook. You must prepare the meals of God for His people so that they are well-prepared and well-presented. If you neglect His word, you are serving up poorly prepared meals.
Know who you are, accept who you are, be who you are. One of the worst thing you give to your people is someone you’re not. As old pastor said, “Be who you is, cause if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t.â€
“When a man of God dies, nothing of God dies.†(A.W. Tozer) He transcends the changing of pastorates.
There’s not a celebrity among us! We are under rowers and cooks! Keep it constantly in mind. Keep that oar in the water and the spoon in the pan. Prepare the meal well so that you have depth.
Be aware that there are all kinds of sermons (devotional, topical, etc.)… longhorn sermons – a point here and a point there and a whole lotta bull in between. Expository sermons are the best because they take a lot of investment and time in God’s Word.
As for stewards, we must be found “faithful†or “trustworthy.†There’s no such thing as retirement for preachers! What are you living for?
Another word for under rower and cooks is… shepherd. Before long, you start smelling like the sheep. You love them, you care about them, and if you don’t, just go ahead and get out of the ministry. You never have to say “I need to be respected†because they will do so because of your love for them.
One of the major temptations is to think you deserve more respect or that your deserve a better seat on the ship. You think you deserve to be served the meals rather than serving all the time. It’s called self-pity. It’s the most reprehensible of the sins among the servants of Christ because you start feeling sorry for the sacrifices. Temptation comes back time and again and finds an undefended area and moves in closer.
2 Kings 5: Naaman heroic, famous and a leper. He takes $3 million and 10 suits of clothes, thinking to buy his healing. Elisha refuses to take payment – either before or after Naaman’s healing.
- But Elisha has a servant named Gehazi, and he sees a way to capitalize. 4 lies in v22. It wasn’t well with the servant, not deep down. It’s easy for words to come out of our mouths that represent a lie.
- He’s now living with his rationalization of being an unfaithful servant.
- Now he lies to the prophet, “Your servant went nowhere.â€
- Powerful example of an unfaithful servant.
Swindoll’s told the story of serving as an assistant to and in the shadow of J. Dwight Pentecost as his “under rower.” A man in his church named Jim brought him a note that said, “The adversary would love to plant some alien thoughts in your mind. Guard your spirit from any spirit of entitlement. Avoid ways to promote yourself as you ride in his chariot. You enjoy many benefits you have not earned. His is the appointed ministry of significance; yours is the appointed ministry of assistance.â€
FINAL POINTS
- Guard your imagination. You are who you are. You are not anything other than that. Let it be.
- Restrain all rationalization.
- Leave no room in your ministry for deception. If there is any kind of cover up, come clean. Address it. Deal with it. Face it! It is not a time to nurture your own lusts when you’re cooking for God.
- Ask yourself daily, “What is my motive?â€
“Row, row row your boat – never ever quit – ever faithfully serving Christ, the captain of your ship.â€
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Leaving your church
Three years ago, I wrote a short entry called When it’s time to leave your church. I’ve been amazed at the amount of traffic that entry continues to receive. Invariably I notice that people find it after searching the web with “how to know when to leave my church” or “how to leave your church.” Church hopping is passé. In the 21st century, folks don’t seem to be looking for another church. Many are ready to give up on church completely.
If this is you, or if you’re in the former group of struggling to stay in your church, I hope you’ll leave feedback that will be constructive and helpful for others on their journey. I intend this entry to be the first in a follow-up series to the original entry.
Since there are a more reasons why people consider not going to their church any longer than there are fire ant mounds in south Arkansas, we’ll be taking this slowly. Examining your reasons for not going are more important than stopping going.
They can be as simple as…
- I’m tired of the routine, the same-old, same-old.
- It’s boring.
- I don’t get anything out of the ________ (sermons, programs, ministries).
- Someone else always beats me to the best dessert at potlucks.
- I just don’t feel connected there.
To as complex and meaningful as…
- I’m concerned about the biblical teaching there (or lack thereof).
- The leadership of the church is becoming ____________ (cultish, autocratic, unhealthy, insert your adjective).
- The church is consumed with themselves.
- My family has not been ministered to there.
In future entries, we will be exploring these and other reasons for leaving your church. As a pastor of a church, my goals are:
- To evaluate your relationship with Christ and help you embrace the Church as His bride and chosen method of world redemption. This will help you view “church” in a biblical and reverent manner.
- To get you to consider your own heart and its blamelessness. This will ensure that you are willing to forgive if necessary.
- To evaluate if you are a victim of consumerism, materialism or false worldviews in your own assessment of your church or your approach to it. The lens that we view life through may cloud our vision and understanding of reality.
- To help you leave well (if possible and if leaving is actually what you need to do).
- To provide you with a framework for the next church that you will serve Christ through.
Obviously, I’m biased toward the church. We will examine this mystery together as sincere sleuths, seeking to arrive at proper deductions. But make no mistake, there are enough twists and turns in our relationship with the people of God to provide fodder for the best thriller for eternity:
“This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5.32
I hope you’ll tag along for this journey. Stay tuned….
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Another house
For those of you who are regular readers, you may have noticed my lack of blog productivity over the past month. I’m going to blame this one on another house – our new home in Blacksburg, Virginia. We were blessed to finally (after nearly 8 months of active looking) find a wonderful home in the same neighborhood we were renting previously.
Moving just a few doors away is a unique situation. I was a huge proponent of the “get-50-people-and-line-them-up-across-the-neighborhood” strategy that would create a human conveyor belt for our belongings. It didn’t work that smoothly, but we had a ton of help and were grateful to be stashed in our new digs in less than 48 hours.
For those of you who have moved recently, you’ll understand the phase we’re now in. We are comfortable, and even though there are tons of boxes still waiting for our attention, it’s not stuff we need every day, and so we’ve been unmotivated to unbox. It’s strange how life doesn’t slow down to allow you to focus on things like that.
The week prior to our move, I traveled to Orlando for the Exponential Conference, treated all our church’s volunteers to a laughter-saturated appreciation dinner and baptized seven folks at our church. It was an incredibly full week that I mentioned briefly here.
Since moving in, we’ve been able to host our small group twice, and it’s a humbling experience to see God at work in people’s lives even as they sit in your home. One of our criteria in our home search was that it had to be a wonderful place for families and friends to relax with us and a home in which ministry would be centered.
The ministries that take place through our (and your) home, however, are not nearly as important as the ministries that take place in your home. It would be comically tragic for small groups and Bible studies with church members and guests to be regularly occurring within our home at the expense and absence of daily discipleship within our own family.
Let me urge you to prioritize the ministry within your home before you attempt to do ministry through your home. As a Christian husband, I have been granted the humbling and deeply significant role of seeking Christ for my whole home. I am to be my home’s pastor before I am my church’s pastor. This is true even for Christian husbands who are not vocationally called to serve as pastors. Our relationship with Christ must be mirrored in our relationship with our families. We humbly seek to lead our wives and children closer to Jesus as our life’s utmost calling.
The leaders of the church in the New Testament saw the home as an unquestionable spiritual priority for leaders in the church. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “He [the leader] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) (1 Timothy 3.4-5)
Moving from one house to another is irrelevant in the definition of a Christian home. It’s not the bricks that are ordained or special. It is the living building blocks of the church that live within them. (“For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3.9)
How does your spiritual home look these days? Is it time to unpack the things that you’ll need to most to spiritually shepherd your family?
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The House
There is a house near the southern edge of Arkansas. That house no longer contains the magic and mystery and comfort that it once held. It sits vacant now. It has done so for several years now. Although its interior has changed little – furniture sitting unmoved since the days of my childhood, its transcendent quality has deteriorated with each passing year, much the same as the wood decays on its exterior.
In days of yore, the house was the epicenter of adventure, dreams, exploration and childhood fantasy. Kids played around, under, over and in the endless pine forests surrounding it. They were often called in to supper, not by voices but by fragrances of fried foods emitting from the kitchen windows of the house.
My father lived in the house beginning sometime in high school, and my uncle and aunt also made it their residence. Although their rooms still bore telltale traces of their young lives, it was the rowdy passage of all their children that left the greatest mark (or marks) on the house.
- A wooden camel figurine brought back from Jerusalem erupted into shekinah glory in the fireplace one summer as an experiment.
- A set of dainty China cups were cracked and shoved to the back of the China cabinet away from casual viewing.
- A shotgun hole in the side of the work shed was handily covered with a leaning plow.
- A porch swing was undamaged but knocked a cousin into the sticker bushes next to the porch when he wasn’t prepared for the speed at which another cousin pushed it back at him.
- Hot Wheel cars logged more mileage down the hardwood floor hall than a farmer’s Chevrolet.
- Rumor has it that there is actually glass still missing from a few picture frames in the house after rowdiness broke them and fear swept them up and threw away the pieces quietly.
It is the house’s emptiness now that saddens all those who once enjoyed it. Grandkids have grown and now have kids of their own. Visits to it now are more like pilgrimages, and the occasional relative departs with a treasure only with the permission of the house’s guardian and heritage keeper. Both of its longtime tenants have transitioned to a better house, one with heavenly rewards.
And so the house sits forlornly in the pine forests of southeast Arkansas. It beckons all, but few come. It offers powerful nostalgia and memorable, albeit musty, ambience for any who would tarry. Its sole activity in these days of dispersed relatives and deceased owners is simply to… rot.
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About
Notes from the Trail
The Personal Blog of Jeff Noble
Info: From the misty hills of Virginia, "Notes from the Trail" seeks to encourage you on your journey. Written by a graphic designer-pastor, this blog is a blend of humor, insight, and faith discovery.
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RT @jackieflake: @vthoneybee, Melissa u lived as Christ, your death is gain. God thank u for sharing our sister w/us. Living well yields ... [journeyguy]
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