Who Needs Church?

This article on Church Marketing Sucks refers to a reportedly growing trend of Christians that quit church because they don't like it for various reasons. I thought that I was referring to a few exceptions when I wrote about the same thing here but it may be more widespread than I had assumed.

Another blogger that I read recently referred to the book In the Ruins of the Church by R.R. Reno. The idea is that the Christian church, as an institution, is in ruins but that we need to remain part of the church to build it up instead of leaving it. (Disclaimer: I haven't read the book.)

I'm not one to defend the church's short comings. It's not like they're unknown issues. All you have to do is hang out with pastors for a while and you'll eventually have a conversation about the difficulties in the church and what can be done about them. My preferred m.o. is to acknowledge that there might be specific issues while challenging ourselves on what can be done about them.

The real test is not in finding problems, it's whether we do something about it ourselves. If we say that the church isn't evangelistic enough, then how many people have we personally brought to Christ? If we say that the church needs to disciple new Christians more, how many new Christians do we disciple? If we say that the church doesn't care about our community, how do we care about our community in practical ways? The list of criticisms can be quite long.

(There's another article on Church Marketing Sucks that talks about one church's approach to people sitting idly. A lot of people respond well when faced with a challenge to get involved rather than be an observer or a bystander that criticizes. That's what my recent posts about SHAPE are focused on as well.)

This test is even more stringent than that, though. We can control what we do but it's much more difficult to inspire and lead others in the same way. Pastors and church members aren't walking alone, we're walking with others and leading others. It's not just a matter of fixing the problem that we see, we also have to implement our solution with the help of others.

The guess I can summarize all of the above with the cliche that "words are cheap." But then, all I have offered here are words so how cheap is this? I'm basically offering criticism about criticism and that's quite the endless loop. I don't want to walk in circles and so I will try to move forward in action, trying to work with others to accomplish God's calling on our lives and on the church.