21st Century Church - 1

Church Outside the Church 1

In the 1^st Century, when the church was in its infancy, meetings were in the people’s houses. Bigger meetings were either in bigger houses or in meeting rooms or even in public places – not something you would do in England in May 2012 as, today, the temperature hasn’t yet reached 50°F or 10°C yet !! Real dedicated, purpose built “churches” didn’t really start to appear until 3^rd or even 4^th century. Today, here in England, we have a positively wonderful legacy of church buildings from every century since about 580AD when the “first” one was founded in what is now Canterbury in Kent, Southeast England.

Given the present radical decline in church attendances, perhaps it is time to return to the practices of the first church and start meeting in houses or cafés. People are sick and tired of the church saying, “Come to us, all are welcome” when anything much further from the truth is hard to imagine. There is, of course, a huge and still growing “house church” movement. This is probably the only viable church in some places around the world, like China for instance, where church building is not allowed. Here in the UK, and I suspect in America and Western Europe too, even House Church is something not seen as particularly attractive by the average man in the street. Christians have not done themselves any favours at all by becoming the same as any other part of society. We are not seen as being any different and therefore have no, as sales folk say, “what’s in it for me” factor.

So how do we attract folk to church, or more specifically, to Christianity in this day and age? If we cannot answer this question, then, quite honestly, we might as well give up and go back to church as it has always been.

First and foremost, religion can no longer have any place in 21^st century church. How do we do that considering the vast majority of today’s church is founded and based upon the denominational structure, rules, and statements of faith. Most people in the street don’t want to know anything about that – it’s all gobbledegook to them. They don’t understand and neither do they want to understand religion. All they want to hear is the answer to that one question – “What’s in it for me?” The answer “Eternal life” is not much use either as it’s an intangible thing. Your average Joe wants something to hang his hat on and say, “That’ll do me. I’ll buy that.”

Do you want to know what I think is the most valuable asset we Christians have to offer the world at the moment? Trust !! Now trust is not something any of us gives away freely. Trust has to be earned the hard way. But how can we earn public trust? By not being like the rest of the world. We keep our word. We keep our promises. We keep our counsel until it is asked for. We keep quiet in front of others. We keep secrets. We don’t gossip or spread rumours. We don’t betray any trust placed in or with us.

The next thing we do is to give love. We love people all the time. We don’t judge them or necessarily even criticise them. I have a favourite saying about a pastors job. There are three golden rules for a pastor. He must love the people. Then he must love the people some more. Then he must love the people again. Jesus told us to love one another and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Have you ever really tried that? I personally have only ever known two people who do, or who have done that.

So church now has to be outside of religion, outside any church building, and reflecting Jesus love for people. It has to be totally and completely trustworthy too. How on earth do we start that?

See the second part of this little treatise - tomorrow.

©Chris Bennett May 2012